and if you don't believe them when they tell you about their experiences of being harassed by americans in the name of the flag than you have to ask yourself, why you being dumb? good evening from washington, anderson is off. we begin with breaking news, new reporting in the washington post with potentially very serious implications, according to the post jared kushner the president's son-in-law proposed setting up a secret means of communicating with the kremlin. not a figure ative back channel a literal system. again, according to the washington post this was a nuts and bolts set up using russian diplomatic facilities and equipment. we have one of three reporters joining us right now, ellen thanks very much for joining us. the secret communications channel your sources are telling

you it was kushner originally. >> yes that's right according to sources collected, jared kushner proposed this secret secure channel at a meeting at trump tower in december with the russian ambassador. >> it was going to be based at the russian embassy in washington? >> that's what it sounds like. we caution this is based on reporting by kiss lee ok up to the superiors in moscow that reporting was captured on intercep intercepts. intelligence agencies are known sometimes known to put disinformation into their feeds to sow confusion, sometimes senior officials in reporting can exaggerate a little bit, but

if this report is true than it means kushner was seeking a secure channel during the transition period in the weeks leading up to the inauguration with the government of an adversary that intelligence agencies concluded had meddled in the trump election to help trump get elected. >> what would be your understanding why kushner exactly wanted a set up like this at the russian embassy? >> well, we don't know for sure why or, you know, indeed whether in fact this is true, but apparently the idea was to have secure means of communicating that would be beyond, you know, the reach of u.s. intelligence agencies or oranther intelligen agencies. was meant to keep their channel

of communications very private. >> in other words have a dialogue with the kremlin that the u.s. presumably would not be able to monitor the ns a or fbi or anothers in the law enforcement or intelligence community is that what you're suggesting? >> that's the suggestion, yes. >> i know before you published this in the washington post you wept to jared kushner and you went to the white housep and others to get their reaction. what are they saying. >> the white house has declined to comment. we don't have any public reaction from them. >> what about jared kushner? have you spoken to his attorney jamie g former department attorney general in the clinton administration what did she say? >> she referred our quarry to the white house. and the white house declined to comment. w why. >> so the white hou >> so the white house is declining to comment.

the toirp for jared kushner is declining to comment. you have multiple sources saying the russian ambassador to the united states with top kremlin officials alleging that in the conversation that jared kushner met with him at trump tower in early december during the transition and proposed setting up this secret communications channel through the russian embassy in washington. that's the gist of your bomb shell report, right ellen >> you got it. >> from the washington post with us, with the gist of her reporting. i want to bring in the panel some excellent people with us. including former attorney general of the united states. and phil you worked at the cia and know about these issues, i read about this washington post story once, twice, maybe three times you read it, your

reaction? >> you see things over 30 years in washington, d.c. and you never think you will be surprised and history proves you wrong. this is not surprising, stunning. this f. this is true let's step through a time line. summer of 2016 somebody receives presidential nomination, donald trump, authorized to receive top secret briefings you got to assume several of those include conversation about russian including the russian intervention in the election. in early december his son-in-law if this report is correct decides to go to russian embassy which has a primary sponl responsibility of spying on america and saying i want to subvert the american burrecra burrecracy -- it was actually a conversation at the trump tower establishing communications to talk to the russians. remember less than a month later the president of the united

states president obama on december 29th sanctions the russians for their activity in the united states and later the u.s. intelligence briefing should have been briefs donald trump, he sanctions the russians for this and the intelligence community says russians interfered with the american election. in all of the things we've seen since this russian investigation broke i've never seen anything like this. >> you've seen plenty of opportunities for americans to have diplomatic back channels with other americans this is different this is having a back channel but using the communications capabilities of the other government. >> time out, a back channel means ip want a conversation that's not available to the public that the media will never see. we have a campaign that's not in power yet going to an adversary. thrz if this is not just using the communications of an embassy but of an adversary that is

spying on american and just had its spies thrown out by the president of the united states and saying i want to use your communications to subvert the american bureaucracy which i don't trust, i trust you more than us, you got to be kidding me. >> this is a stunning report if true. >> no question. one thing i think is important to under score that the information that they're basing this on are reports that the russian ambassador gave to moscow. he talked about you're not going to believe what happened jared kushner wants a back channel for russian communications that information was gleaned by what the russian ambassador told moscow. so the caution is the russians are very good at smoke and mirrors and very good at

understanding the americans are listening and the question is wlrmt the ambassador knew the americans were listening and said that or inflated it for whatever reason to make him look good or kushner look bad or just to throw the americans off their game, that is possible, having said that, the reporters at the washington post the officials they talked to say that history shows the communications they listen to with russian ambassador tend to be pretty accurate. skbr they are not commenting and that potentially is thunderous silence. >> absolutely it could be deafening. at the end of the day if this story happened in a vacuum it would be an oh, my dwod moment but it's not in a vacuum it

completely feeds into a very real criminal and congressional simultaneousous probes into what went on in the trump world and the russians during the campaign, this is obviously after the campaign and leaves a lot of questions unanswered never mind jaws being on the flaw. >> went to bring in former attorney general, there's a lot certainly we do not know, we're relying on washington post reporting. here's a question would there be anything illegal about jared kushner wanting to protect his communications with the russians from u.s. surveillance. >> no i don't know think there would be anything illegal but let's take i step back. here is a report that has gotten from a communication source, ie, the russians talking to the russians that say that jared kushner wants to communicate with us, over what? a different one from the one

kislyak was use sng i seriously doubt it. in other words he was saying he has every reason to believe is going to be intercepted that jared kushner wants to communicate with the russians over a communication channel that may very well also be intercepted. i don't know whether this is true but it sounds a little bit surprising. >> it sounds very surprising. there's a lot that's very, very surprising as you and i know. there are u.s. officils that want to have back channel conversations with other governments including some governments not necessarily all that friendly to the united states but if you do it through thir embassy that's pretty surprising. why wouldn't jared kushner's attorney or the white house flatly deny this story if there's nothing there. >> i have no idea. it may very well be that they prefer to talk in context about the entire issue of what the fbi wants to fautalk to them rather

than swatting down individual stories. i don't mean any disrespect to ellen who i know and dealt with when i was in d.c. and is a good reporter on the other hand this is as was n petitointed out ove lion of communication that ambassador kislyak had every reason to believe was being intercepted and was somebody who very well could have communicated this information. we just don't know. >> let me bring in laurie, you just heard the former attorney general make that point. you're a former federal prosecutor, your reaction. >> i think jared kushner's activity is continuing to invite scrutiny and more than that, it invites criminal exposure. the term collusion is a neb u louse concept haven't defined it yet. this is not a phishing expedition where they have no basis to investigate. the more scrutiny they gave

makes it warranted to set up something like this. to set up communication where you are trying to not alert the american public or american government to me suggests you get more than a eye brow raised to investigators you get an investigation further ant potentially expose yourself to criminal activity. the reason jared kushner is no longer speaker in stark contrast to few days ago saying i would be happy to talk to anybody who wants to talk to me now there's more exposure he is now clammed up and guarded in any communication which is odd given he was so willing to have communications with the russians in a back channel. >> only thing i want to know why he would want a russian communication channel in fear if it was a u.s. channel it would be intercepted, the u.s. would know about that. is it during the transpacific partnership transition transiti.

>> two key words that is a talking point from the white house there's no evidence of collusion between trump people and the russians. i don't know how people define collusion but going to the russian ambassador and telling them you don't trust the americans and want their communication facilities to communicate that sounds a lot like collusion with an adversary if in fact what kislyak was intercepted by the u.s. intelligence community as saying to his bosses in the kremlin, if it's true, unless he's just trying to sow some discord and cause some trouble. >> which they've done in last two years. >> right. >> and the other is consume ant. what is the pattern about all the facts in the russian

investigation. weather it is jeff sessions, michael flynn e, and now jared kushner who both failed to disclose his conversations with kislyak and this gentlemen gork a l who is russian bank chief sanctioned by the u.s., and so we have a pattern of senior trump officials concealing conversations with essentially russian spies and of course you throw into that the president of the united states when he gets in office taking several steps culminating in the firing of the fbi director to shut down the investigation of all this. there's a lot of smoke right now sk . >> a lot of us remember in the washington post story in that early december meeting that jared kushner had with ambassador kislyak at trump

tower in new york michael flynn who would eventually become the president's national security advisor was in that meeting as well does that make any difference to you? >> absolutely because michael flynn is tied into these meetings undisclosed contacts that are not notified in the security forms. this story today is big. but it's big because of all the other store jis. other stories. in the last 24 hours nbc news and cnn had stories focused on jared kushner related to his data mining capacity and data mining program during the campaign. now you have those stories. you have nthen during the transition his outreach, i think we're using the term back channel incorrectly that's like when you want to the talk to the cubans and go to the pope to do

that. that's a real back channel. this is jared kushner going rogue. the only question that remains to me we are so close, to sound dramatic, we were close to the oval office. the question is why are these guys doing this? to protect themselves or to protect trump. i think we now have to ask that question of because there are too many people too close to trump who he is protecting who he is clearly trying to under mine or change the figures in this investigation, comey for example, and i just don't know what their motivation is, is it to protect themselves because of personal dealings or because of something bigger. we have to start asking that question now. we're at the oval office door. we're at the senior advisor to president trump. >> steve hall you're former cia russia expert, with this sort of alleged communication system with the russians through the

russian embassy in washington involving a top advisor to the president-elect of the united states would that be unprecedented? >> well, wolf, there's so much about this particular turn that this story has taken that just does not make a lot of sense to me. the short answer is yes it would be unprecedented. it would also seem to be just stupid. i don't understand why it is that jared kushner, i think julia is right we're tossing around the idea of a back channel, i'll stay with that, why if jared kushner wanted a back channel to moscow why do to ambassador kislyak and say i want russian communications systems to do that. all has to do is talk to ambassador kislyak n who will then turn around and use secure russian communications, not open line, back to moscow to

communicate whatever kushner wanted to keep between himself and the ambassador. so it doesn't make a lot of sense to have him walk inp add say i want some sort of technical set up so i can use it. all you got to do is talk to anyone in the russian embassy and it will get back to moscow very securely. the other thing i'm troubled by the idea of kushner talking to kislyak, there's probably a lot of bad things about it to include the optics but the bottom line is in a couple weeks after the inauguration he's going to be talking to the russians anyway in the trump administration unless it was something incredibly timely that had to be dealt with at that moment that kushner and the team didn't want obama administration to know about and hence the desire for a secret back channel it doesn't make a lot of sense. why not wait until you're in power. don't understand, something timely is going on there, i don't know know. it is all weird.

not sure i can explain it without more details how it all went down it's very unusual. >> the fact michael flynn was therep and emerged as top national security advisor certainly during the transition. i assume in a meeting like that he'd be playing a significant role, right? >> sure, absolutely. he would. and again i think a lot has been made, perhaps too much, but a lot has been made about early contacts with kislyak. again i think it's protocol, there's issues there. optics wise it didn't look good. especially what we knew and know about the russian intention to mess with the u.s. elections. but again at the end of the day these people were going to we in power the trump team to include guys like kushner and like michael flynn were going to be in office and it might have been inopportune and inappropriate to do it before the inaugust rakes.

inauguration. this has happened before. that's sometimes the way it's played. >> i'm going to have everyone stand by. a lot more is happening. we're following the breaking news and will continue all of our reporting after a quick break. also coming up why the former fbi director james comey let a piece of russian intelligence he knew to be fake drive his decision to denounce hillary clinton e-mail habits and many believe seriously effected the presidential election. but grandma, we use charmin ultra soft

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which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet? breaking news, late reporting from the washington post during an early december meeting trump tower with the russian ambassador to the united states kislyak, jared kushner set up meeting to secretly communicate with moscow. now you've had a chance to digest this bomb shell what do you think? >> couple more thoughts. i served under jack mckazy he's one of the best in the business and he raises a significant point we're seeing one side of this, not the other side, jared kushner, we're listening to an ambassador who is involved with a government inserting fake news and presumably knows he's blg

listened to. that said the serious questions were raised about both the fbi and cia and alleged the u.s. intelligence community under the leadership of the president of the united states intercepted you step back and say what's the environment someone might have made this decisionp and one of the issue i look at is the president saying don't trust the american side especially the intel guys maybe that leads someone to set up a separate channel because i don't believe we're intercepted septemberat t house or trump towers or with the cia. >> that the trump transition team clearly did not trust. let me bring back former

attorney general. can you come up with any good reason why the top advisor to the president-elect would want or need a secure system of communicating with the kremlin during the transition. >> it's unfortunate you modify your question with any good reason, it's tough to come up with a good reason. i think phil mud is on to something. he used to brief me every morning so i have a enormous amount of regard for him when he points out the atmosphere at the time, as candidate trump was saying, at the time, they wanted closer ties with the russians, whether it was wise or unwise a lot of people thought it was unwise and i was one of them and phil was another one. that's what they wanted and they believed if they couldn't trust the intel community it may well be somebody without a great deal of experience in the government, remember jared kushner is in his 30s. >> he's 36. >> okay. might have thought this was a good idea.

>> don't forget michael flynn was former director of the defense intelligence agency three star general with enormous experience in national security and was at that meeting in early december in trump tower as well. >> you're assuming this was seds in the presence of michael flynn i don't know know if i would make that assumption and i wouldn't put michael flynn and jared kushner in same category. michael flynn is subject of a federal investigation. jared kushner theyp want to question in connection with a counter intelligence he with the focus not on him but what the russians were doing during the time of the election. ne these are two separate matters. >> quickly. jared kushner has come under criticism as you know because in his security clearance forms he didn't initially report his contacts with kislyak the russian ambassador and contact

with the russians, later corrected that but initially didn't. is that a problem. >> it's potentially a problem but i don't know how many meetings he had with whom. if that is was a series of 50 or 60 meetings and they were relatively quick it is entirely understandable why he referred to it. i would hark back to when attorney general sessions testified at his hearings. i was present and he was asked about being a suro gate and making contacts with the russians, turns out one of the meetings he had was with the russian ambassador and people honed in on the fact he didn't mention that one. he didn't in fact mention any of them and they were all set up at the state department so we need to know the context this occurred and how many meeting there's were and whether it was possibly inthe ad advertisent. i don't know know the answer to that. >> fair enough. everybody stay with us. we're going to continue to cover the breaking news, contact

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our breaking news, the washington post is reporting that back in early december jared kushner and the russian ambassador to the united states, sergey kislyak discussed opening a secret communication channel between trump and the kremlin. surrounds this is a bit of intrigue because of what the man does and who he knows and the special education mainly how to be a russian spy. >> this is the man jared kushner met with in december 2016. just a month after kushner's father in law donald trump was elected president. his name is sergey 6 gork a l and is a russian banker and has tied with vladimir putin who an

petited him to head the bank. he graduated from a russian academy that trained people to work in russian intelligence and security forces. here's how the white house explained the nature of kushner's meeting with the banker. >> jared did a job during the transition of the campaign where he was a conduit to leaders. he wants to make sure he is very clear about the role he played and who he talked to and that's it. >> that may be true but doesn't square with what the bank itself has said about the meeting. in a statement the bank said its executives met with kushner not as a representative of the white house but as head of kushner companies. the bank said its leaders met with numerous global financial executives as it developed a new strategy for the bank. >> it's interesting that the russians seem to contradict what jared kushner said when he said he was acting as a liaison twep the campaign and foreign gocht.

the campaign and foreign government. so i'm sure that will be an issue that weem claire fie. >> what exactly what is discussed remains a mystery. though jared kushner offers to answer questions about not only this meeting but another meeting he had with russian ambassador sergey kislyak. it was kislyak who suggested kushner meet with the russian banker. the fact that russian didn't mention either of these meetings on the white house clearance forms could be a concern. there's also concern the russian bank has been under u.s. sanction since july 2014 and when kushner met with gorkav he was still ceo and may have been looking for personal need.

>> i have a feeling it related to financial issues citizens involved a russian bank but to his credit he's willing to testify on that issue chand i he the committee looks at the reasons why he engaged in that conversation. >> seems jared kushner who barely speaks a whisper in the president's ear may soon be called on to do a whole lot of talking. cnn new york. late reporting from the wash post during meeting with kislyak that jared kushner suggested setting up secret communication system with moscow. steve hall, former cia, can you give us understanding, it's not like they're getting bits and

pieces, it seems pretty const t constant. how reliable is it? >> i don't want to give away too much to the russians that would be useful but in general i would agree with your assessment, as more is coming out it's clear the fbi has good clear coverage of the russians in washington something i'm sure the russians themselves are aware of. the meeting between kushner and the head of the bank is interesting, probably more interesting than perhaps the stuff that's couched he's a member of an incoming administration reaching out to foreigners in this raregard. i have more concern of him talking as a business man than i do as counsellor to the president of incoming administration. it's good that the fbi is

keeping tabs on this as they should. >> one thing about jared kushner he is a senior advisor to the president of the united states who happens to be his father in law. >> absolutely. look, he is the person who a lot of people who are in the white house and are in the campaign call him the unfireable because of the connections he has on a personal level and then the connections and relationship he's established on a more professional and obviously political level. i got a text from a republican who is trying to defend donald trump but does raise an interesting point and maybe one we should think about which is, you mentioned this is kind of the ultimate collusion which is one way to look at it but another is if they were colluding during the campaign, then why would he need a back channel. if jared kushner and others were concluding colorado you'ding. ba. .

. another question why on earth would kislyak be telling moscow this in a communication that he clearly knew that the u.s. was going to be able to monitor. >> those are good questions. apparently in this conversation that the u.s. intercepted, kislyak the ambassador himself thought this is pretty strange that he would want to use a russian embassy communication channel. >> there is still the question are the russians playing all of us, is this a massive misdirection in this communication. although i don't understand what incentive the russian asthma would have ambassador would blo kushner because he was reaching

out to the russians so why would they want to spread misinformation about him. that aside, i think this is another piece of a story about a white house that is continuing to hide, conceal conversations and contacts with the russians and we don't have a good understanding why. why did jeff sessions not disclose the meeting with the russian ambassador. why did michael flynn lie to mike pence and oermthers in the white house about his conversation with kislyak. why about jared kushner try to conceal communications channel with the russians, in an extremely odd way, why did the president of the united states try repeatedly to thwart the federal and fbi investigation into all of this. we have an enormous amount, frankly i see no other word for it, of cover up and concealment. we don't under what the under lying crime or what they're trying to conceal is. >> all excellent questions we're going to try to get in a quick

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the breaking news we're following, the washington post reporting jared kushner proposed setting up a secret communication system with moscow, made the discussion in trump tower in new york city with russian ambassador to the united states, casey cizksergey. what response have we got from the president's aides when it comes to the latest reports on jared kushner? >> well, the white house is not commenting onto latest report on jared kushner. the top advisor to the president

was briefing reporters and asked a question about jared kushner and other reports that surfaced earlier this week and cut off the reporters question and said he simply was not going to address that subject and it's been that way all week long the white house has simply dodged our questions on a lot of important issues through out this week even after they had to clean up after the president when he made comments to other foreign leaders. >> at the g-7 summit the italians put on kwielt a air show. quite an air show. almost flying as fast as president trump flew by the cameras. after congratulation ating this man after report body slammed him and spent another day dodging reporters questions instead the white house trotted out top economic advisor gary cone and forced

this conversation -- >> he was clarifying his own comments after telling a reporter something different. for i think the president is looking at it. right now we don't have a position. while aides snamed this picture of cohn talking to cameras the briefing was off camera in the white house press core. corp. talking about germans are bad, very bad, the president heard saying, see the millions of cars they're selling to the u.s. terrible we'll stop this. the president declined to comment so it was gary cohn with the explanation telling reporters off camera, he said they're very bad on trade but doesn't have a problem with germany. the president has largely voided tabing questions

taking questions all week long. a break from what his predecessors have done on nearly all of their oversees trips. >> so far in sis illy where the volcano mt. etn a is blowing smoke there vary been no diplomatic eruptions like the president pushing past allies in brussels here ramping up counter terrorism efforts, the white house said the president is still getting handle on one major issue whether the president will stay in the paris climate agreement. >> he came here to learn and get smarter. >> so any chance we'll hear from the president tomorrow? any chance he might hold a news conference wramipping up his fit over seas trip? >> no such luck, wolf. we just received the schedule from the white house he doesn't have a press conference scheduled.

is going to make remarks to u.s. troops stationed here before going back to washington but that's it. it's unprecedented to see total denial of access to top white house officials on camera all week long. we barely heard from the president, that's been the case all week long. we have not seen white house press secretary sean spicer on any kind of on the record setting with reporters. we were simply shut out of any kind of press access. it's been sort of observing the president taking a foreign trip oversees without any chance of asking hard questions. obviously he's not going to be able to continue that back in washington when he gets back home he's going to have to answer these questions about the russian investigation that will be hanging over >> jim acosta in sicily for us. here's the question.

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until "the washington post" secret channel to moscow story broke a little while ago, it is perhaps the decide nfrg behind a defining moment in the presidential campaign. the fbi director at the time, james comey, announcing no criminal charges against hillary clinton, then proceeding to scold her publicly over her e-mail server. many believe that politically weaponized the issue and sealed secretary clinton's fate. now we're learning that the key piece of information director comey considered before going public was not only bogus but that he knew it was bogus. it's a remarkable story. cnn's dana bash is back with us. she's got late breaking details. up date our viewers. >> cnn has learned and we've been reporting today that then fbi director james comey knew that a critical piece of russian information related to the hillary clinton e-mail investigation was fake but he felt that he needed to take action anyway because he was

concerned if the information became public it would undermine the investigation and the justice department itself. this is according to multiple sources talking to my colleagues, gloria borger and myself, now these concerns were a major factor in comey decided to publicly declare that the clinton probe was over last summer without consulting then attorney general loretta lynch. earlier this week "the washington post" reported on this intelligence and doubts about its credibility. the fact that comey felt he had to act based on russian information is a stark example of how russian interference impacted decision-making at the highest levels of the u.s. government during the 2016 campaign. the russian information at issue claimed to show that then attorney general lynch had been compromised in the clinton investigation because e-mails, reported e-mails between then dnc chair debbie wasserman schultz and a political operative saying lynch would make the fbi clinton probe go away.

according to one official in classified briefings, comey told lawmakers he was afraid the information would drop and undermine the investigation but comey did not tell lawmakers that he doubted the accuracy of that information, even in a classified setting. according to sources close to comey, the fbi director felt the validity of the information didn't matter because if it became public, they had no way to discredit it without burning sources and methods. >> in public, comey said the reason he was breaking proets coland having that news conference in july is because the former president, bill clinton, wound up going to the then attorney general loretta lynch's plane a week before and having that conversation which he considered to be inappropriate. >> that's right. and that is the public explanation. he did that as soon as and as late as may 3rd the last time he testified in public as fbi director. in his classified sessions, comey didn't even mention that plane session and told lawmakers

this russian information was the primary reason he took the unusual step to announce the clinton probe. >> the russians were pretty successful in this operation. >> it certainly does, in a big way. if you think about the chain of events. when comey held his press conference announcing no charges against clinton, he also took the extraordinary and inappropriate step of calling her extremely careless. clinton aides are convinced her reputation was damaged with voters and she never recovered from that. that probably wouldn't have happened without russian interference. also talking to many officials on capitol hill and elsewhere, dissemination of fake information is still a major issue. multiple sources tell us that russia is still trying to spread false information in order to cloud and confusengoing investigations. >> i'm sure they are. thank you, dana. coming up, the latest on tonight's breaking news. a report that after the election, jared kushner proposed setting up a secret

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