officials giving chairman nunes those intelligence reports at the white house. the breaking news continues on the fox news channel. thanks for staying with us. i'm sandra smith. here's shepard smith. >> shepard: it's noon on the west coast. 3:00 in d.c. where a mystery may now be solved. remember the republican intelligence chair devin nunes said that he met with a secret source at the white house to learn about possible surveillance? well, the new york times is now roarking it knows who helped him hook that up. and it turns out those two men work for the white house. plus, on capitol hill, lawmakers demanding answers about moscow's meddling in our election. >> the public deserves to hear the truth. >> russia sought to hijack or democratic process. >> shepard: what you need to

know about the major players in the russian investigation. president trump taking aim at his own party warning some conservatives are hurting his own party. now they're firing back. and paul ryan on why he's worried that president trump will abandon republicans andcro democrats! let's get to it. and good thursday afternoon. we begin with a bomb shell report and a potentially damning one involving the white house and the head of the house intelligence committee. "the new york times" is reporting the last 1 1/2 hours or so, that two white house officials helped give the republican chairman devin nunes intelligence reports that he then shared with president trump. but did not share with his own committee or for that matter as far as we know anyone else. according to the reporting of the times, one of those officials is michael ellis.

he's a lawyer that work on national security issues. he reportedly worked for the house intelligence committee. the second man is a 30-year-old named ezra watnick from the national security council. according to several reports, president trump saved his job after the national security advisor, lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster told colin watnick that he was moved to a different position. that apparently happened because of concerns that the man was too political, too pro trump. much of that pressure came from officials at the c.i.a. the white house refused to comment. a reporter reported that sean spicer last week when spicer himself said it would be ridiculous for the white house to given nunes the information. listen. >> there's reporting within the white house that they're sources of this. >> number 1, the first quote that you're reading, if you go

back, i was responding -- very clear that i said based on what chairman nunes has said. >> so there's something new since then. tell us -- >> i comment on this both yesterday and today. your obsession of who talked to whom and when is not the answer. it should be the substance. >> shepard: it's the substance but the process matters. remember, chairman nunes and his committee are conducting the house investigation into russian meddling in our election and possible collusion with trump officials. last week chairman nunes claimed he saw intelligence reports showing officials have -- may have incidentally monitored donald trump or his top aides. in other words, he tried to change the subject. chairman nunes held a news conference. after the briefing, president trump said he felt somewhat vindicated in making his false claim that the president ordered wiretapping at trump tower.

chairman nunes says that didn't happen. president obama did not order wiretapping. we learned about a secret meeting that nunes had on a white house grounds the night before. chairman nunes claimed he needed to be in a secure area. he refused to give up his sources. he's not denied that they came from inside the white house. his spokesman said as much today after the times report came out. all of this after the speaker of the house, paul ryan, told cbs told nunes that a whistle-blower gave him the info. >> he said a whistle-blower-type person gave him the information that was new that spoke to the last administration and part of this investigation. they briefed me about it. didn't know the content. only knew the nature of it and he would brief others. >> a whistle-blower-type person. clearly different from two men that work inside and for the white house.

the point here, as had long been suspected and the "new york times" reports, chairman nunes gave the white house cover with information provided by the white house and seen by in one else. nunes' actions have raised question. can he be impartial in this investigation or is he a white house schill? worth sides have called for an end investigation and democrats have questioned as he's served as a surrogate for the white house itself. john roberts live on the north lawn. starting to make more sense now. >> the pieces are slowly starting to come out, shep. you can call it a drip, drip if you'd like. every day we learn something more. i'll be honest with you, the names of ezra watnick and michael ellis have been known to us the past few days. we've had nobody to corroborate that information. nobody to say they were the people that were in fact

involved in letting chairman nunes into the eisenhower executive office building on march 21. now "the new york times" says that it has a couple of sources in government, american officials, who have confirmed that those were in fact people that were involved in getting chairman nunes the information. here's why the process is important in this particular case. it's the kind of affair of connecting the dots here. you'll remember the week before chairman nunes came out with the bomb shell, the president suggested something would come out next week. then you look at the idea that the information that is potentially exculpatory came from not outside the white house been on the inside the white house. one of the persons allegedly involved in getting the information to chairman nunes is somebody that works in the national security council, h.r. mcmaster wanted to remove from

his position but he was reportedly can't in the position by the president himself as pressure was brought to bear within the white house. i asked sean spicer about that connection earlier in the briefing. here's how the exchange went. >> it was reported that one of the people involved in the uncovering of the information is a white house staff member that was kept in his position over the request of the national security advisor by the white house. has it not taken on relevance? >> we've invited the chairman and reviewing the matter up here. that doesn't mean we allow uncleared members from the media -- >> that's not what i asked. i asked when you have that connection of dots, does the process -- does the providence of this information not become relevant? >> it's up to the people conducting the review to decide that. not for the people in this room. the people that are cleared to look at that information and that material to look at it and

make their evaluation. >> we reached out to the chairman of the house intelligence committee, devin nunes' office to get reaction, particularly the names that have come out. i was told by a spokesman, chairman nunes will not confirmed or deny speculations about his sources identity. interesting to note, shep, the briefing is always delayed by about ten minutes, sometimes 15 minutes, longer if there's news that was breaking. it was delayed a half hour today. at the top of the briefing before he opened it to questions, sean spicer said the white house has developed some information that was uncovered -- that was relevant to the information into russia and to unauthorized leaks and it had sent a letter to the chairman of the ranking members of the house and the senate intelligence committees offering them the opportunity to come down here and view that

information. secretary spicer wouldn't say if that information was germane. >> shepard: remember what this is about. the russians interfered in our election, worked to hurt hillary clinton's chances of becoming president and help donald trump's chances of becoming president. that's established. that's a fact. now they're investigating how they did it and whether members of team trump helped them. president trump declaring war on the freedom caucus today. the president saying republicans should not back them in next year's mid terms if they don't fall in line. president trump tweeting this morning, the freedom caucus will hurt the entire republican agenda if they don't get on the team and fast. we must fight them and the dems in 2018. fight the freedom caucus and the dems. if you don't have either the freedom caucus or some dems, you can't do anything. but the freedom caucus is the same group that refused to get

on board with the gop plan to repeal and replace obamacare. the president said monday the house freedom caucus managed to snatch defeat away from the jaws of victory. members of the caucus are not taking it on the chin. the michigan republican, justin amash said it didn't take long for the swamp to drain donald trump. mr. shame, mr. president. almost everyone succumbs to the d.c. establishment. he said maybe bullying works in the fifth grade but it doesn't work in d.c. and then there's jim jordan, one of the founders of the freedom caucus. he told fox news the problem with healthcare wasn't the caucus. the problem with healthcare was the products that the republicans put on the table. >> we appreciate the president. we're trying to help the president. the fact is, you have to look at the legislation. doesn't do what we told the voters would do and the american people understand that. let's forget the blame and what

may happen in the future. let's do what we said and what republicans are committed to. >> for republicans, this presidential generated civil war comes as congress faces its next big test. a deadline to avoid a government shut down is less than a month away. john roberts at his post, this is quite a thing. >> yes. interesting that the president declared war on the freedom caucus. these days in capitol hill, the house freedom caucus is not particularly popular. they think they botched repeal and replace of obamacare. for the president to engage in this strategy may be risky. you saw what justin amash said from michigan a little while ago. i asked john spicer if he would like to respond to that. listen here. >> can you take a moment to respond, was the president trying to bully the freedom caucus? >> no. this is consistent with

everything that he's said since friday of last week. i think that he is looking for members on both sides of the aisle that want to achieve the goals of patient centric healthcare system. that's it. his comments and tweets speak for themselves with respect to how he feels and why. >> is this the divide an conquer strategy? >> it's a mass strategy to pass an effort and continue to move the agenda forward. >> clearly a divide and conquer strategy. a number of the house freedom caucus that feel very confident that they'll get re-elected in 2018. a lot of members of the same caucus that don't what to be primaried in 2018 and may fold and come to the president's side. they're trying to peel off members that might be ripe for the picking. >> john roberts busy at the white house. thank you. remember, the investigation now. there's the criminal investigation that's been conducted by the fbi, there's the house investigation that is chaired by chairman nunes though it's not doing much of anything

and then there's the senate intelligence committee which is investigating. they're hard at work. one committee member said it's the biggest investigation of his career. what they have now found and why they say it can happen again. that's coming up from the fox news desk on this thursday afternoon.

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does not take action against russia for meddling in america's presidential election, it will happen again. that is from the top democrat on the senate armed services committee speaking at the panel's first investigation. the vice chairman mark warner said the investigation is not about party politics at all. this is about clearly understanding and responding to what he calls a very real threat. >> this is not innuendo or false allegations. this is not fake news. this is absolutely what happened to us. russia continues these sorts of actions as we speak. some of our close allies in europe are experiencing the same problem. >> shepard: senator warner said among other methods, russia weaponized, hacked information from democratic officials and

used propaganda on steroids to poison the american political conversation. he said moscow deployed thousands of internet trolls of a network of online bots with disinformation potentially influencing millions of americans. we reported earlier a separate investigation in the house of representatives is tangled up a mess of postponed hearings and political bias. vice chairman warner said that he and richard burr a gee that their investigation must be credible, bipartisan and must be as transparent as humanly purpose. he said the public deserves to understand how russia interfered, that they did so is not in dispute. the question is how did they do it. he called moscow's tack ticks information warfare.

>> these efforts were meant to weaken the west and they're not new. you will learn today that our community has been a target of russian information warfare, propaganda and cyber campaigns and still is. >> shepard: the senate intelligence committee hearing is underway right now with witnesses including former national security director, keith alexander. we'll listen in the there's major developments. first, let's get to catherine herridge live in washington. catherine? >> the witnesses testified that the russian cyber campaign did not end with the election and moscow continues to use propaganda after the failed healthcare vote. chief alexander said the u.s. must make moscow there's

consequences for messing with the u.s. >> we have to engage them and confront in areas that we can, set up the right path, reach out and cool this down. i really do. we have to fix that. at the same time, we have to let them know what things they can't do and why they cannot do them. set those standards. >> the obama administration levelled sanctions against russia last year. but fox news said the russians viewed that as a slap on the wrist and sending a shipment would have been more effective because would have frustrated putin's land grab in that district. >> shepard: what about future hearings? >> they're indicating this is one of the few public hearings. >> some of the intelligence provided to the committee is extremely sensitive and requires that most of the work be done in a security setting to maintain

the integrity of the information. >> i want to make clear that this information is not about whether you have a d or an r next to your name. it is not about relitigating last fall's election. >> next week a senate intelligence committee will be interviewing witnesses but that will be in private. >> shepard: thank you. katherine sat down with one of the men at the center of the trump-russia investigation. his name is carter paige. he's the man that president trump described as his foreign policy advisor in the campaign. the white house dismisses paige. almost summarily as they put it, an unimportant person that never even met the president. congressional committees have asked carter page to preserve any and all materials related to the investigation.

>> did you work with the russians? >> absolutely not. i did nothing that could even be possibly viewed as possibly helping them in any way. >> did you work with the russians to hurt the clinton campaign. >> absolutely not. >> were you paid by the russians? >> last year i was paid zero by the russians. >> were you paid monies that were through a third party that was connected to russia? >> in no way shape or form. >> shepard: a look at carter page and the other officials that could be on the hot seat on capitol hill coming up.

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>> shepard: there's breaking news now on fox news channel. we just got word, live pictures on capitol hill. this is where we watch people coming and going. we just learned from our senior producer on capitol hill that adam schiff, the co-chairman of the house intelligence committee investigating the russian meddling in our election and whether there was collusion between team trump and the russians, that vice chairman is about to speak. he was not scheduled to speak. now we know he's going to. he's going to speak in 4 1/2 minutes, i'm told, right there at that camera and give us new information from the house intelligence committee. so obviously we'll have that for you live. it's coming up now 4 1/2 minutes from now. as the feds and multiple congressional committees investigate russirussia's involt in the election, they're looking at the president's team. among those, current and former associates of the president who

had contact with russian officials that we can't explain or who have had done business with the russians that we don't understand over the past couple years. peter doocy has that on capitol hill. some of these people have volunteered to come speak to congress, right? >> right. so far, shep, three of these people have volunteered their testimony and are still waiting to hear back whether or not they're wanted. one person has been invited to speak and accepted. that is jared kushner. he joined the fold when he married daughter ivanka. he met with a russian banker that has taken american sanctions in the past. one of the people that has volunteered and has not heard back from the committee is carter page. he's connected to the campaign because he was listed on a press release as a foreign policy

adviser. president trump said he doesn't know who he is. the reason his name is tied to it is because of a trip that he took to russia before the election. it's not cleared if he will be called to testify. another person that wants to talk to lawmakers, roger stone. the long-time informal political advisor to president trump who again not invited here yet, but he was alluded to for past comments that seemed to foreshadow pasted hacked e-mails. >> in individuals associated with the trump campaign accur e accurately predicted hacked e-mails weeks before it happened, this same individual also admits to being in contact with the russian intelligence persona responsible for these cyber operations. >> the investigation here on the senate side is expected to take a long time, shep. one of the top officials say

they don't know for sure if it will be wrapped be up the time the 2018 mid-terms come around. >> shepard: what about the man that used to be the campaign manager, close with team trump, paul manafort. >> right. so during the campaign this summer, he had the highest ranking title of anybody whose name is swirling around here. he's in charge of making sure there's not a conservative revolt and he was in charge of the entire campaign. he did a lot of business in the ukraine and his bank records are being looked at in separate outside investigations with a fine tooth comb. manafort's lawyer said that he will talk if asked. manafort has denied coordinating anything fishy with the russians. he too is waiting to hear back if they want him. >> shepard: peter doocy on scene for us. thanks. we're waiting for congressman schiff to give the new briefing on intelligence from the house intelligence committee. we're waiting for that. more on our top story now. the white house not confirms and

not denying that two white house officials helped give chairman nunes those controversial intelligence reports. the new york times broke the story about two hours ago as the senate intelligence committee is holding their first public hearing on russia. now to aaron zitner from the "wall street journal." if these documents came from inside the white house, that would suggest to one and all they got documents from the white house, gave to it a friendly to give the white house cover. that's not a fair and impartial arbiter, is it? >> that's right. if the public comes to see devin nunes, what will be the value of any findings that that committee puts into the public after they have done their work. will anyone believe them? but shep, i don't see any sign that republican leadership is ready to move away from

mr. nunes and ask him to recuse himself. i don't know why today's events would change that. >> shepard: i don't either. but as journalists, one of the things you look for, you try to find the things away from which people are running. if you're trying to find out information about something and they're running away from this person or that event and won't say anything or do anything, usually you want to dig there. it's that spot or that piece that will help you understand. they're running from the characters that we talked about, running from paul manafort and running from this thing about devin nunes. if this information didn't come to the white house, you know what they could say? we don't know where it came from, but didn't come from the white house. they haven't said that and that makes bells go off, doesn't it? >> looks like it did come from the white house. one thing we've been watching carefully is how paul ryan is playing this. two days ago, he said that devin

nunes is the man for the job. but he said it mildly. today paul ryan had his usual thursday press conference. he spoke about the work of the house intelligence committee and said this has gotten political but he didn't take the opportunity to embrace mr. nunes or support him fully and publicly. we'll see what happens. at some point they might want to make a change. >> shepard: because one thing is known and obvious and none of this changes any of it, president obama did not order a wiretapping at the white house. every single person including chairman nunes has confirmed this. every intelligence agency. it did not happen. that we're spending all of this time talking about it makes for a distraction, which is a nice thing for the white house. >> that's right. this is a battle over what the public should pay attention to and what the focus of these committees should be, whether it should be as james comey said in public testimony, an fbi

investigation into potential coordination, that was his word, between the trump campaign and the russians. >> thanks, aaron. we're going to take a quick commercial break. chairman schiff is about to hold a news conference. and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis.

>> shepard: a fox report now. headlines from the fox news channel. north carolina lawmakers rolled back the law, the so-called bathroom bill. the one that requires people to use bathrooms to match their birth certificate. the reason it happened was sports leagues and companies boycotted the state and cost north carolina billions. the governor is set to sign the bill. police in canada investigating an explosion outside a courthouse in saskatchewan. the hand-made bomb went off around 11:00 p.m. police say the explosion caused minor damage. nobody hurt. and bear alert! a new video shows a bear sneaking off with a snack in a neighborhood outside los angeles.

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>> shepard: the house intelligence vice chairman, congressman schiff is a few minutes late for his news conference. we're expecting new information on the how investigation into the russia connection. we'll go there when it happens. house speaker paul ryan urging president trump not to work with democrats on healthcare after they failed to pass their obamacare replacement bill in the house. speaker ryan says the two parties want different things. >> if we're going to do what we said we would do, is repeal and replace obamacare and save the american healthcare system, something tells me the democrats are not going to help us. they created it in the first place. >> shepard: but a healthcare plan on which the entire

republican party can agree will be hard to come by. today an ally of president trump spokes to our capitol hill producer about it. he claimed healthcare reform is dead. healthcare reform is dead for now. and said moderates will never meet with the conservative house freedom caucus. the president blamed the group on the right and the group on the more moderate, on the left of them at least from the tuesday group. said they were moderates an conservatives against it. how many against it? we think 28 or 30. they say it was this close. it was not. all of this as it plays out, the threat of a government shut down looms in the background. the federal government is set to run out of funding in a month unless lawmakers can agree on a new spending package. mike emanuel with a look at that. what do the top democrats say about healthcare today?

>> shep, leader pelosi called on her fellow democrats to continue to resist efforts to repeal and replace obamacare. pelosi says republicans hurt their credibility by trying to pass their healthcare package last week. >> not only going to show they lose on their vote, shows they do not share the values of the american people. it hurt their reputation. they did themselves so very serious damage. >> there's buzz here along lawmakers whether the healthcare package could make a comeback last week. speaker ryan did not want to set another deadline, shep. >> shepard: adam schiff speaking with the new information on the russian investigation. >> the letter asked that the committee look into whether these materials were properly gathered, whether they were properly masked or unmasked and properly disseminated.

all matters which are within the ordinary course of the committee's responsibilities. we have sent the white house to supply. i'm more than willing to go to the white house to reveal the materials. i made clear in my letter that it will be ultimately necessary to share the materials with the full committee and we will need their cooperation as well to work with the agencies that have custody over the original documents. when analyzing questions of whether something is properly the subject of incidental collection or whether it was properly unmasked or the distribution list is appropriate, that isn't possible to do without consulting the agencies to find out how the materials were gathered and why there was a need to know in case any unmasking of names. this is not something that is going to be apparent on the face of the documents. it's also not something that i think either chair or ranking member alone can somehow adjudicate. i did express in my reply to

white house council, my profound concern with the way to details are being made to the committee. on the same day, "the new york times" broke the story that the source of the materials provided to the chairman is national security council staff and in a letter from the white house council that national security council staff found these materials in the ordinary course of business. now that time concerns me. if in fact the national security council staff that discovered these materials reportedly in the ordinary course of business are the same national security staff that provided them to the chairman to be provided to the president, it raised the profound question why they were not directly provided to the white house by the national

security staff. if that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the white house is doing that need to be answered. i've asked the white house for their assistance in answering those questions as well. the third point i want to make in addition to what will be necessary to answer the questions the white house has asked us to look at in terms of the procedures, we will look into that, we want to find out also if in fact these are the same materials or a subset of the same materials earlier provided to the chairman. why that method to use a diplomatic term was i'm employed to provide them to the committee. finally, i want to make clear as well. this issue is not going to distract us from doing our russian investigation. if that's the object, we're not

successful. we're going to look into everything the russians did to influence the election. we're not going to be deterred or distracted. issues of incidental collection and are part of our ordinary oversight. we will oversee them. we're going to get to the bottom of just what the russians did and how they did it. whether there was any coordination or any collusion with u.s. persons including those with the trump campaign. that work is going to go on regardless. i'm happy to answer any of your questions. >> can you clarify for us, the ordinary course of business, the national security council staff discovered documents? you don't know if they're the same documents if the chairman reviewed on white house grounds last week? >> none of us have anyway of knowing. only the white house knows the answer to that question. we should ask them. i have to say it's highly concerning to me that on the same day that this "new york

times" story reports -- i don't know whether "the new york times" sources are accurate about whether the two people mentioned in the story. but the fact that sean spicer yesterday had no idea who may have been involved in that review by the chairman, today they suddenly do raises a lot of difficult questions for the white house. again, we need to get to the bottom of the same staff that discovered the materials according to the white house were trying to use a method of delivering them back to the president. that obviously would be deeply disturbing. >> you say you won't be distracted by all of this. that appears to be a case. your investigation is ground to a halt because of all of these questions and because of politics. how can the american public still have confidence in the investigation. >> there's no question that

there is a cloud over over the investigation as a result of the way the materials were provided if indeed we're talking about the same documents here. what i'm saying is -- and i speak for the democrats on the committee. i hope i speak for the republicans on the committee. we're determined to go forward whoever obstacles are put in our way. i've been very strange about what i consider some of the conflicts here. ultimately it's up to the speaker that conducts this investigation on the gop side. i can only be responsible for what we do on the democratic side. we're not going to be distracted. we're going to continue to call it we have the representations of the majority that they will supported the witnesses before the committee. we're going to go forward. as significant as this is now,

there's just no way we can allow the investigation to be deterred from the much more important issues at stake. >> when you met with mr. nunes today, did he reveal anything about the source of the information, whether the white house had any involvement getting on the white house grounds or the two names of -- "the new york times" and michael ellis being involved? >> we didn't get into any level of detail on that issue. our focus in our conversation was how do we go forward in terms of the witnesses that we want to testify, how do we go forward in terms of the hearings that we had scheduled that were cancelled and getting the hearings back on track. that was the length and the breadth of our discussion. as i mentioned earlier, obviously not an easy conversation at the moment. but, you know, this work has to

go on. i'm prepared to work with whoever i need to to make sure that we get to the bottom line here. >> i want to clarify one thing. is there any impact, any headway in bringing the director for the fbi back? is there any progress on resolving -- >> you know, i wouldn't say we're we holding anything. we signed the letter that the chairman wanted. we've invited directors comey and rogers to come back and testify in closed session. we presented a letter for the chairman inviting sally yates, clapper and brennan back. the chairman has yet to sign that letter. i hope he was. i think that would be in the interests of the public. the white house has made clear now they want sally yates to testify. we want sally yates to testify. i think she's prepared to

testify. so the only obstacle at this point is the signature of the chairman. we hope to get that. >> you wrote a letter first or they wrote a letter from the white house? >> the white house counsel wrote a letter to us that i think the president's press secretary referred to in his press conference. we received that effectively simultaneous with him announcing it during the press conference. the chairman and i were -- in response to questions i raised to review these materials. again, we've accepted. i'll read them and look forward to it. its going to be necessary for the full committee to look at this, not just the ranking and chair and we'll need the support of the agencies because they will be about how the information was gathered and the

procedures involved. >> would you do this in the same format the chairman would, the format he saw and what setting the white house saw these, would you do that in the same format or is that unknown? >> i have no idea what format the chairman viewed them. one of the questions i asked the white house in my letter is are these the same materials. of course, if these are the same materials or anything subset of them are the same materials, why weren't they present ed. so certainly raises more questions than it answers. among the most significant, are these the same white house staff that reported discovered them in

the ordinary course of business. if they are, they just walked down the hall or across the plaza and they can present it to the white house staff at any time. why all the cloak and dagger stuff. i hope we get the white house cooperation there. >> so is there a timeline? >> i'm ready to go any time. >> weekend, friday? >> i'm happy to go tomorrow. if they're ready tomorrow, i'm ready tomorrow. >> do you think that the house ethics committee should be investigating this matter? >> i don't know the answer on the classification issue. i don't want any involvement in any ethics questions. you know, i have an investigation to try to run as the minority ranking member and i'm keeping my focus on that. that's not an issue i want to

get into. >> what is the way forward? how do you see it? >> you know, we certainly had a hiatus from the hearings this week. at the same time, the work didn't stop. we were in the process and still are of reviewing, you know, the quite voluminous materials as well as developing our witness list. we have finalized an initial witness list. the way these investigations work, you start out with a set of witnesses to interview first and that leads you to more witnesses. we did discuss about whether we could come to agreement on the witnesses we both want to bring in. i think that we made a lot of progress on that score. at the same time, we had a long discussion about the hearing that was cancelled and how to get that hearing scheduled once again. it is my hope that the chairman

will reschedule the hearing that he postponed. according to the chair, the only hold-up was he wanted to have this closed hearing first. so we'll have the closed hearing first. that will remove any obstacle to going forward with the hearing we committed to doing. >> [question inaudible] >> i don't know when that will happen. >> were there any concerns -- i know you talked about sally yates and republicans not wanting her to testify. are you aware of any other concerns from the c.i.a. as relates to john brennan or the other witnesses the administration expressed concerns about them testifying in an open hearing? >> no, i'm not aware of any concerns about that. directors clapper and brennan have testified frequently in open session. i think senator king said it articulately today, how important it is that this investigation be done not just in private but public.

i think he's right to point out, if we do this entire investigation in private and ultimately we reach a conclusion, even if we're able to agree on the conclusion. it's not going to have the public's confidence. if they're not part of this investigation, they're not read into as much as they can be read into, they're not going to have much confidence. it's doing to look like some back room deal. so we need to be sure that as much of this we can do publicly we should. obviously a lot of it we can't do publicly and of necessity. there's no rest why sally yates can't tough in public. yeah. >> speaker ryan said the chairman told him that the whistle-blower-type of person did it. [inaudible] >> you know, certainly doesn't sound at all like i would consider a whistle-blower. we have procedures to whistle-blowers to come to the committee. when they come to the committee, they are protested and provide

whatever materials and information they have. and they're protected. that procedure wasn't followed here. if we're talking about not people from the agencies and whether the times has it right or has it wrong. if we're talking about national security council staff, they can go to white house council. they're already mechanisms and places that they can go to share this information. if the object here was to give it to somebody to give to it the president, makes it more bewildering that wasn't taken to the president, particularly if one of those individuals is the director of intelligence at the national security council. they have frequent access to the president. they don't need our chairman to deliver something that they can deliver themselves. obviously -- so to me, this looks like nothing like a whistle-blower case. and again, the white house needs

to answer. this is a case in which they wish to effectively launder information through our commit toy to avoid. that question the white house needs to answer. >> [question inaudible] >> we've been a bit overtaken by events during the day. we have our witness list, they have theirs. so we have exchanged witness lists. my understanding is there was a lot of common agreement and we may have something more to say by the end of the day. frankly as in every day in this investigation, you wake up and you think it's one kind of day and turns out to be a different day. that is something that we're still focused on and we'll

to resolve it. >> you mentioned "the new york times" story. [inaudible] >> well, i certainly think we need to get to the bottom of whether this was some strategy by the white house. obvious ly that would be deeply concerning to us. if it's necessary for us to interview these two individuals, then we should do so. i have to say i'm more than perplexed by how these materials have been put forward and the motivation behind it. and i think that the white house has a lot of questions to answer. so we're going to do our best to find out. >> shepard: adam schiff is the vice chairman of the house intelligence committee. i want to explained what happened. 1:15, "the new york times" comes out with a report giving names of those that gave the

information to chairman nunes of the house intelligence committee. "the new york times" reports that is michael ellis and ezra cohen watnick, the directed tour of intelligence for the national security council. they have access to the president. the white house press briefing was supposed to follow. they delayed it a half hour. they wanted to delay it because sean spicer reading about this letter sent to adam schiff saying that we have these documents, you can come look at them. so whatever they were trying to keep people from knowing about, which clearly they were because they wouldn't give up whether the information came from the white house that will be more transparent. adam schiff suggesting that he believes the reason they may have done it, the white house needs to answer questions about, whether they were trying to get this information to the committee and as he put it launder it through the committee rather than allowing people to flow the source of the information. michael ellis and ezra cohen

watnick of the national security council, this is about information that devin nunes saw from those two at the eisenhower executive building. this is names of people caught up with a fisa surveillance of foreign players. who is that? we can't know for sure because they can't talk on the record. here's what we believe has happened. we believe that sergey kislyak, the ambassador to the united states from russia, a known russian spy and recruiter in washington, that he was under surveillance. if you're a russian spy, you're under surveillance. that's a normal course of events. so whoever he spoke to would be caught up in incidental contact. everything he says on the phone or online, everything is collected by our security

apparatus, by our intelligence sources. if he talked to you, then you would have been caught up. incidentally in this security. so the thinking is that we're not sure about this, we'll know soon enough, the thinking is these two guys gave to it devin nunes and said here there's some people caught up in incidental collection here. they made that a sort of look over here, look over here, don't pay attention to the fact that the question is whether there was collusion between team trump and the russians. no decision has been reached on that. there's a criminal investigation into congressional investigations. that's a question. why give this paperwork in this clandestined way to devin nunes when the two members of the national security council could have gone to the president. the democratic congressman says they did it, they want to know if they did it because what they were trying to do is launder that information through this committee so nobody found out what the real source of the information was. it's a bit of a washington, you know, tangled web.

they'll get to the bottom of, they assure us. should news break out, we'll break in. the dow is up on the session and "your world" with neil cavuto is coming up right now. >> all right. that ranking membership is still speaking to reporters right now. we're monitoring that. if it's supposed to dissuade buyers and investors think that this could be a side soap opera, this big healthcare redo in washington, a funny way of showing it. i'm neil cavuto. you're watching "your world." there's a disconnect with the obsession going on in washington and what average folks at home want to see. apparently three out of four of you want a fair tax system. here's the thing. you want it now. the other thing, washington is caught up in