they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are. a gross abuse of power. john berman here, in for anderson. that's how senate majority leader chuck schumer, today, characterized the revelation, first reported in "the new york times," that the trump-justice department sought computer data on two democratic lawmakers on the house intelligence committee. one of whom, was current chairman adam schiff, also, staff and family members. and we have new reporting, tonight, on just how broad the scope of it was. but before going any further, we should just get a few things straight. even though the headline reads, hunting leaks, trump officials focused on democrats in congress. the reporting, strongly, suggests this was no-routine leak investigation. none of this was even remotely

normal. as we learned last night, wihat the doj did was nearly unprecedented in who it targeted. nor, is this normal. as congressman schiff was being investigated, fruitlessly, it seems, the nation's chief executive was conducting a public vendetta against him, which continued straight through the end of his term. >> little, pencil-neck adam schiff. he's got the smallest, thinnest neck i have ever seen. i saw little shifty schiff, yesterday. you shifty schiff. how did you do it? shifty schiff. okay. you know, the world's most dishonest politician. adam schiff, the watermelon head, right? >> he is not a long-ball hitter. >> call him shifty schiff. we don't call him shifty schiff for nothing. he is a shifty, dishonest guy. and when you see little adam schiff go out and lie and lie and stand at the mic. smart guy, by the way. >> you, little pencil neck.

>> now, you can chock that up to a childish man behaving childishly but he was the president. and he is still is, right now, the unquestioned lead of of his party. so even as the doj's inspector general, today, began investigating the matter. republican lawmakers were downplaying it. senator charles grassley saying in a statement, today, quote, investigations into members of congress and staff are nothing new. congressman chris stuart, who sits on the house-intelligence committee saying quote, i support investigating leaks of classified information. which, of course, glides right past the evidence that this was no-ordinary leak investigation. everything we are learning about it suggests, not to us, but to intelligence and law-enforcement professionals, that this just plain wreaks. as house intel member mike quigley told our manu raju this afternoon, the bottom line, from the first day of the russia investigation, i assumed a hostile government would do something like this. i just didn't think it would be our own, hostile government. and again, it's not like the

former president was hiding anything. you have already seen the personal animus, the name calling. in addition, the ex-president was, loudly, calling for action. quoting from a now-deleted tweet from february of 2018. quote, adam leaves close-committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. must be stopped. again, this was as the investigation was under way. and again, according to "the times," it came up empty. let me repeat that. it came up empty. all of the allegations you heard the former president make, amounted to nothing. it was all bluster, from the king of it. now, as for former-attorney general william barr, three sources tell "the times," that when he became attorney general, he revived the probe and put a trusted prosecutor on it. barr spoke with "politico," today. here is their lead. quote, former attorney general william barr, on friday, distanced himself from reports that the trump-justice department seized communication records belonging to two prominent democratic lawmakers who were spearheading investigations into then-president donald trump.

in a phone interview, barr said he didn't recall getting briefed on the moves. which is a clever answer, because he certainly might not have been briefed on the moves made before he was ag. but it says nothing, about the moves he, himself, reportedly made. he also told "politico" that during his time as attorney general, he was, quote, not aware of any congressmen's records being sought in a leak case. which again, plays funny tricks with tense. was he not aware, at the time? well, of course. did he become aware, retrospectively? it sounds like splitting hairs but william barr is no dope. what he, most certainly, is, however, is a proven dissembler and evader. >> has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? >> i wouldn't -- i wouldn't -- >> yes or no? >> could you -- could you repeat that question? >> i will repeat it. has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or

suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? nor yes or no, please, sir? >> the president or anybody else. >> seems, you would remember something like that, and be able to tell us. >> yeah, but i'm -- i'm trying to grapple with the word, suggest. i mean, there have been discussions of -- of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation. >> perhaps, they suggested? >> i wouldn't say suggest. >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know? >> doesn't know? knows and won't say? will say, but won't lie? won't lie but will deceive? the man has a record dating back to his blatant mischaracterization of the mueller report. he is, also, not afraid to cover just about anything with a thick slathering of don't recalls. >> you can't recall, whether you have discussed those cases with anyone in the white house?

including, the president of the united states. >> my recollection is i have not discussed those. >> but you don't recall, for sure? >> i -- let me move on. >> i don't recall whether that was related to me. >> i -- i -- i don't recall any discussion of that. i don't recall that phrase and what -- what context. >> i don't know. see, i -- i can't recall that. i -- i don't remember that. not that i recall. i can't actually remember how it came up. but someone mentioned it. >> former-attorney general, also, told "politico," quote, he was not aware of who we were looking at, in any of the cases. also, that he quote, never discussed the leak cases with trump. he didn't really ask me any of the specifics. again, he didn't have to. the boss was shouting it from the rafters. so, we mentioned the new reporting on this tonight. cnn's evan perez joins us with that. evan, what more are we learning about the justice department's subpoenas to apple? >> well, john, this was an

extraordinary request. the -- the breadth of it is, simply, just broader than i can remember any of these types of requests. we are talking about 73 phone numbers. 2 -- i'm sorry, 36 e-mail addresses, according to apple, was part of this demand that came in a subpoena, in february of 2018. and we, now, know that at least two members of congress. we know that some of their staff members and some of their family members, including somebody who was underage, was part of this dragnet that -- that the justice department was asking for. the metadata was asking for from -- from apple. here's this, john. one of the -- a person we talked to, familiar with the investigation, said that the request. it basically asked for data going back to the inception of all of these accounts, up to the present time, which was february of 2018. let me repeat that. from the inception of those accounts.

so in some cases, probably, a decade. it's not clear. so, what we know is that the -- that apple turned over what is now -- we now know is just metadata. it wasn't any of the content. but, you know, this was something that was done in 2018. and it wasn't, until this year in may, that they were able to notify the account holders that their data was taken by the justice department. >> from inception. that's staggering. so, was apple aware of who was being investigated here? and did they find it odd that they weren't just subpoenaed but, also, put under a gag order? >> well, they did not know. they had no idea what the target of this investigation was. what the subject was, what it related to. and in some cases, it appears, they didn't even know that these were related to members of congress. they sent these -- these e-mail notifications to the owners of these accounts. and then, as a result of that, they were -- they learned that these were accounts belonging to eric swalwell and adam schiff. two members of congress. and it is unusual for not only -- it's not unusual for

them to be told they can't disclose this. what happened, in this case, john, was that this nondisclosure order, this gag order, was extended three times, every year. and it wasn't until, just days before the biden administration comes into office that, it appears the justice department stops, essentially, responding to requests from apple. saying, do you still need this data? do you want us to keep this gag order? and it appears they just lost interest. and that's the reason why, today, you have this investigation from the inspector general, merrick garland, the attorney general. and deputy attorney general, lisa monaco, asked for this investigation to be done. because there, clearly, is some very -- some very unusual things about this. >> indeed. to say the least. thank you, evan perez, for your reporting. i appreciate it. >> thanks. joining us now, cnn political analyst and "new york times" washington correspondent, maggie haberman. also, cnn chief political analyst, gloria borger. gloria, let me start with you. this new reporting, clearly, illustrates just how big the scope of this, actually, was.

73 phone numbers. 36 e-mail accounts. looking for records dating back to inception. this really just sounds like a huge dragnet. >> well, and -- and as we peel the onion, i think we might discover there were more e-mail addresses and more phone numbers that they were looking at. and what becomes clearer and clearer is that this was really a phishing expedition. by people, who were interested in finding out where these so-called leaks came from. you know, president of the united states who was screaming from the rafters, as you illustrated just before, that he wanted -- that he believed adam schiff was a leaker. d democrats were leakers. and as a result, his justice department, both under jeff sessions and then, again, with bill barr, who seemed to reinvigorate what was -- seemed to be a petering out investigation. appoints someone to take all these leak investigations and -- and look at them. because the president of the

united states. and he said -- he told "politico" -- that there were cabinet members in the intelligence community who were providing pressure on him, i think, to -- to kind of get this all done. and as a result, we have what we have. my big question, that remains unanswered, is what evidence was provided to a grand jury, to get the -- these phone numbers? i mean, what evidence did they have? that all of these numbers need to be tracked. we -- we just don't know. >> was it properly predicated? answer might come from the inspector-general report. we just don't know. so, maggie, you know, what do you make of all this reporting? because there is some irony here, right? that president trump was virtually always complaining that people are investigating him. but his own justice department was involved in this -- this sweeping, and as we have been told, reasonably unprecedented or phishing expedition as gloria

just said. >> right. as gloria just said, we don't know the scope of this. we don't know how many additional e-mails or numbers there might be, or additional people who were being looked at. certainly, to -- to target -- we know that doj targets reporters. this has happened under previous administrations. happened under not just trump but also under obama. this is lawmakers. this is lawmakers and family members of lawmakers. and again, we don't know if it stops there. so to your point, what do i make of it? is that there was a president, who as you noted, was constantly talking about leaks and concerned about leaks and particularly leaks as related to the investigation into him and his campaign and people around him. and any ties to russia. or any connections to russia. and the doj, started under jeff sessions, began pulling records from people, in a way that -- that every expert says we just have not really seen, before. and we'll see where it goes. but you touched on something that i think is important. there is no evidence right now that it turned up anything. given how incredibly broad it was.

now, maybe, something will be revealed where it did turn up something. but it's pretty remarkable how wide a net they cast, to apparently not, actually, come up with anything. >> you know, gloria, if this was reversed. and the obama-justice department was seizing data of republicans on the house intelligence committee. i have a hard time thinking they would be so ho-hum about it. >> yeah. and how about gag orders that were extended three times? so that, people who were the targets of the investigation didn't know about it for a long time. i mean, that is something that they would be screaming from the rafters about. no, there is a lot of what-aboutism here. we heard, you know, chuck grassley put out a press release, today. saying, you know, i'm -- this -- this goes on. this goes on, all the time, and i am all in favor of finding out about illegal leaks. so we should, you know, we should keep on doing that. but as maggie just pointed out, this is different. these are two members of

congress. one of whom -- or both of them, i guess, were targets of donald trump's. so, this is very different. and, you know, it's very clear, from looking at all of this. and looking at the history. is that, you know, donald trump treated the justice department like they were just a part of the trump organization. and i think, while barr, at some points, may have tried to keep his distance. there was no getting away from what the president of the united states was demanding. in fact, he fired jeff sessions because jeff sessions said, you know, i don't work for you. i work for the american people. >> maggie, there is so many, different angles to this and it's so, deeply serious. but there is, also, a present-and-future political angle here, as well. we are talking about the person who is still the de facto leader of the republican party. and i know that's in the future but he is, more or less, the current front-runner for republican nomination for president, too. so i am wondering how you think this will play into republican

politics? are they, all, just going to line up behind him, at this point? >> i think the answer is yes, john. i mean, i think that we have seen is the -- the parties are so incredibly polarized. that essentially, much more so with republicans, at the moment. essentially, what happens is that when -- when the -- either, the former president says something or it's perceived that in -- in the mind of his supporters that the media is, somehow, against him. they, then, stick with his position. and in this case, it would be the position of the trump administration. so, i don't think you are going to hear a lot of outcry from republicans. there might be a little bit, here and there. there might be some republican candidates for 2024, who would be willing to say something. but i don't think that's going to be a driving force forthem. i do think gloria's exactly right and you are exactly right. if this had been the obama administration that did this, there would be a lot of protest from republicans. i don't see this playing as a major-political issue. and frankly, that -- that is going to deftract from acc

accountability issues and something that is actually in the public interest. i do want to note and this is -- all of this unprecedented activity took place under former-president trump. the biden-justice department continued one of these gags and that was in relation to my colleagues. and so, i do think there is a lot of work that has to be done. in looking at what happens, across the board, with doj. and how it is approaching this information gathering. we know that president biden has taken a very strong, public position. the white house has taken a strong-public position that they are not going to do that but i think it's going to take a while to restore faith. just given all of the collective actions of the last-five years. >> there is an issue of prosecutorial discretion among career prosecutors that's very real and worth exploring. and i think we all need to learn a lot more about it. gloria, maggie, thank you both so much for being with us tonight. house intel chairman, adam schiff briefed the committee today. joining us now, a member of that committee. democrat jim himes of connecticut who says he does not believe he was targeted by the trump investigation. so, congratulations, on that front, congressman. i know you can't tell us much about what happened in this

meeting. but broadly speaking, you know, what were you told about the scope of -- of these records that were seized? what it all means? and what's your initial reaction? >> yeah, john. well, um, first of all, we don't know a lot. i -- i -- i don't think i was -- i was targeted. but it turns out, that the way apple notified members was by sending them an e-mail from an account like something like apple@info or info@apple or something so we just don't know. needless to say, our chairman and others have asked the department of justice for a complete list of those members of congress and associated staff and family members and children. that were -- that were subpoena -- whose records were subpoenaed. and we have not been provided that information. so we have no idea, the answer to your second question, which is how broadly does this go? and, you know, without betraying the confidence of -- of -- of a closed meeting. a lot of us -- what happened was bad enough, john. this iss the use of, arguably,

next to the military, the most powerful thing that the federal government has, the department of justice. it was the use of the department of justice to advance a quirky-political aim of the president. and so, what's horrifying here is it's -- it's -- it's good that the inspector general is going to do his work. but that inspector general is going to operate inside the department of justice. what we're talking about here, of course, is, yet another, flagrant constitutional abuse. and -- and -- and we learned about it by reading -- at least i learned about it and many people learned about it by reading it in the newspaper. what other elements of the government were compromised? was the irs used as a political tool for donald trump? was the cia used as a political tool for donald trump? unless we have something bigger than an inspector general. unless we have -- i -- i'm thinking back to, you know, the church committee of the 1970s. unless we have something truly all of government, we may never know the answers to that question and that leaves us profoundly vulnerable to the next-donald trump, the smarter donald trump, doing this all

over, again. >> you are asking for either a select or special committee or a special prosecutor? >> well, you know, we've spent the last two months talking about a commission around january 6th. i was there on january 6th. i was, very much, at risk on january 6th. but if you asked me to choose, between a commission to figure out exactly what happened on january 6th and january 5th and january 7th. or a commission that would look at the abuse of the state department, which, of course, got donald trump impeached the first time. the abuse of the doj. and what else happened out there? i would choose the second. i would like to know, from soup to nuts, because we know that this president had every opportunity. used the tools of the american public, the -- the federal government for his own, personal gain. i want to know where that stopped and that -- that -- that may go beyond a select committee. >> so, as we played at the top

of the program, former attorney general william barr often seems fuzzy on recalling certain events. today, he told "politico" he was quote not aware of who we were looking at in any of the cases, end quote. and that then-president trump didn't ask specifics. so, do you buy that from bill barr? >> well, what we know about bill barr is that he was more than willing to break precedent, at the department of justice. to, as aron attorney general, actually act as the prime defender of donald trump. he, of course, did that with his letter describing the mueller report. which, then, mueller had to say, wait a minute, that's not what i said. so, you know, he's not a good -- he's not a particularly good source on this stuff. but -- but clearly, we're going to need to know, exactly, what happened. because it's not enough to say that we were looking for leaks. look. if -- if you tell me that a member of congress, you know, took $10 million from the russian government, in exchange for our nuclear codes. by all means, go after that guy. but that is not what is happening here. it's never happened, before. think about it.

there is an old saying that keeps going through my head. i think it was a new york judge who once commented that a skillful district attorney can get a jury to indict a ham sandwich. need to ask themselves if, under a democratic president, they would be comfortable with their being exposed and their children being exposed because some assistant-u.s. attorney tells a grand jury that we're going after the potential -- the potential -- of a leak, within republican members of the intelligence committee. it's outrageous that they are not joining us and standing up and saying this cannot stand. >> 73 phone accounts. 36 e-mail accounts. congressman himes, we appreciate you being with us tonight. >> thank you, john. next, what are law enforcement and intelligence professionals, both of whom were attacked by the former president, make of all this? and how far from the norm they believe this is. later, the current president -- the current president's overseas trip and what vladimir putin just said about the current president and, yes, the former one. ences,

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the white house weighed in on the breaking news today. press secretary jen psaki, mincing no words. >> first of all, an ig investigation looks into how this happened. how it could possibly happen. and let me be absolutely clear. the behavior, these actions, the president finds them absolutely appalling. he ran for president, in part because of the abuse of power by the last president and by the last-attorney general. >> joining us, now, former director of national intelligence and current cnn national security analyst, james clapper. also, cnn senior law enforcement analyst and former-deputy fbi

director, andrew mccabe, who knows what it is like to be targeted by the former president. and, andrew, the news leaked tonight, 76 phone numbers, e-mail addresses from apple. at least one subpoena to microsoft. we are talking to gloria and maggie and both agree it feels like, maybe, we are just at the beginning of learning about, you know, something even bigger. and potentially, even more troubling. what do you think? >> i think that's entirely possible. you know, it's death by a thousand cuts. we are just learning about these things, as they happen to dribble out because gag orders expire. and -- and service providers provide notification. but i want to put some context on this, for your viewers, john. this is so, wildly different from anything i ever experienced running many sensitive investigations. some of which, occasionally, involved members of congress. some of which were leak cases. this is, like, the equivalent of carpet bombing the house intelligence committee with

legal process. but, of course, only on one side of the aisle. so the way it was executed, to me, wreaks of political purpose. >> yeah. that's what we talk about when we talk about it being an un -- unprecedented. the scope and the size of it. and that's why there are, still, so many questions. despite that, director clapper, i mentioned earlier that republican chuck grassley has been in congress since 1975. said, today, that investigations into lawmakers and staff are nothing new. i get it. there are corruption investigations. we see them a lot. but secretly seizing communications data and the ranking member of the house intelligence committee to say nothing of family members that is really nothing new? >> well, i would disagree, profoundly, with senator grassley. yes, there have been, as andy can attest, there have been investigations of individual members of congress. normally, for suspicion of criminal activity. but not like this.

and the -- the sweeping nature of this. this is quite different. and i -- you know, shocking, stunning, but not surprising. we often find ourselves revelations of abuse of power by the trump administration. and i fear -- i'm sure, there is a lot more to this. and there will be other examples that are going to come out, over time. >> andy, i want to read another portion of "the new york times" reporting, which they say is part and parcel of the newly-revealed investigation into congressman schiff. and leaks in press reports that made donald trump look bad. quote, the white house was adamant that the sources be found and prosecuted. and the justice department began a broad look at national-security officials from the obama administration. that's according to five people, briefed on the inquiry. while most officials were ruled out, investigators opened cases that focused on mr. comey and his deputy, andrew g. mccabe, the people said, end quote. did you know you were under investigation, at that time? or whether your, personal data was seized?

you know, and by the way, we should note the former president was attacking you as recently as yesterday. >> yeah. you know, i mean, i knew i was -- i was a constant target of his. he was constantly saying defamatory and wildly false things about me and my family. it's been going on for years. like you said, it happened yesterday. but did i know, at the time, that i was the subject of a leak investigation? no, of course, i didn't know. you know, i have had the unfortunate experience of having to find these things out, as the last few years have played out in this nightmare. you know, i've -- i learned, in 2018, i got a notification, just like the ones we are learning about this week. i got a notification from my e-mail provider that they had received a court order for process on my account, a year earlier. and they had been prohibited from informing me about that for a year. so, you know, when those things happen, john, it's one thing to have the president tweet nasty things about you and you realize

like this guy really hates me and is coming after me and it's not letting up. but when you see that the machinery of the department of justice has been activated against you. and they are, actively, trying to throw you in jail. it is absolutely terrifying. >> so, director clapper, the former-attorney general bill barr told "politico" today that he doesn't recall being told the prosecutors in the justice department had subpoenaed apple for data from the accounts of these house democrats, along with their staff and family members. he doesn't recall. did you buy that? >> well, it's not the first time he's, at best, disingenuous. no, i don't buy it. >> andy, what do you think? >> i mean, come on. this is the guy who stood behind the podium at doj and -- and lied to the world about the substance of the mueller report. so, the -- his -- his answers to senator harris's question, in that clip that we've seen, many times, on tv today. you know, as -- as an investigator, as someone who's

interviewed and interrogated, you know, hundreds of people. he shows, like, every one of the signs of deception, in that answer. so, no, i don't take him at his word. >> director, how much faith do you put in this doj inspector-general investigation? >> well, i think, i -- i kind of agree with congressman himes. i think it's bigger than just doj and, of course, the -- the -- we're talking about the inspector general of the department of justice. and i think this is probably going to turn out to be far -- farther reaching than just one department of the government. i think we are going to find other examples of abuse like this. i think congressman himes had a great idea, although probably never happen, is some sort of outside commission. >> director james clapper, andrew mccabe, i thank you both for this. appreciate it. >> thanks, john. more on this investigation, in just a moment. and the comparisons that were almost immediately made between trump and another president, with an enemies list. richard nixon. watergate veteran carl bernstein

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revelations that the former president and his

administrationized the mechanisms of government to pursue perceived enemies to another disgraced former president, richard nixon, and his enemies list. one rather infamous memo written by then-white house counsel, john dean, in 1971 succinctly explained the purpose of that list. quote, stated a bit more bluntly, how we can use the available-federal machinery to screw our political enemies. i am joined, now, by a veteran of the watergate era. journalist and author and cnn political analyst, carl bernstein. carl, there is a lot we, still, don't know about this. but look. you know, the parallels, between the nixon enemy list and what we are, now, seeing from the former-trump administration. how apt are they? >> well, they are apt to the extent that nixon wanted to screw his political enemies. no question. so did donald trump. but trump's actions go far -- much farther than nixon's. and they're much more egregious

because trump is guilty of crimes against democracy. it is not just about screwing his enemies, it's about getting everything he wants for himself. for his own, political ends. for his own, financial gain. for his family. he would undermine the very basic premise of democracy, as would, now, a republican party. that is enthrall to donald trump and these kinds of activities. there's a conspiracy, an ongoing conspiracy, by trump and those around him. and the hierarchy of the republican party that is enthrall to undermine democracy. that's what this all fits together as. >> to your point, there is another, key difference between nixon and trump here, which is that, in the nixon era, there were republicans. >> that's exactly right. >> who stood up to richard nixon. >> not only stood up. i richard nixon was about to be impeached and convicted in the senate and forced to leave office. that's why he resigned. what do we have today? we have mitch mcconnell and

kevin mccarthy, who are co-conspirators of this attempt -- we have an intent to undermine democracy. look at what the republicans are doing to keep people from voting. to suppress voting. so that donald trump, or his acolytes, or this republican party, that is an authoritarian, undemocratic, un-republican party, what is the goal here? it is not to further democracy. it's undermine it. and trump's whole presidency is about crimes against democracy. >> you see a through line between -- you see a through line between, you know, this -- this doj investigation. the foreign events, rudy giuliani pressuring ukraine. >> roger stone. go through the whole list. >> the voting. you know, the undermining the elections. you see a through line there? >> absolutely. absolutely. this is, all, about doing donald trump's will against his enemies, for his political gain. for his financial gain. this -- this is not nixon.

nixon, indeed, wanted to screw his political enemies. nixon, indeed, was, you know, guilty of obstruction of justice. et cetera, et cetera. but this is a much larger notion of -- of satisfying every will and whim and their party enthrall to this, that will not stop this president, even now that he is out -- out of office. >> so where does it go? >> we don't know where it goes. but what we do know is that there is no leadership in the republican party. that is willing to say, except for liz cheney, except for mitt romney, a few more. it's not mcconnell. it's not kevin mccarthy. look. they have laid down, and the train is running over them. and the train is running over our democratic principles that have guided this country throughout our history. we have never had a political party that has tried to suppress votes, such as we are seeing now. we had the dixie-crats.

we had segregationist democrats who controlled and tried to keep black people from voting but most of the party did not go along with that. >> what can, or should, the current-justice department, under merrick garland, do? what can, or should, the current president joe biden do about this? because you don't think it's -- it's over. i mean, donald trump is the former president but you don't think this effort is over. >> no, i don't. it's obviously not over. all we have to do is listen to your show and anderson every night and what we put on the air and what we read in "the new york times" and "the washington post." look. what we ought to be doing, as journalists, particularly, we need to find out everything that happened in the trump presidency. in terms of its crimes against democracy, including the pandemic. homicidal negligence by a president of the united states. that figures in this, too. what was that homicidal negligence about and resulted in tens, hundreds of thousands of deaths? it was for his own political purposes. that's not nixon.

this is something far greater. and what the congress of united states, investigations, department of justice, yes. but it's going to be the press. to find out what, indeed, has happened to us. and this continuing line into the republican party, today. and this ongoing conspiracy of intent to undermine democracy. >> carl, we got about 25 seconds left. i want to bring it back to the beginning, at least where we were this week on it. i want your reaction when you read this story, initially, from "the new york times." about the scope of this investigation. >> well, look. it -- it's -- it's a fishing expedition. it is to find out sources of the leaks. why weren't these people looking to find out what the hell happened with russia what was their interest, so much, about leaks? and they're after the enemies. gone after schiff. gone after the democrats. who, indeed, led the russia investigation. it's patently obvious. i think, you know, we don't need

much more of a roadmap. >> carl bernstein, thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you. just ahead, there is more breaking news on this friday evening, as president biden meets economic allies on his first trip as president abroad. vladimir putin discusses his relationship with the u.s., and praise for the former president in his brand new interview days before the two men meet for their summit. the details when we continue. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google, turn up the heat. ♪ ♪ ♪ advanced non-small cell lung cancer can change everything. but your first treatment could be a chemo-free combination of two immunotherapies

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president biden, today, met with leaders from some of the world's biggest economies. g7 kickoff part of his first international trip abroad as president. but just a table setter for the highly anticipated meeting scheduled to occur next week with russia's vladimir putin. >> translator: even now, i believe that former-u.s. president, mr. trump, is an extraordinary individual. talented individual. otherwise, he would not have become u.s. president. president biden -- politics. just think of the number of

years he spent in the senate. a different kind of person. it is my great hope that, yes, there's advantages, some disadvantages but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of the sitting-u.s. president. >> our chief international correspondent, clarissa ward, is following biden and has the latest. >> so, clarissa, the fact that vladimir putin is heaping praise on donald trump. what kind of message does that send before he sits down with president joe biden? >> you know, i -- i lost track, at some point, john, of all the sort of adjectives he used to describe trump there. extraordinary, talented, colorful. you know, i think that president putin always likes to do is keep everybody on the back foot. keep everybody guessing, keep everybody anxious. i think he is signaling that this is not going to be an easy summit. he did, also, have some praise for president biden. but certainly, it's going to be a difficult conversation that

these two leaders are going to have. and it's not clear, yet, what real, substantive progress can be made from this very difficult conversation. and certainly, we're no closer to knowing that, based on the clip that we just heard of that interview. >> yeah. i have to say, the extraordinary gamesmanship before this summit even begins has been -- has been really remarkable. putin was, also, confronted with accusations that he's a killer. i want to play a clip of that. >> give you some names. poisoned. allegedly, beaten and died in prison. shot moments from the kremlin, moments from here. died of blunt trauma in washington, d.c. are all of these a coincidence, mr. president? >> translator: look. you know, i don't want to come across as being rude but this looks like some kind of indigestion, except it's verbal indigestion. you have mentioned many

individuals who, indeed, suffered and perished at different points in time for various reasons at the hands of different individuals. >> is putin used to being put on the spot like that? >> i think that he would have anticipated being put on the spot. doing an interview, like this. i don't think he would have been surprised by the tough nature of those questions. but i do think it interesting to see how he almost seems to enjoy his reputation in the west as keir simmons is reading out that list of all these opponents of the kremlin who have ended up dead, he starts out by laughing and then says listen to me, here is the deal and then goes on to talk about verbal indigestion. i'm not exactly clear what he means by that but does have this extraordinary ability, john, president putin to deny something at the same time as clearly enjoying the fact that this is a part of his reputation. >> the look on his face was something there. so what kind of message is president biden expected to try

to deliver at the summit? is he going to raise the issue of the poisoning and jailing of alexi navalny? >> reporter: he's made it abundantly clear he's going to raise all the issues he thinks are important and international human rights, the attempted murder of a dissident, very much falls under that preview. and president putin has said, this is off limits. we're not going to be discussing internal domestic russian political affairs. but we've heard from the white house, it doesn't matter whether he wants to talk about it, this will be raised. what does that achieve? where does that conversation go? what are the openings here? and, you know, as we heard today, cnn's matthew chance spoke to putin's press secretary and he said, listen, the reason for this entire summit is that relations are in such a poor state that really this meeting needs to happen in order to ensure that things do not degrade any further.

so it may be that really at its core, this is a summit which is designed not to deliver anything tangible or positive, but just to prevent things from deteriorating further, trying to find possibly some common areas that the two countries can work together onto prevent the relationship from being completely derailed, but i would not expect any positive news to come off this at all. >> you'll be watching. thank you very much. back here at home, a startling new report on the threatening text messages, voicemails and emails georgia's top election official, a republican, received as well as his family. all of it sparked by the voter fraud lies from the former president.

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another reminder now of how these are not normal political times and how much of the reason for it can be trace today the former president and his voter fraud lies. in this case, about losing the state of georgia. according to reuters, people are receiving threats.

and intimidation. in texts, e-mails and voice mails. the state's top election official says a family member's home was broken into. more from gary tuchman. >> one of the text messages said, you and your family will be killed very slowly. >> reporter: linda is a journalist who just wrote a story about the threat to election workers following donald trump's election loss. the text she read was sent to the wife of georgia's republican secretary of state, brad raffensperger. >> it came from a sender called raffensperger@revenge.us. a made up name that has been untraceable. trump made his disgust very clear. >> this was two days before the capitol insurrection. >> hello, georgia. by the way, there's no way we lost georgia.

there's no way. that was a rigged election. >> reuters reports the raffensperger family has received a constant stream of threatening texts for months. somebody in your is going to have a very unfortunate incident. that came from the address murder@raffensperger.com and please pray. bepray for the death of you and your family every day. i'm sorry. from america and jesus.com. the secretary of state and his wife made a decision to go into temporary hiding following the multitude of threats. after an intimidating housebreak-in that their daughter-in-law and grandchildren endured. >> she returned to her home one evening with her children to find that the garage door had been pulled up, the door leading to her house was open, all of the lights in the house had been turned on. items within the house had been moved around, but nothing was taken. >> reporter: many other election workers have been threatened. richard is the fulton county, georgia, elections director.

we talked to him as ballots were being processed and scanned. in the georgia presidential race at the time was too close to call. >> do you feel pressure on your shoulders? >> well, yes, because we want to make sure all of the votes count. >> reporter: election workers did their jobs well. but trump's lies resulted in the election's director receiving -- >> hundreds of phone calls, emails, threatening -- there was threatening hanging. there was one in particular that really alarmed him. a caller had said that they were planning on standing him before a firing squad and killing him. >> reporter: and here is the audio of one of those phone calls. >> i think you need a pair of handcuffs slapped on you. it's quite obvious the fraud that went on. why don't you come out and admit it. and quit jerking the american people around. just wondering how much they

paid you. when i'm done with you, you'll be in prison. >> reporter: the day after the capitol insurrection, cnn asked brad raffensperger what he would say to donald trump? >> obviously that's why i've said from day one, we have to be mindful of our speech. we can't play people and get them into emotional frenzy and an emotional state. deal with the facts. >> they spent a considerable amount of time away from their children since the election because of the threats. he's a conservative and can't believe what happened to their party. he says they need to clean up the backyard. and the country is bigger than one person. a clear reference to donald trump. >> has to keep his grandchildren safe. gary tuchman, thank you so much. before we go tonig