we continue following breaking news tonight out of manchester and across the uk where the terror threat level now stands at critical. that means another attack in the wake of last night's bombing at an ariana grande concert could be imminent. that's what that level of warning means. meantime soldiers are out on the streets in key locations. raids are being carried out. intelligence agencies certainly working around the clock. we've learned more about the suicide bomber who took 22 lives, and we're learning more about some of the lives he took. right now i want to go to cnn's clarissa ward who's on the ground in manchester for the very latest. where does the investigation stand? >> reporter: well, it's as you said, anderson. so far we know that police have identified the bomber. we're starting to get a better picture of who he was. 22 years old. born and bred in the uk but of libyan descent. and he was actually a student at the university of salford, which is in a manchester suburb. he was studying business and management. apparently had not been attending his lectures this year, which is perhaps

unsurprising. people on campus didn't really seem to know much about him. he certainly wasn't involved in sort of social university life as such. but one family friend told cnn that he had been sort of a loner as a kid, that he seemed quite reclusive, in recent years he had started to wear islamic robes instead of western-style clothing, that he had grown his beard long. but the main thing that authorities are trying to ascertain at this stage, anderson, is whether he was acting alone or whether it's possible that there was a larger network at play here. and i think the fact that explosives were involved, the fact that this wasn't such a crude kind of improvised attack but appears to have been somewhat more coordinated, potentially sophisticated, that's what has authorities here concerned, anderson. >> what are authorities doing for those concertgoers and families and friends who are still unaccounted for? we had an interview at the top of the last hour with two parents who are still trying to

find out what has happened to their daughter. >> and i think authorities are cognizant of just now agonizing it is for those parents, for any friends who are not able to find their other friends, their family, their loved ones. the arena behind me which of course now it looks like something of a ghost town, it was absolutely jam packed. this concert was sold out. thousands and thousands of people were attending this event. and there is still a sort of prevailing sense of a little bit of chaos in terms of people not being able to find each other. authorities have set up hotlines. they've told people to -- many parents to stay at home so they can be near their phones but also to keep in regular contact with authorities. but of course there is always the somewhat grim process, anderson, as authorities and forensic experts try to go through, identify the dead, make sure they have the right people, the right identification so that the next of kin can be notified,

anderson. >> all right. clarissa, stay with us. i want to bring in former fbi supervisor special agent alex stephan, author of analogy of terror from the death of bin laden to the rise of islamic state. uk officials are saying that the making of the bomb took planning. and obviously the target of the attack knowing what time the concert was out, that took a certain amount of research clearly. this wasn't that the person just kind of wandered there. how does an attack like this happen without some sort of red flags popping up beforehand? >> well, you know, this -- >> the more people who know, the more likely it is that -- >> yes. >> -- where can they go? >> absolutely. and this is probably one of the reasons that they raised the threat level in the uk to critical. we still have crucial information not known, at least to us. was this individual operating independently? i don't think so. definitely it appears that he had some kind of help. look at the bomb itself. reportedly, he used an explosive

vest. suicide vest. a suicide vest cannot be manufactured by watching a video by isis or reading "inspire" magazine as we've seen with the boston bombers, for example, or raheemi here in new york, the chelsea bomber. so who helped him build that vest? however, the vest by it efl is not conclusive evidence of other people involved. i think investigators by now have an idea about the materials and the other components that used in manufacturing that vest. >> devices like this have a signature. usually a person who makes a device like this has a particular way of making it. and if you know that -- >> yes. >> -- you can kind of track -- >> and what kind of materials are you using. are you using military, you know, kind of rated materials or are you using crude explosive materials that you build, you know, in your mother's kitchen as al qaeda and isis tells these guys to do.

so there is definitely a more level of sophistication in this attack. but other crucial evidence that we don't know yet, at least publicly, was he in contact with supporters or members of the islamic state. what kind of contacts? did they inspire him? did they train him? where did they train him? was he trained in the uk? was he trained overseas? was he trained during some of his visits to libya, for example? a lot of information are not known yet. and i don't believe this information is even known for the british police and the british intelligence services. and that's why they relieve now based on the evidence that have, based on the frenz ix evidence of the bottom, based on the complexity you mentioned of the attack, that there is a wider network. and that's why the prime minister raised the threat into a critical level. >> clarissa, there had been an arrest earlier in the day of a

23-year-old who authorities said may have had something to do with it. is there any more information about that person? also, british security services, they're increasing the security -- are they increasing security at specific venues? venues popular with kids and families? or is it more just across the board a higher profile of police and military? >> reporter: well, the impression that we're getting, anderson, is that it's not going to look like suddenly you're going to see military heavily armed soldiers kind of flooding the streets. the military presence will be somewhat subdued. they will be acting in concord with the police. essentially just bolstering the security presence on the ground in the capital of london. also in other major cities. while the threat is still elevated to this critical level. and i should hasten to add for our viewers, anderson, that the critical level has not been raised that high -- sorry, i should say the terror threat has not been raised to critical for

nearly a decade. since 2007, when a man tried to ram his flaming car into the doors of scotland's glasgow airport. so it is clear that authorities do believe that there is potentially a risk of an imminent attack. as for the 23-year-old who we know was arrested today in southern manchester, authorities not yet releasing any more information about him. we know that there were at least two different raids, one of them on a house believed to be connected somehow to the bomber. at that house there was a controlled explosion. but again, we don't know. was that just a suspicious something or other or was it actually more explosive materials that needed to be detonated in a controlled manner? authorities keeping it all quite close to their chest for now, anderson. >> clarissa ward, thank you so much. ali soufan as well. earlier i spoke with phil dick. he had dropped his daughter and granddaughter at the concert. he and his wife were waiting to

pick them up when the bomb went off. it's strange to call phil one of the lucky ones given what he saw and what he described to me. what you'll hear now. but his family survived. here's our conversation. >> phil, you and your wife had dropped off your daughter and granddaughter at the concert and you were waiting to pick them up. can you tell me what happened then? where were you when the blast went off? >> we were in the foyer of the manchester arena. and then the next thing, there's a flash and an enormous bang. >> how far away were you from that? >> no more than 30, 40 feet maximum. >> wow. so you know, you heard it -- did you see the explosion? >> yeah. we saw the explosion. we felt the explosion. it knocked us to the ground. >> so the explosion knocked you and your wife to the ground? >> yes. >> and then what happened? >> we picked ourselves up. i helped my wife up.

and there was just smoke everywhere. and as the ringing in our ears subsided, it was then we heard the screaming and the crying. and we looked around this thick acrid smoke. there's some ash falling like black snow. and there are a lot of people injured and hurt all around us. >> you must have been terrified and terrified for not only your wife but for your daughter and granddaughter. >> all we could think about was our daughter and granddaughter. it was right around the time when we were expecting to pick them up. coming through the doors. we moved forward and out of the smoke came this young girl, clearly seriously injured, clearly in distress. and my wife just rushed forward -- >> do you know about how old she was? >> she was 14.

and we're still -- my wife's screaming, "my babies, my babies, my babies." i said to her, just look after this young girl. i'll go find them. i promise you i'll go find them. so i went back in to the foyer and i didn't know if our daughter and granddaughter were there. so i checked every single person to see whether it was our daughter and granddaughter, and thankfully it wasn't. >> so your wife is back with the 14-year-old girl and you've realized that your daughter and granddaughter are not there. were you able to reach them on the phone? >> after about 20 minutes, yes. but up until then -- i checked everybody. i knew they weren't there. so i went back to my wife, and we were comforting and aiding the young girl as best we could.

applying pressure to the worst wounds that we could see, which were to her shoulder and her face. her hair was all burned. a bag she had around her shoulders had melted into her hair. >> the plastic of a bag had actually melted into her? >> into her hair. >> and was the girl able to talk to you? were you able to try to reach her family or -- >> yeah. we managed to get her name, and she managed after a little while to tell me her home phone number. so i was able to call her mom and let her know her daughter was alive. >> oh, my god. >> she passed me on to her husband, the little girl's dad, and i was able to speak to him on the phone, and with the help of the police both inside and outside the cordon eventually got him in and reunited with his

daughter. this was quite a while later. it's probably more than an hour after the blast had occurred. >> so really you were tending -- you and your wife were tending to this little girl for as much as an hour with just the supplies you'd been handed. >> my wife's the hero. i can't say for certain whether she did, but i believe she possibly saved that young lady's life. >> have you been able to find out about her condition? how's she doing? >> yeah. she's serious but i believe she's had a number of visits and maybe more come in but she's okay. she's going to be okay. >> it's just extraordinary that you and your wife had the presence of mind even in the midst of fearing for your own family to care for others. >> well, you just -- when you're a parent, it just kicks in.

you look after -- you just look after people around who need looking after. >> phil, thank you so much for talking to us. and more importantly, for what you and your wife, kim, did. it's just extraordinary. and i wish you the best. and i hope that little girl recovers soon. >> i'm sure she will. thank you. >> we've got one of the sad new developments that we mentioned at the beginning of the program. it concerns the family of olivia campbell. who were pleading for information about their daughter. we interviewed them about an hour and 15 minutes ago. her mother, charlotte, has just posted on her facebook page word of her daughter's passing. the post reads "r.i.p. my darling precious gorgeous girl, olivia campbell. taken far, far too soon. go sing with the angels and keep smiling. mummy loves you so much." we'll be right back. ulcerative colitis or crohn's,me and your symptoms have left you with the same view,

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with threat levels and security being tightened in great britain and here at home in the wake of the manchester bombing we wanted to get a deeper look at what the men and women in charge of keeping us all safe have on their plates right now and the steps they're taking. joining us now someone who once had that responsibility, richard clarke, who's the former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism who famously warned the bush administration about an al qaeda attack before 9/11. he's the author of a number of incredible books including "warnings: finding cassandras to stop catastrophes." thanks very much for being with us. >> great to be here. >> when you see this attack,

there was security at this arena. they couldn't get a device in. and yet as we were discussing before we went on air, outside of any secure environment there's people waiting, queueing to get in or grouping as they come out. >> no matter what you do at a big venue where there's going to be a crowd, no matter how secure the access is, there's going to be a crowd outside waiting to get in. that's true at airports, where people line up at the counters before they go through tsa into the secure zone. it's true at sporting events. you can do some things in that perimeter area. but you can never make it as secure as inside a hard target. in short, you can't make security perfect. >> when you hear -- as the details emerge about who this person was who carried this device to that location, you know, born and bred in -- second generation, you know, his parents i guess came from libya, he traveled there. we don't know, did he have

contact there. but i just feel like we hear this time and time again, of people who were born in england, born in belgium, born in paris -- >> that's the pattern. people who become terrorists in europe been refugees. they're not people who have been born in the middle east and come here. they are people who are disaffected citizens of their own country, of the country of their birth. in europe they live in islamic ghettos. it's not a hom okay nous society. what are root causes? what causes a kid to move from being radicalized, to being willing to give up his life and kill children? what motivates him? part of it's this crazy ideology. but part of it's the sense of victimization, too. the president the other day said we have to drive terrorists out, drive them out he said three times. well, you know, it's not that

easy. if it were that easy, we would have done it. we have to deal not just with police tactics and intelligence tactics. but we have to get at the root causes. >> it does seem like a lot of -- the president referred to this person as a loser earlier today. and often when you look at the pattern of their life they are. they're petty criminals who haven't done anything. they dabble in drugs. they -- >> and were not particularly religious. >> of course. >> until just before they do the attack. they have this conversion to being highly religious or what they think is religious, and then they'll do the afact. >> it seems like it almost gives their meaningless life some sort of -- they're no longer some sort of petty criminal, they're a terrorist. >> they're a martyr. >> yes. >> that's exactly what's going on. so if societies can offer people an alternative pathway, employment perhaps, meaningful life, education, a chance to move up, you're not going to see as much of this. and that's the problem in germany. it's the problem in france.

it's the problem in the united kingdom. thankfully, it's not the problem here. >> as isis loses on the battlefield, and obviously they still have strongholds in syria and raqqa, but is there -- it seems like they are encouraging people not to come anymore but to stay where they are and do what they can. grab a car, grab a knife, do what you can. >> the last two years that's been their message. stay at home. it's too dangerous to try to come here. if you're not already here, don't come. but you can get a truck and you can drive into a crowd. and so you see in the united states, for example, i was at the boston marathon this year, checking its security. all along the route big, big trucks blocking all the side streets out of fear that someone would just go and get a truck and driving it into the marathon. >> can you compare al qaeda to isis? >> much more effective. >> isis is more effective? >> much more effective. >> more effective in getting people, in reaching out to people? >> first of all in recruitment.

many, many thousands more people have been in isis than ever were in al qaeda. now, many of them have been killed. a very large number of them have been killed in iraq and syria. but they recruited a very large army. they occupied cities in libya, in iraq, and in syria. al qaeda never occupied a city. this is -- you think of i.c.e., or daesh as the arabs call them, it's kind of al qaeda 2.0. >> and their ability to connect with individuals in the united states -- >> far more advanced. >> is far more advanced. >> far more advanced. use of the internet to microtarget individuals, coach them, bring them along and then activate them. >> richard clarke, i appreciate it very much. thank you so much. >> thank you. it is heartbreaking to think about the families tonight whose kids never came home from that concert. more on those who lost their lives ahead. i miss home. ♪

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well, tonight our hearts are with the parents, the families of those who are in campaign in manchester. parents whose children went to a concert and have not come home. a moment ago we reported the

searing fact that olivia campbell's parents will have to live with for the rest of their lives, the fact of her passing. as we've said, of the 22 known dead only three have been publicly named by authorities. john at tinson was a college student who loved to dance, competed with a local dance studio. he was 26 years old. georgina callander was 18. judging by her instagram account she loved disney, she loved animals. she just started driving. she was studying health and social secure. saffie rose roussos was 8 years old. 8 years old. she was at the concert with her mom and older sister. in fact, many of ariana grande's fans are girls, teenagers and younger. for some it was probably their first time going to a concert, first time going just with their friends. randi kaye has more. [ screaming ] >> reporter: teenagers and young children, desperate to get out alive. ariana grande's young fans, mostly girls, suddenly targets of a suicide bomber.

>> there was a little girl in front of me. she was that small, she had to stand on her seat just to watch the concert. >> reporter: for so many young fans this was likely their first concert without their parents. so imagine the chaos as the bomber detonated his explosives just as kids made their way toward the exit. outside parents who had dropped their children off for the show now waiting in fear. some, like 15-year-old olivia campbell, never showed up. she had called her mom earlier from the arena. >> she was waiting for ariana to come on, and she was so happy. and she thanked me and said she loved me. and that was the last i heard from her. >> reporter: charlotte campbell's daughter had taken the metro to the show. a 20-minute train ride. parents like hers never imagined they might not see their child again. >> i love her so much.

and i want her home. i need her home. she's my baby. and i miss her so much. >> reporter: as concertgoers spilled onto the streets, this homeless man stepped in to help the children. >> there was children, you know what i mean. there was a lot of children with blood all over them and everything. crying and screaming. >> reporter: terror is not something the pop star's young admirers were prepared for. and neither were their parents. first there was fear after learning of the bombing, then guilt for letting their children go to the show. the scariest night of their lives. >> there was a moment where we said to each other we thought, we're going to die. because you're just running for your life. >> there were children crying, trying to get in contact with the parents. there were parents on their phones who obviously were upset. they were tryicrying, trying to in contact with the kids. it was just an awful, awful thing to witness. >> reporter: an awful thing to witness. in some cases for mothers and

daughters alike. out for what had promised to be a memorable night together. for sure now they'll never forget it. >> she's just been crying. she's just saying why do these things happen to people? why do they keep doing this to people? >> reporter: some too young, too innocent to likely even understand this new reality their parents know all too well. >> i feel sad that concerts have to be ruined by people that are so mean and that ariana grande can't do a concert. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, new york. our national security analyst juliet kayyem is author of "security mom: an unclassified guide to protecting your homeland and your home." she says this concert was the ultimate soft target and reaches into the core fear of any parent. she joins us now. in your piece for cnn.com you say this attack feels different than other terror attacks. i can't imagine what you must make of this obviously as a

parent and obviously for a lot of parents it really hits home. >> yeah, i mean, i think it's every parent's worst nightmare. and also because it's so familiar, that phenomenon of letting your kid go to their first concert, either going with them or as you saw in some of the pictures the sort of you stay here, mom, place. on the other side of all the kids going and have fun. and i think that that is what's terrifying. so that while the last hour and a half you've reported on sort of what's familiar about this terrorist attack, a lone wolf, a radicali izized radicalized, a soft target, there's something more depraved about this one that i think was what the terrorists wanted clearly but also will impact the way people feel about parenting and where they want their children to go. this one just is different. >> it seems like an upping of the ante. just as we've seen in those horrific isis videos they put out. they put out one where they behead somebody, and then the next one they have to figure out something even more horrific to do. and then they're burning people

alive or drowning them. you know, it's sort of -- it's this battle to terrorize. >> yeah. and it's the terror not just of picking those targets because as a parent you kind of want to believe we screwed everything up. but maybe things will be better for them. we're going to protect them. even though we know the world we live in is anything but peaceful. so not only was it sort of a target in terms of -- but after the attack these children, these tween girls, i mean, this is -- i know, i have teenagers, i know ariana grande. we know her songs. these are tween girls. that their capacity to deal, to address, to get out of the way, resiliency you and i have built over decades of time is just not formulated. so it becomes in some ways a second attack that is going to permeate their lives forever. and that is the tragedy here. as a parent and people thinking about this. you know, i've said to you many

times, and i saw in a previous segment say we're not going to have a perfectly safe world. but we cannot not talk about this with our kids at this stage. i have parents say to me, oh isn't it horrible we have to talk about active shooters, it's so bad the world is like this. yes, this is true. but to empower them with the tools of what to do in active shooter cases. family notification needs. communication. those are all essential. you're going to arm them, so to speak, with the tools that will make them stronger and more resilient in a world that simply you and i and no one else can guarantee is going to be safe for them. >> juliet kayyem, thank you very much. a friend of former fbi director james comey describes the backstory of this pretty awkward handshake in the oval office. benjamin wittis decided to go public about some of the things director comey told him about his contact with president trump. i asked him about his decision to speak out. his answer coming up. ah, she do!

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there's also breaking news tonight in the investigation that is rocking washington and the white house. cnn has learned that president trump is expected to hire his long-time attorney mark kasowitz to represent him on matters

related to the russian investigation now head bid special counsel robert mueller. this comes as the senate intelligence committee is turning up the heat on former national security adviser michael flynn issuing two new subpoenas seeking documents from business hes he owns. mr. flynn has pleaded the fifth in response to an earlier subpoena seeking his testimony and documents. here's what the committee chair senator richard burr has said today. >> we've taken actions we feel are appropriate right now. if in fact there's not a response, we'll seek additional counsel advice on how to proceed forward. at the end of that option is a contempt charge. and i've said everything is on the table. that's not our preference today. we would like to hear from general flynn. we'd like to see his documents. we'd like him to tell his story because he publicly said i've got a story to tell. >> you heard it, everything's on the table he said. joining me now is alan dershowitz, laura coates and gloria borger. professor dershowitz, you had said i think last week that the president should lawyer up, should get an attorney, outside

counsel. he's expected to hire his long tooi -time attorney to represent him on matters related to russia. how significant is that? >> well, i think every person who is possibly under investigation ought to have their own independent counsel, and he's picked a good lawyer. i know the firm. i'm actually working with the firm now on another matter, an unrelated matter. and they're an excellent, excellent law firm. there are two kinds of lawyers you need. for the individual cases you need your own personal lawyer. and then the white house counsel can provide aid and assistance on matters relating to the government and the white house. now, flynn particularly needs a lawyer because of course his documents have been subpoenaed. he pleaded the fifth amendment. but the government can get around the fifth amendment by giving him what's called production immunity. let me just explain that. let's assume that i have a little notebook here in which i have written down all the people that i've cheated or murdered or whatever. that's not covered by the privilege against

self-incrimination. the government has a right to get that document. it wasn't always the case. in the early part of our constitutional history the government couldn't get that. it was covered by the fifth amendment. but now the courts have said that the document itself isn't covered. but the fact that i have it is privileged, and therefore i don't have to turn it over unless the government assures me that they will never use the fact that i turned it over. and they can give me immunity and then compel flynn to turn over the material. sought government, the committees will eventually get that material. >> laura, we should point out you worked as a litigation associate at kasowitz's law firm in 2007, never worked on case involving donald trump. wise move that he hired -- that he's hiring an attorney? >> absolutely. and alan is blult right about having to lawyer up. this is a very serious matter. and the implications are very far reaching. remember, white house counsel is not the president's lawyer. it is the lawyer of the actual office itself. you have to have prernls

protection. what's also an important point to make here is the idea of this immunity that's being given or thrown around for flynn. this is not a guarantee for michael flynn. and the reason it's not a guarantee is because they have no interest at this time in time of immunizing someone before they have a full investigation as to what his role would have been. and remember, one of the reason that's flynn is saying that he does not want to turn over documents is because in his mind the actual act of production is testimonial in nature, meaning you asked me very broad questions about what i may have over a period of an 18-month window so, you're asking me essentially to have a very generic dragnet i give you information about and they're looking to have a very specific document request from the government before they turn it over to avoid them having to say listen, me having to go in my mind and tell you what i have would be giving you the noose to hang me with. >> but the committee has narrowed that request as a result -- >> yes.

>> they've narrowed that request. so they're expecting the documents, or you heard what senator burr said. which is otherwise we could hold you in contempt. >> and gloria, in terms of the new subpoenas for documents relating to general flynn's businesses, burr is saying everything's on the table. if flynn doesn't comply which was echoed by marco rubio earlier today, it seems the committee is willing to take serious action. and i think it is. i think they're playing a little hardball here. i think flynn is playing a little hard to get because he wants immunity. and so this is a game that goes back and forth. but i think the committee is perfectly serious about the information it wants out of flynn. and so they try to open one door, and it was closed on them when he pleaded the fifth. so they're trying to open another door here, as you would expect. and i think there's going to be an awful lot of negotiation obviously that goes on. but i think that these documents are completely within the realm

of what they can actually get. >> professor dershowitz, if the committee gives him immunity, doesn't that potentially then interfere with any investigation by mueller? >> absolutely. that's why it's a three-dimensional chess game -- >> that's what happened with oliver north, right? >> of course. he ended up getting his conviction reversed because the committee gave him immunity. i don't think that the committee is going to give him immunity without the approval of mueller because it will look very suspicious. but they can give him this production immunity without endangering the case at all because all that does is preclude the government from saying where they got the documents from, which is utterly unimportant. the documents speak for themselves. they're either in his handwriting or it can be demonstrated he had them independently. without him having to produce them as testimonial evidence. i think flynn is in serious trouble, and i wonder why his lawyer sought immunity in such a

public way. that's just not the way it's done. if you want immunity, you go to the committee or you go to the prosecutor. you make what's called a proffer. you tell them what you have and what you can give them. and then the government, either the committee or the prosecutor, decides whether your evidence is worth immunizing you from either prosecution or from the use of your evidence against you. i don't know whether that's happened. but it should never happen in public. it should be done in private. >> laura, did general flynn's businesses have fifth amendment protections? >> well, that's a great question because of course normally they do not. it's normally reserved for the individual. it protects individual liberties, not kind of this body of organization that's just are representing a group of people. but the case law is kind of shifting and the supreme court may have to wrestle with this issue. because remember you have the hobby lobby case which says religious liberty belongs to corporations and you have the citizens united, they actually

are political speech for these corporations. it may tend that a corporation now has fifth amendment rights. but as of right now they do not and flynn remains in trouble. >> laura coats, professor dershowitz, gloria borger, thank you all. coming up my conversation with benjamin wittis, friend of director james comey who says the former fbi director was troubled by his interaction with the president to the point that director comey tried to blend in with the drapes at the white house. the explanation of what happened is incredible. why he's going public with all that, next. radio: scorching heat today folks, stay cool out there!

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fmy doctor recommended ibgard. abdominal pain and bloating. now i'm in control of my ibs. nonprescription ibgard-calms the angry gut. somewhat lost in the breaking news out of manchester, england are reporting the president asked two of the nation's top intelligence officials to publicly deny evidence of collusion between his campaign and russia in the 2016 election. that's according to multiple officials. one of those officials nsa director mike rogers was not asked about it in congressional hearings today. the other official director of national intelligence dan coats declined to confirm or deny it. as you know fired fbi director james comey is embroiled in something similar. tonight my conversation with benjamin wittes, a friend of director comey. wittes was interviewed by the "new york times" and wrote an account in "lawfair" of which he's editor in chief. yesterday i spoke with him about the encounters with the

president director comey said he was troubled by and why he's going public. >> why did you decide to speak out? >> i decided to speak out about it because -- and i thought about it very hard. i read "the new york times's" story that jim had been asked to give what effectively amounts to a loyalty oath to the president. and i was very shocked. and it suddenly crystallized in my mind what a whole lot of these interactions that i had had with him meant and why he had reacted to them the way he reacted. i suddenly understood them in a different and frankly more menacing and upsetting light than i had at the time that we had had this conversation. >> have you spoken to director comey since he was fired? >> yes. >> can you say how he is, what -- how he's doing? >> i don't want to talk about our conversations. i will say he's going to be fine.

he's not somebody who spends time feeling sorry for himself. i thought it was interesting and very telling that he declined an opportunity to tell his story in private. he clearly wants to do it in a public setting. >> he was asked to testify in private and he said no. so now it's going to be public. >> and i think that's a reflection of the fact this is a guy with a story to tell. i think if i were donald trump that would scare me a lot. >> there were a number of fascinating things you have talked about. one, director comey's actions at the meeting which was all videotaped where president trump called him out, brought him forward and it was a meeting of law enforcement personnel in the wake of the inauguration, can you explain what happened? >> what he told me was he really wanted to blend in and not, you know -- not have an individual

interaction with the president. so if you look at the video he's wearing a blue suit and he stands in the part of the room that is physically as far from the president as it's possible to be. in front of blue drapes. >> that was intentional? >> yes, it was intentional. he was trying to camouflage himself. a little bit. and then the president right at the end sees him and says forget the exact quote but oh, there's jim, he's own more famous than i am. >> in the video you see director comey extending his hand. >> what he told me is he was determined that there was not going to be a hug. so he kind of pre-emptively

reaches out his hand to shake the president's hand and to get it over with. and the president leans in and gives him a hug. but it's an entirely one-sided hug. >> you said in your blog that former director comey saw it as his job to protect the fbi from "improper contacts and interferences from a group of people he did not regard as honorable." he did not regard the people in the trump white house as honorable? >> that's correct. >> he said that? that's your recollection is he had said that? or felt that? >> i have no doubt that he regarded the group of people around the president as dishonorable. >> what about them is dishonorable? >> the incidents that i describe are all incidents in which jim felt that the independence of the agency and the ability to do its job in an apolitical fashion were not being respected and

that he -- his central preoccupation over the period of time he was in office under trump was to create that space. the terms he used were to train the white house, that there were things they couldn't do. and that was -- >> to train them? >> to train them. >> it's an amazing detail you reveal that the director thought that the president of the united states was attempting to compromise him, publicly in multiple ways. to have him hiding in the drapes meeting it's funny on one hand. on the other hand it's when you kind of step back and realize we're talking about the head of the fbi and the president of the united states and the head of the fbi believes, or feels that the president of the united states is trying to compromise him. >> i believe like it wasn't -- not all of those incidents were in public. jim is a confident guy and he

did feel like there were these numerous incidents where the president was kind of probing the edges of his defenses. and all in the service of making him a -- seeing whether you could make a loyalist out of him. >> i guess one could look at it as there may be a more benign explanation which is just the president's people have said he's kind of a transactional person, that he's -- in business he's schmoozing, backslapping and it's just an attempt to kind of make the relationship more personal or friendly. >> so i think it's perfectly possible to read it that way. and i'm not even going to say that's the wrong way to read it. it's not the way comey read it. >> in the letter that the president released, sent to comey and released when he was fired it said that three times you have told me i'm not the

subject of this investigation. does that make sense to you that director comey would have told the president of the united states that he is not the no such communication took place. it's inconceivable to me that he would tell the president that. >> we will be right back. and stay awake during the day. learn about non-24 by calling 844-844-2424. or visit my24info.com. does it look like i'm done?yet? shouldn't you be at work? [ mockingly ] "shouldn't you be at work?" todd. hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game: fist pump! your real bike's all fixed. man, you guys are good! well, we are the number-one motorcycle insurer in the country. -wait. you have a real motorcycle?

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thanks for watching. time for cnn newsroom. >> reporter: for you viewers around the world and united states. >> i am in los angeles where it just got 11:00