good evening from washington where we are just learning some of what the fbi director told senators in a closed session and where james comey called the president of the united states a liar and made out a case, a hotly disputed one for accusing him of a crime. his testimony today before the senate intelligence committee did many things making it clear the fbi was not investigating the president when director comey was running the bureau. the white house is seizing on that item, however his testimony tells a story some argue adds up to the president obstructing justice. before going any further and hearing from legal experts who sharply differ on this question laying down the law as it were drawn from title 18 section 1503

and at least two other related sections, the relevant language in condensed form reads who ever corruptly endeavors to influence or impede the due administration of justice shall be punished. keep that in mind as we go along tonight. two portions of the hearing from the president's valentine's day meeting in the oval office when he asked the director to drop the investigation of fired general flynn. and the friendly language in director comey's account and director comey pushing back. >> he did not direct you to let it go. >> not in his words, no. >> he did not order you to go? >> again, those words are not in order. >> he said, i hope. like me, you probably did hundreds of case, maybe thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses and you have knowledge of the

thousands of cases outside there where people have been charged. do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter, any other criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? >> i don't know well enough to answer. the reason i keep saying his words is i took it as a direction. it's the president of the united states with me alone saying, i hope this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. >> we're going to hear from senator rich shortly. vice chairman mark warner of virginia something he sees potentially ominous. >> you're in a meeting and your direct superior the attorney general was in there as well yet the president asked everyone to leave including the attorney general to leave before he brought up the matter of general

flynn. what was your impression of that type of action? had you ever seen anything like that before. no. my impression was something big is about to happen. i need to remember every single word that is spoken and, again, i could be wrong. i'm 56 years old. i've seen a few things. my sense was the attorney general knew he shouldn't be leaving, which is why he was lingering and i don't know mr. kushner well but i think he picked up on the same thing. so i knew something was about to happen that i needed to pay very close attention to. >> we will be playing you all the key moments of the hearing in the next two hours. we have correspondent jim sciutto about what he gave after the public one. >> my colleagues are learning in the classified section this afternoon fired director comey told senators of a possible third undisclosed meeting between attorney general jeff sessions and the russian

ambassador to the u.s. sergey kislyak, based on russian to russian conversations discussing that meeting. i should note cnn was the first to report this investigation last week congress was looking into a possible third meeting that relates to april 2016 at the mayflower hotel. this helps explain a somewhat cryptic answer director comey gave in the public session earlier today when asked about attorney general sessions. have a listen. >> our judgment, as i recall was he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety reasons. we were aware i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russian investigation problematic. >> what problematic apparently was he did not disclose yet again a meeting with russia with the ambassador to the u.s. and there are intercepts that

indicate to them there may have been a third private meeting. >> former director comey when publicly reading his opening remarks a lot of people assumed he would be reading them. >> those prepared remarks read somewhat like an affidavit. it was very detailed, it was going through dates and names and times to document conversations with the president. his opening statement today delivered off-the-cuff although i'm sure he prepared for it, he seemed to speak more from his heart. it didn't take him longer than 2 1/2 minutes before he first mentioned the word "lie" accusing the president of the word lying and he went on to use that word many times. have a listen. >> i knew there might come a day when i would need a record of what had happened not just to defend myself but to defend the fbi and our integrity as an institution and the independence of the investigation stiff function. i was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting and thought it important to document.

>> important to document and he went on to give details after that famous tweet i hope there aren't tapes of this conversation he then felt the need to leak the contents of those memos through a friend of his, a professor of columbia to get it out in the public record. as you mentioned before on the air earlier today with the intention having a special counsel appointed which is what happened. >> the attorney for the private attorney for president trump is saying -- not a press conference, made a public statement saying those were privileged communications. >> exactly. although we should note the president referenced those public communications himself prior. >> thanks very much. we're not done. the president has not tweeted about the day's hearings frankly pretty remarkable because he often refers to himself a counter puncher and being called a liar is quite a punch. and did the president have any response to comey today? >> we saw a much more restrained

president trump. there were rumors he might live tweet the testimony and there were reporters who tried to ask him about the testimony later on in the day. he dade make a veiled hint to it speaking at a conference in front of evangelicals essentially saying we are all under siege and promising he will hunker down and keep fighting. i am told by sean spicer the white house press secretary the president didn't actually watch all that much of comey's testimony today. he was in meetings through much of the morning and essentially went right from there to the speech. did he see clips? of course. will he be watching tonight? i think that's a safe bet but he wasn't exactly glued to the television watching it in realtime today. >> the president's lawyers backed up his statement he feels totally vindicated and indicated some parts of comey's testimony is not true. >> reporter: that's right. on one hand said the president was vindicated. comey said the president was not under investigation when he was the fbi director and trump's lawyer said there was no

indication trump tried to block any kind of investigation but then he went on to hit comey as a leaker. listen. >> mr. comey also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any russian interference. mr. comey's testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted russian interference in the 2016 election. mr. comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his purported memos of those privileged communications, one of which he testified was classified. mr. comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated, he authorized his friends to leak the contents of those memos to the press in order to in mr. comey's words, quote prompt the appointment of

a special counsel, close quote. >> reporter: so anderson on the one hand they're looking at comey as a credible witness because he said the president was not under investigation at certain points on the other hand questioning his credibility. they took issue with a number of things comey said in his testimony. they're denying trump ever demanded loyalty from james comey and denying he ever asked comey to back off into the investigation of former security advisor michael flynn. >> one of the big pieces of news was director comey saying he thinks the president and his team are liars. the white house was insistent the president is not a liar. >> reporter: certainly not a good day when you have to make that statement as a white house spokesperson. that's what we saw sara huckabee sanders do today. she said the president is not a liar. when she was asked about something else james comey mentioned the prospect whether there is a recording system in this white house and whether

there are tapes of his conversation with the president, she did not answer that. she said she had no idea if there is a taping system in the white house. you can bet that question is not going to be going away. >> assuming you can find out the answer. thanks very much. we are fortunate to have three senators from the intelligence committee on the program right now. senator angus king, independent from maine. i want to play the key moments of his questioning today. >> with regard to several of these conversations, in his interview with lester holt on nbc, the president said, i had dinner with him. he wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. is this an accurate statement? >> no, sir. >> did you in any way initiate that dinner? >> no. he called me at my desk at lunchtime and asked me was i free for dinner that night. called himself and said, can you come over for dinner tonight. >> and then he said in one case i called him and in one case he called me. is that an accurate statement?

>> no. >> in his press conference on may 18th, the president was asked whether he urged you to shut down the investigation into michael flynn. the president responded quote no, no, next question. is that an accurate statement? >> i don't believe it is. >> in terms of this is comments to you about -- in response to mr. reich, senator reich, he said, i hope you will hold back on that. when the president of the united states in the oval office says something like i hope or i suggest, would you, do you take that as a directive? >> yes. yes. it rings in my ear as kind of, will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest. >> i was just going to quote that in 1170, henry said who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and he was killed, thomas abeka, exactly the same situation, we're speaking along the same lines. >> senator angus king joins me

now. it was interesting to hear you and comey seizing on that line from henry the ii. >> it wasn't prepared. it was the power of the word of the sovereign, in this case, the president, in that kind of situation. i had looked it up to get the date and lo and behold jim comey arrived at the same conclusion. when sarah focuses on the word "hope" i hope you can do this, i hope, he was indicated that's not a directive the president not saying do this, he hopes this. do you buy that? if somebody who is in a powerful position looks you in the eye alone in the office and says i hope you can do this. >> this isn't somebody in a powerful position the president of the united states in the oval office with you alone. i think mr. comey's response was what would be almost all of us, this is something the president wants done. that's exactly what henry the ii

said when he said will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? >> does the intent matter? if the president was saying even as a directive, look, drop this case, cut my friend some slack, is that different than if he directed comey to drop the case in some sort of cover-up? >> it's hard. intent is a very difficult matter. by the way, this whole question of what did the president do and did it rise to the level of some kind of violation of law is really squarely in the lane of the special counsel. that's what they're going to be looking at. our committee is a fact-finding committee. it's part of our work but it's not the whole deal. i think one of the most significant things that came across today was this moment. you played it with mark warner, where the president was in the oval office with a group of people including mr. comey and the attorney general and jared kushner and others and the president said, everybody out, including the attorney general, closed the door, alone with mr.

comey. >> not only said it once, several times, kushner lingered and reince priebus popped his head in. >> that's because the president knew what he was going to be discussing had extraordinary significance, otherwise it would be part of meeting. i think that makes it hard for the president to argue, well, i didn't really intend it and it was a casual conversation. the other thing making a point of was jim comey should have done something either in that moment or gone to congress or to somebody to warn, to raise a red flag. i don't think that's an illegitimate point. comey conceded that. in 20/20 hindsight i should have gone. he did talk to the upper echelons about it. he did share that information with the leadership of the fbi. he didn't share it with the attorney general because he was concerned, i believe, where the attorney general stood in all of

this. he did share it with the fbi. you can say in 20/20 hindsight he should have perhaps resigned or gone to the attorney general directly. he did spend a lot of time trying to get the attorney general and others to form a barrier to explain to the president this wasn't really appropriate to be meeting one-on-one with the head of the fbi. >> how does this evolve beyond a he said-he said. seems like president trump teased the idea there might be tapes. now you have the president's attorney coming up point-blank the president never said this stuff. you would think his attorney wouldn't say that unless he knew there were not tapes. >> the easiest way to get out of that, if there are tapes to release them. let's get that question clarified. apparently the white house was equivocal on that as they were several weeks ago. let's find out if there were tapes and if there were, let's have them. secondly, mr. comey's

credibility, he has a great deal of credibility, as we've heard in this hearings, and the contemporaneous memos he wrote have probative value in a court, they go to buttress the credibility of the witness as well as having told other people about these conversations. >> isn't there another way to test who's telling the truth here, which is to see if the president said similar things to other officials in the administration? what about yesterday's hearing? >> that was one of my questions yesterday. >> exactly. to introduce what you were saying, you had the director of national intelligence, mr. coats, you had the head of the nsa, both of whom refused to talk about their conversations on this very subject with president trump. what would you like to know from them? >> i want to know whether they had similar conversations. there's been reported there were similar conversations about their being asked by the president to somehow curtail or impede or influence the investigation. that was the purpose of my questions. they didn't answer them. i think they had no good

reason -- >> in fact, dan coats acknowledged he had no real basis for not answering your question. >> no legal basis. imagine you get home at 3:00 in the morning and your dad says, where the heck have you been and you say, find that an uncomfortable question, i don't think i'm going to answer. that was said yesterday. that's not going to wash. >> what can you do about this? you're a senator. >> director coats left the door rather wide open by saying, i will discuss this in a closed hearing and be more forthcoming. we will make that happen. so we will be able to ask those questions. i think the point you're making is if they had similar conversations about the investigation, as mr. comey reported, that certainly goes to buttress his position. now, it's important to also say, comey was clear today that he felt what the president was doing was strictly on the flynn investigation, not on the entire

russian investigation. then the question is, isn't flynn a key part of the overall investigation? and as he eluded in his testimony in the open, if flynn was guilty of something, a prosecutor might well use him as a witness based upon his unwillingness to go to jail, to get evidence in the remaining case. you can't just read flynn out of the case. >> one of the mysteries that wasn't answered today is why the president was so energetic apparently in trying to get comey to cut some flak for general flynn. this isn't his habit. he's not that level -- that degree of loyalty to people around him. is there anything that you've learned either in the hearing today or in classified settings? i know you can't talk about specifics, that would help explain why the president might

be so invested in this notion that flynn get off? >> well, i don't think it's possible to answer that question, at least not at this stage. again, we're now talking about a lot of the issues that the special counsel is going do be following up. we have all the indications are the special counsel considers this whole question of the president's relationship to the investigation as part of his investigation. so we're going to find out about that. but in terms of what the motivation, it could be, and it was alluded to today, it could be the president liked general flynn and didn't want to see him hurt. it could be something as simple as that or it could be an effort to try to impede the overall investigation. that's the question i think the special counsel's going to have to ask. >> i know you can't talk about what's in classified settings. >> but you will ask. >> i will try to work-around it and see if you can answer it. you heard jim sciutto reporting

you were told jeff sessions had an additional meeting with the russian ambassador, that's what james comey told you today. i know you can't do that. broadly even listening to the public testimony from james comey today, how concerned are you about jeff sessions and his role currently as the attorney general of the united states? >> well, i can't comment at all on whether there was a third meeting. >> i get that. >> we already know there were several meetings and we know that jeff sessions recused himself. i do think there was a question that didn't really get followed up too much today the role jeff sessions played in comey's firing. >> that's what comey was strongly hinting at in public testimony. are you concerned there was something inappropriate? >> we know from the public record, the president cited jeff sessions recommendation in his letter firing comey. there's no question jeff sessions was involved in that decision. >> should he have been knowing what you know? >> my sense is if he recused

himself he should have recused himself and not had anything to do with that decision depending upon what the real rationale for that decision thing and the president later said it was the russia thing. the recusal had 20/20 vision in this case. >> go ahead, gloria. >> comey refused to say today to characterize what he saw and observed with the president as obstruction. >> i think that was appropriate. >> you think that -- from what you heard about from his testimony today, do you think there is a case that can be made against the president for obstruction. >> listen, that's not my job. to make that call. that's all about special counsel. that's a legal question and i'm not in a position. you're asking me to be the judge, jury and executioner here. i'm not going to do it. i think there's a lot of information we still need. we need more information about

what the president said to these other intelligence community members. but that ultimately, that kind of -- i think it's important to make this distinction. our committee is looking at the facts of what happened and trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again. that's important. to me, that was one of the biggest stories of today, not the back and forth with the president. comey, i love the phrase he used, this question has no fuzz on it. it's absolutely clear what the russians did, what they tried to do and that they will come back and do it again. that's the important question. i will leave to the special counsel and ultimately the legal system. >> congress ultimately might have to decide. >> well, we might, but we're a long way from that. >> the question of collusion, senator, the question of collusion by the campaign, without going into what classified information might be involved, are you confident that the committee is getting from the intelligence community and perhaps from witnesses the

beginning of an account and being able to put together a sense of what happened in terms of possible collusion by the campaign? >> yes. we have unprecedented access to intelligence documents. >> and you're getting it. >> we're getting it. it's at langley. we go out to langley. that was the compromise with the cia and the nsa was the documents would stay there. we do to the documents. but we have access to them and we are getting full cooperation from the intelligence agencies at this point and i expect that to continue. >> is that robust to use one of the terms of part of your investigation, to the extent you think it's producing a picture of what might have happened in a preliminary phase? >> i would have to say it's quite preliminary. we're interviewing witnesses, our staff is going to interview jared kushner next week. that was announced this evening.

>> that will be public? >> no. this is a preliminary interview by the staff. >> sebastian gorka on your list? >> i won't answer specifically who's on our list. we will talk to a lot of the names you heard and a lot of the names you haven't heard. >> are you concerned at all about the fact that the former director of the fbi acknowledged he leaked these memos through a professor of columbia. there is an argument to be made those memos could be government property and he did it on an fbi computer, about stuff within his jurisdiction, within his duties as fbi director and he leaked a major document after a president said, i really need your help dealing with leaks. does that concern you at all? >> number one, he wasn't in the fbi when this occurred. number two, it's a legitimate question, although when you use the word "leak," it implies something is classified. i heard the attorney say there was nothing classified about

these memos. these were memos he wrote to refresh his own recollection of an event. i think it's a fair question. there's been no assertion of privilege by the presidency. you'd have to ask jeff. you stated it, government property perhaps, but these were his personal recollections in the fbi files. the important thing to me is we're going to get ahold of those memos. >> what's interesting about the meeting in the oval office where director comey says the president says, i hope you can let flynn go and felt this was a direction, there's a lot of republicans in support of the president saying, well, director comey should have spoken up then. putting the emphasis on director comey's actions as opposed to what the president himself said to director comey. do you think that's appropriate or should the focus be on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the president of the united states?

>> i think people are free to second-guess comey's decisions. as i said to you, perhaps he should have said, mr. president, we shouldn't be having this discussion or walked out or talked about resignation or gone to the attorney general. there are a lot of things in 20/20 hindsight we say he might have done. as he testified, he was sort of stunned by this. he did go back and talk to his colleagues at the fbi and did record it in a contemporaneous memo. but to say that doesn't change what the president said to him, at least he alleges the president said to him. you can talk about what he should have done. you can also talk about what the president should or shouldn't have done. >> given the fact your committee is probing this issue of russia's role, as you said, you're leaving the rest to the special counsel, you heard director comey say that he had never been asked by the president about russia and the role that it played, other than

that first meeting on january 6th, with the intelligence community representatives. do you think the president understands the gravity of this? does he share your sense of gravity about what russia was up to? >> i thought that was one of the most disturbing moments of the hearing this morning when joe manchin said, did the president ask you any questions about this? did he express any interest in it or curiosity about what the russians did. the answer was, no. he qualified a little bit, said on january 6th, there was some discussion. in the eight subsequent conversations there was never a question about what were the russians doing and how were they doing it? you all know, it's no secret. for months the president has been dismissing the whole matter as a hoax and fake and witch-hunt. that is disturbing because this was an attack on our democracy. what i think has to get across to the american people is putin

is not a republican. he's an opportunist. he's not a democrat. this could just as easily be happening in two or four years in the opposite direction. marco rubio gets that. he said, look, fellows, next time, this could be us. >> do you know if there are tapes? >> i do not. if you know about them, let me know. >> appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight including the claim from the most powerful republican that the president deserves a pass because he's new at all this and why james clapper says watergate pales in comparison to what he's seeing today and testimony by director comey and also saying he believes president trump is a threat to the entire political system. details ahead. ived? of course he was strong... ...intelligent.

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to say many in washington were riveted by james comey testimony was a little bit obvious than saying he's on the tall size. every bar and broadcast network carried the hearings. you could hear it from one dial to the other up on capitol hill and things came to a halt until this reaction. you have news of jared kushner meeting with the intelligence committee and you heard from angus he will meet with the staff next week? >> reporter: that's right. jared kushner will meet with the staff and then according to two sources provide documents to the committee and after that he's

scheduled to meet with senators. there's no expectation any will meet with the public but underscores what the white house has said repeatedly, he's willing to meet with anybody investigating anything and talk to them about his role. what are they actually looking at? cnn reported when it comes to jared kushner the issues they're looking at are related to a number of issues, the campaign's digital operation and his relationship with fired advisor mike flynn and his efforts to set up a back channel with russia. all of those things are of interest to investigators and looks like the senate intelligence committee will get a chance to talk to him this afternoon. >> what's the reaction of the intelligence committee? >> reporter: if you're a democrat cording to drink saturdays i've spoke -- to democratic senators i talked to this was very severely problematic of disclosures and

ill galleyty. senator mccain said he didn't inco think there was anything earth shattering. mark warner the democrat making it clear no matter the reaction their investigation continues and they're scheduled to meet with robert mueller next week and jared kushner and their investigation continues even though the super bowl of washington is over. >> what about house leaders? >> reporter: interesting they were trying to keep their head down and passing a bill to largely dismantle dodd-frank from the obama administration. we did hear from speaker paul ryan a defense i heard from a number of republicans. the president didn't know any better, something i pushed back in a follow-up. >> of course there needs to be a degree of independence between doj, fbi and the white house and

the line of communications established. the president's new at this. he's new to government. he probably wasn't steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between the fbi and white house. he's new to this. >> reporter: the president is new to this -- [ inaudible ] -- why is that an acceptable excuse? >> i'm not saying it's an acceptable excuse, just my observation. just my observation. >> reporter: should be corrected? >> he's new at government and so therefore i think that he's learning as he goes. >> reporter: anderson, this is something you heard from multiple republicans today, marco rubio saying it's up to the president's staff, they're the ones who failed here he didn't know any better. not an excuse that flies while he's not a politician didn't have government experience going to this, even republicans will acknowledge what they've seen,

what came out of this hearing and what came out of jim comey's testimony was certainly untoward. the big question now is does it go any further than that? so far we don't have those answers. >> lawmakers watched the hearings with interest. adam schiff, ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee. thanks for being with us. what do you make of that argument by speaker ryan, the president is new to this and maybe understandable he doesn't understand the separation supposed to exist. >> i don't buy it at all that we hold this president to a different ethical standard unless he's suggesting the president is new to high ethical standards or commitment to be honest to the public. that doesn't fly. i found among the most powerful testimony when the director said the president cleared the room. wanted the attorney general out and everybody else out of the room. to me as a former prosecutor that says this is someone conscious what he is about to do is wrong. >> if you're new you might say

it in front of everybody. >> yes. if you didn't think there was anything wrong with it, if you didn't think you needed to maintain independence from the fbi, if you didn't think there was anything wrong asking him to drop a case of your close associates why clear the room. >> should the director have spoken up and when he said, i hope you can't do this and told other people, more others than he told or gone to somebody on capitol hill? >> i agree. director comey should have said, mr. president, that's not an appropriate request, i can't do that. i'm not going to pledge loyalty for x, y and z reasons and not going to drop this case because you're asking me to. that is what he should have said. whether any of us under those circumstances would have been any less stunned than him or acted in any way we would have wanted someone to act in the situation i can't say. what i found credible about the director's testimony more than

anything else the fact he was willing to testify he didn't meet some of the standards we would want him to meet. >> the fact he admitted that he in retrospect should have done more? ? that he admitted that. that he acknowledged providing these documents to this professor in new york, that he said he was persuaded by loretta lynch to use a word he didn't feel was the right word. i think that adds credibility when he was willing to say, i should have handle this differently. >> if he should have spoken up to president trump, do you agree he should have spoken up to attorney general lynch at the time, i will use the word investigation, which is what this is, not matter? >> sure. i think you can certainly make the case he should have had a different response to loretta lynch, had a different response to the president and make the case he should have gone to someone at justice. if he couldn't go to jeff sessions, should have gone to the acting deputy a.g. none of that mitigates the

president's conduct. it adds credibility to the president's testimony. he wasn't the perfect fbi director. i had my own questions about how he exercised judgment in the clinton investigation, the fact he admitted his own failings makes him more believable. >> was anything learned today or decided or really advanced? >> a lot was learned today. a part of what didn't seem so shocking to people is that we knew a lot of this beforehand because of newspaper stories. we knew obviously a lot yesterday because of the detailed written statement. but when you step back from it and you realize that the former director of the fbi has just said that he felt the need to write memos about his conversations because he felt the president would lie about them, the fact the director of the fbi felt he couldn't go to the attorney general because the attorney general was conflicted. that the president asked him to drop a criminal case against the

national security advisor, that ought to take our breath away. i really feel we can't get to the point where we lose our shock over this president's conduct. i just don't accept in any way shape or form you can dismiss it. i know he's not a politician. he knows right from wrong. if he doesn't, he shouldn't be in that office. i don't think that's an adequate answer. >> congressman schiff, thank you for your time. a lot to discuss with the panel. >> i haven't heard from you today. what today stands out? >> i think if you take director comey, former director comey at his word, it certainly painted a very bad picture of president trump. the issue is if you want to prove that president trump is criminal -- engaged in some sort of criminal activity or obstruction of justice or high crimes and misdemeanors, you need some other testimony. with nixon if there were no

tapes there is no impeachment. with clinton if there was no blue dress there's no impeachment. you either did if donald trump taped the sessions to get those tapes and corroborate what he has said, another person saying, yes, donald trump told me he said this to comey and that was his intent. that's the second point. we have to know what the president's intent was. the fact is he's allowed to fire his director if he wants to. the question is whether he was trying to obstruct justice. that hasn't been proven. i think there was a lot of interesting information that certainly made a case in the direction of obstruction of justice. we're a long ways away from proving criminal behavior. >> kathryn. >> in the same place as kirsten, this is a mixed back, which ever side you are on, you can pick things out. he called the president a liar and also called himself a coward. everybody can enjoy their part of that. the thing people keep landing on the idea he needed to take notes

because president trump lied or president trump might not know what these ethical lines are, i don't feel that is new information. it is also not something that on its face gets you out of office. we don't have a function for removing you from office because you lied sometimes. there has to be this other step. i'm not sure we got there today. we did get the news perhaps he wasn't being investigated before but maybe now in the mueller part of this. i think that's important. i'm not sure we have hit that bar at this point. >> you have really been putting a lot of emphasis on the failure by director comey at the time to stand up to the president. >> anderson, i'll say it again. everyone says, oh, director comey was a deer in the headlights at that point. he said in his testimony today you heard him say i was so taken aback by that i didn't know what to do. he went in another time and another time and another time. i remind you his may 2007

testimony in the bush administration he was being driven home to have dinner with his family when he was told the attorney general and the white house chief of staff were going to see attorney general ashcroft who was in the hospital. he thought very quickly, summoned his forces, ran quickly to the -- laid on the tracks in fronts of attorney general ashcroft. this is a gentleman very quick on his feet, thinks very fast and is used to standing up to power and speaking truth to power. >> dan, what about that? >> standing up to ashcroft when he's in his bed -- >> he stood in front of andy card and alberto gonzales. >> you said this many times let me tell you why i don't think it's persuasive. in that situation you have ashcroft, he's in a situation. you're doing the normal thing you would ordinarily do -- hold on a second. if you are somebody who believes in this rule of law you are going to make a passionate case for something you believe in. you are not facing the president of the united states who may be

committing a crime right in front of you or who may just be a weirdo. you have to realize for ordinary people you can try to talk your way around this stuff. if the best thing we can say about the president is that he was only called a liar and we weren't able to prove he was a criminal today, that's not a good day for the president and not why -- >> not a good day for -- i have been somebody fairly sympathetic to comey and put in a bad position and every time he talks he looks worse. he's been cast as a boy scout who has no motivations other than chief, justice and the american way. that is a weird way to look at a guy who has been an operator in d.c. -- when you cast it as boy scout versus giant villain how he has been cast, he's not that. he's leaking his own memos with political motivation and not standing up when he should. >> we're talking about two

people. one of whom today is a stay-at-home dad in northern virginia, the other is president of the united states, yet jonathan, you want to talk about whether comey did right or wrong. who cares? >> now, he's a stay-at-home dad without any power or awareness what is going on? >> let me finish. if he leaked something, who cares? we're talking about the president of the united states in the oval office -- >> yes. >> telling the fbi director to stop investigating his friend -- >> and the ability of that fbi director matters a lot because he's the only guy telling the story. >> it certainly does. >> specific criminal intent. >> exactly criminal intent. >> why? >> specifically, why? >> let him answer. >> corrupt intent. why? if you are just doing your job openly with your top advisors, why do you tell the vice president of the united states,

the attorney general, your son-in-law and the chief of staff that they can't hear what you're telling jim comey. it's so secret -- >> you don't think they knew what he was talking about? >> we'll find out. director mueller will find out. >> i think part of the problem jeff and i have with each other, if you look at this from a criminal defense standpoint, you see plenty of possible defenses. looking at that hearing i thought comey created himself a serious problem if he ever hits the stand as a witness he's damaged goods. first of all, the leak does matter. the fbi website has very specific rules how you can handle fbi documents. in my view he violated all those rules and may have even violated the federal law. >> if it was his personal diary. >> that's how people are portraying this, like it's a diary entry like a bad eharmony date. >> it does sound like a pretty

bad date. >> like couples and it was just him and very awkward. >> made me feel uncomfortable. >> you're like, really? >> i expected other people to be there. >> yeah. very uncomfortable, i will swipe left. the problem with this is that those memos are written on fbi computer about a very important meeting. went directly to an investigation as fbi director. he raised it with the other people in his office, i by the way think was very redemptive today. that was a good point for him. but he also said he believed there was evidence. is this the standard he's going to apply to the rest of the fbi agents, if you just write a memo to yourself, like a field 302 by the way agents do all the time it becomes yours? i doubt it. >> the director of the fbi for the criminal division we heard from earlier today said what comey did was way out of the ordinary and should have taken himself out of the -- >> can you say he's credible when he acknowledges he told the president this three times but

we don't believe him on this other stuff. >> i was going to say, the democrats have. look, it's like the trump people are doing it now, the democrats did it he behaves out of the ordinary. he behaved horrible, horrible -- >> but the hillary thing was different. democrats remain very angry at comey for disclosing the last minute investigation about you know, anthony weiner and the whole situation. but democrats never said he lied. there was never an issue about his credibility. there was an issue about his political judgment. >> i actually heard a lot of democrats say a lot about his intent. >> i agree with you that comey has been built up and now it turns out that he is a little bit more human. in some ways that makes him a little more credible. he says bad stuff about himself,

bad stuff about trump, to me it makes it more credible. but i think that we're missing a big deal here, which is out in the world now people are asking basic questions. where are the tapes. that is now in play. in a way that it was not before. the question that has to be asked and answered where are the tapes. why would you have the president of the united states tease and talk about and threaten with the tapes. >> we have to take a quick break, we'll have more on comey and the line of questioning, about what he sees is a mask chasm about hope and obstructing. >> do you know of any case where a person has been charged with obstruction of justice or for that matter with any other criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? [man] you know how every neighborhood has

that one house where all the kids hang out? [team member] yes. [woman] we want to be that house. [team member] i love that. and now, with my credit options guide, we can help you find which type of credit might be right for you. ready to get started? [woman] okay. [man] definitely.

a question for you, what is the real meaning of the word

hope? pretty philosophical question to tackle, that was one of the questions from the testimony today with comey. senator james ridge was asking comey about his statement regarding the president, who said he hoped comey could let it go. here is part of that exchange. >> he did not direct you to let it go? >> not in his words, no. >> he did not order you to let it go? >> again, those words are not an order. >> do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter, any other criminal offense where this -- they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? >> i don't know well enough to answer. and the reason i keep saying his words, i took it as a direction. >> right. >> he is the president of the united states, with me alone saying i hope this i took it as this is what he wants me to do.

i didn't obey that but that is the way i took it. >> i spoke with senator red shortly before air time tonight. >> senator ridge, that exchange when you pressed director comey on how he interpreted the president's comments in the meeting, what do you make of the if you are ab former fbi director saying he took the president's comments as a directive, or former directive? >> the good news about comey, he wrote an excellent seven-page submission to the committee, on page five of that he put the words in quotes as far as what his conversation was with the president on that very subject. he said he did it. he is a great lawyer, he understands words. all of us who go to law school and do the paper chase, we study

words. and those words were very clear that the president hoped for an outcome of the investigation. mr. comey has said he took it as something else. we prosecutors are not shrinking violets, mr. comey has been around tfor a long time, if he didn't understand the president he should have cleared it up. indeed, if he thought the president was directing him to get rid of the investigation he had a whole suite of things he could have done. whatever it is, you have the president according to mr. comey saying one thing and mr. comey taking it another way, hope is a whole lot different than directing him or even requesting him to make the investigation go away. >> the president through his attorney denies that he ever

asked comey to let the flynn case go. i guess for people who watch today it's going to boil down to who they believe. james comey or president trump? >> i don't think you have to do that, i think you need to read the president's words. he spoke 28 words, according to comey, three sentences, two of them began with "i hope." and that is a whole different thing than directing someone or commanding them or even requesting them. stating that you hope something is very different kettle of fish than directing him. >> you have been tough on talking about people who have leaked information. the president's attorney blasted director comey for leaking a memo after he was fired to a friend from "the new york times" about the oval office conversation. the president's attorney called the release, he said they were privileged communications. do you believe that the director's personal recollections of his meetings with the president are

privileged communications? >> you know, i haven't researched that. i don't think i would take that position on it. i would not also call this a classic leak. it would have been nice if james comey had stood up and said look, media, here is my press release and here are the notes i want to release. going through the back door with this, it doesn't look good. it is not the classic leak. you have to give him kudos for standing up and saying yeah, i did that in the hearing today. >> it was interesting acknowledging him that he did that because he wanted the special prosecutor to be as signed and he knew by doing that that would very well happen. >> and of course that is the direction he chose to do. he could have done a lot of things to try to get a special prosecutor appointed. and look, james comey is a good guy. this guy is a stand-up guy. he has been around a long time. he is an old-time prosecutor.

he understands this stuff. and i think he did the american people a great service today. he did our committee a great service today by putting the seven pages in crystal clear english language, easily readable as to what happened. part of what is lost in all of this, is this is just a small slice of what our committee has been doing, the intelligence committee has been tasked with studying what the russians did, how they did it and reporting to the american people in detail those things. and we're going to get to the bottom of it and we're going to do this for the american people and do it right. >> senator, i appreciate your time. thank you. well, the watergate comparisons are coming fast and furious, just yesterday the former national intelligence investigator james clapper said the watergate testimony paled in comparison to today's testimony. did anything change his mind? we'll hear from him in an exclusive interview next.

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james clapper has served in

the intelligence community for the republican and democratic presidential candidates alike. and serving for the first presidents bush, he is a 50-year veteran of public service in the united states air force. with all of what that entails, including staying away from politically charged conversations. however that may change. this was said about the trump/russia story. >> i think you compare the two that watergate pales, really in my view, and compared to what we're confronting now. >> well, that watergate comparison made headlines tonight, reacting to james comey's testimony. and only here on cnn he took criticism of the president a little further. i spoke to him earlier this evening. >> earlier this week you said that watergate pales to what