the liquor store. give me a break. i'm harris faulkner. tomorrow, the big hearing. james comey takes the stand. we'll have special live coverage all day long. here's shep. >> shepard: the comey statement released. it's noon on the west coast. 3:00 in washington. now we know what the former fbi director james comey plans to say tomorrow under oath on capitol hill. the president of the united states demanded his loyalty, he will testify. he re-assured the president the feds were not investigating him personally at the time. we'll go through the prepared remarks ahead. also, extraordinary moments today on capitol hill as senators quiz the intelligence officials about how president trump handled the russia investigation. >> would it be in any way typical for a president to ask questions or bring up an ongoing fbi investigation? >> are you prepared to say you

never felt or you have never been asked by the president or the white house to influence an ongoing investigation? >> by what legal standard did they refuse to answer? there was none. analysis this hour. the testimony during a hearing on a law which authorizes surveillance of foreign agents and sweeps up americans communications. >> have there been any instances involving a deliberate or intentional compliance violation? >> you'll hear from our own judge andrew napolitano on that and why he says americans are spied on more than anybody anywhere else ever. let's get to it. he demanded loyalty. he demanded loyalty and we simply looked at each other in silence. a line from the prepared remarks of the now former fbi director james comey. he's scheduled to tell congress tomorrow that during a private dinner at the white house, the

president said "i need loyalty." i expect loyalty. comey will testify i didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. we simply looked at each other in silence. comey says he later pledged honest loyalty and moved on. at another point, comey's statement indicates the president asked him to stop investigating the former national security adviser michael flynn. james comey is set to appear before the senate panel to discuss the investigation into the trump team ties to russia and the events leading up to his firing. comey said the president asked him if he wanted to stay on as director at the fbi and he believes the president invited him to have that dinner to have comey ask to keep his job. comey said he told the president as he had before, that he intended to stay and serve out the rest of his ten-year term. the former fbi director details a meeting that he had with

president trump in the oval office in february, the day after the president fired michael flynn for lying about his conversations with the russians. director comey says he and other top officials briefed the president on counter terrorism issues and after the briefing ended, the president asked the fbi director to stay behind. the two men alone in the room. comey writes once he and the president were alone, he told the fbi director, i want to talk about michael flynn. james comey says reince priebus interrupted the conversation and left the two men alone again. the former fbi director writes "the president then returned to the topic of mike flynn saying he's a good guy. he's been through a lot." he repeated that flynn had not done anything wrong on his calls with the russians but misled the vice president and then he said i hope you can see your way of letting this go, letting flynn go. he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go.

comey replied that "he is a good guy. in fact, i had a positive experience dealing with mike flynn when he was a colleague as director of the defense intelligence agency. i did not say i will let this go." james comey also writes the president during a phone call on march 30, asked him to find a way to make public that the fbi was not investigating him, at least at that time. director comey said the president described the russian matter as a cloud that was hurting his ability to do his job. the former fbi director says the president followed up with him in early april. comey writes on the morning of april 11, the president asked me what i had done about his request that i asked him to "get out" that he's not personally under investigation. i replied that i passed his request to the acting attorney general but he did not hear back. he replied that the cloud was

getting in his way of his ability to do his job. he said perhaps he would have his peach reach out to the acting deputy attorney general. he writes, that was the way his request should be handled. i said the white house counsel should contact the leadership of the doj to make the request, which was the traditional channel. james comey writes he told the president on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation. that is consistent with a letter the president wrote to james comey telling him he was fired. the president has admitted the russia investigation was on his mind when he made that decision. president trump has denied pressuring james comey to drop the flynn investigation. he's also denied any collusion with the russians. testimony the testimony. today the fox news season capitol hill producer chad pergram is live with us. there's a high level of detail here. >> that seems to be the most remarkable part. you get into the dates of when these conversations happen but

who else was in the room, how many people were there, who came and went. there's one part that they talked about reince priebus, the chief of stuff coming and going and a grandfather clock in an office at the white house where there's meetings. the dinner, the famous dinner where comey sat there sphinx like. it's unheard of when you get this level of detail with the former fbi director and the president of the united states. that's what's so interesting in this document that just came out a little over an hour ago. >> shepard: this matter that take it public that i'm not under investigation, is that a dicey area for the president? >> it does seem there's a fine line that comey was walking there. he doesn't say overtly that there wasn't obstruction of justice. he doesn't say there was interference without getting into legalese. there could be a fine line

there. that wasn't alluded to directly here. i want to hit on one key paragraph here. he said that apparently trump said, you know, we drop any investigation of flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the russian ambassador in december. i did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into russia or possible links to his campaign. you have some interpretation here based on what the former fbi director thought and what the president might have thought. that's the part that we don't know. >> full screen number 9 in the booth. this last matter, i wanted to run this by you, chad. quoting from the prepared testimony. he said he would do that and added "because i have been very loyal to you, very loyal, we had that thing, you know. i did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing." what is that? >> that's the question that there was this dinner in late january where the president asked for loyalty.

comey sad there sphinx-like as i said. that is one of the key things, what this interpretation was. that's one of the lines of questions that you'll hear from senators. when you get into these big hearings, we don't have many of these like this on capitol hill, people will remember one crystallizing moment. it may be something from this testimony. think back to other big hearings over the years. what did the president know and what did he know it. have you no sense of decency, sir. there will be a moment tomorrow much like that. everybody might forget everything else that james comey says, but that will be the moment that is crystallized for history. >> shepard: this idea of obstruction of justice, that's one thing in a criminal court. it's another thing in a congress with your own party officiating, if you will. it's a very gray area, is it not? >> right. that's why the statement by comey was probably written so

carefully. you're going to have members of this committee, some of whom are attorneys press him on that. if james comey is to appear before another committee, the senate judiciary committee would love to have james comey up here, they'll pry him on that. he's been up here a number of times the past several months and are those things that these briefings and is there any inconsistency in what he said then and what is in this statement tomorrow and what else might be said tomorrow. >> shepard: on the main, from what you've read here today, anything jump out as a surprise or red flag? >> yeah, i thought the part here where he said to flynn -- he said to the president, comey said to the president, there's this cloud. he wanted to get this taken care of. that was the issue that seems to be the most prominent there. this walking the fine line about whether or not there was interference or obstruction of

justice. it's not overt in that, but it is implied. >> shepard: chad pergram, thank you. much more on james comey's expected testimony. we know about his planned statement. what else might be the senators inquire about? if today was any indication, we shouldn't expect many softballs from either side. we'll look at some of the most dramatic moments in today's testimony, including questions, the answers, the deflections regarding senate intelligence leaders on capitol hill. it is one of many days for the history books to come from the fox news deck on this wednesday afternoon. we asked a group of young people when they thought they should start saving for retirement. then we asked some older people when they actually did start saving. this gap between when we should start saving and when we actually do is one of the reasons why too many of us aren't prepared for retirement.

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>> shepard: two of america's top intelligence officials have refused to say whether the president asked them to play down the investigation into the team trump ties to russia. this happened hours ago during a senate intelligence committee hearing on capitol hill. it was supposed to focus on the surveillance of foreign intelligence targets. the russia matter became a big topic of discussion. lawmakers grilled dan coats and the nsa director, mike rogers, about reports that the president asked them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence that the trump team coordinated with the russians. there's not been a denial. director coats and admiral

rogers say they never felt pressured to interfere in the russia investigation but refused to testify publicly about any conversations with president trump on that matter. here's a line of questioning from the republican senator marco rubio. listen. >> are you prepared to say that you have never been asked by the president or the white house influence an ongoing investigation? >> senator, i just hate to keep repeating this, but i'm going to do it. i'm willing to come before the committee and tell you what i know and what i don't know. what i'm not willing to do is to share what i think is confidential information that ought to be protected in an open hearing. so i'm not prepared to answer your question -- >> director coats, with incredible respect, i'm not asking for classified information. i'm asking whether or not you have ever been asked by anyone to influence an ongoing investigation. >> i understand. i'm not going down that road in

a public forum. i also was asked a question if the special prosecutor called upon me to meet with him to ask his questions. i said i would be willing to do that. >> i stand by my previous comment. >> admiral rogers and director coats said they were unsure of what they could reveal to the committee. they said they needed to consult with the white house to determine whether the president will use his executive privilege to stop them from testifying about conversations with him. here's another line of questioning from the independent senator that normally caucuses with the democrats, angus king. >> why are you not answering these questions? is there an invocation by the president of the united states of executive privilege? is there or not? >> not that i'm aware of. >> why are you not -- >> because i feel it's inappropriate. >> what you feel isn't the answer. the question is why are you not answering the questions? is it an invocation of executive

privilege? if there is, let's know about it. if there isn't, answer the questions. >> i stand by the comments i made. i'm not repeating myself, sir. i don't mean that in a contentious way. >> i do mean it in a contentious way. mr. coats, same thing what is your refusal to answer the questions today? >> the answer is what i previously explained. i don't believe it's appropriate -- >> i'm not satisfied with i do not believe it's appropriate or i don't feel i should answer. i want a legal basis. you swore that oath to tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and today you're refusing to do so. what is the legal basis for your refusal to testify to this committee? >> i'm not sure i have a legal basis. >> legal experts say he doesn't. >> catherine herridge is at today's hearing, or was. joins us live from capitol hill. if you thought this was going to be highly partisan, it wasn't. republicans were getting after

this, too. >> one of the big moments and very dramatic moments came when the ranking democrat, senator mark warner, really pressed the nsa director on whether there had been pressure from the president to down play the fbi russia case. >> in the three plus year that's been the director of the national security agency, to the best of my recollection, i have never been directed to do anything that i believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate. >> senator warner said he will bring forward a witness, someone who he described as a former intelligence official who he says witnessed political interference. >> we have facts that there were other individuals that were aware of the call that was made to you, aware of the substance of that call and that there was a memo prepared because of concerns about that call. will you comment at all? >> i stand by the comments that

i made to you today, sir. >> senator warner did not identify this witness, but he did say today that he hopes to get him on the record very soon, shep. >> shepard: the comey memo, they seemed to be front and center today. >> there were a lot of questions about the comey memos and specifically whether he ever discussed the contents of the memos, documents his conversations with the president with his deputy, andrew mccabe, who is the acting fbi director. we also heard on this issue from deputy attorney general of the justice department. both men said they could not answer the questions citing the special counsel investigations. >> did director comey ever share details of his conversations with the president with you, in particular did director comey said the president had asked for his loyalty? >> i'm not going to comment on those conversations. >> i support mr. mccabe on this. we have a special counsel investigating.

>> and that issue of the special counsel and the comey memos will be at the heart of the hearing early tomorrow morning, shep. >> shepard: it's one thing to read this statement. it feels like it will be different to hear him give it. >> that's right. in my experience, i have not seen testimony of this importance released so far in advance. the other issue is that it's one thing to read it in black and white, but it's going to be quite another to hear the fired fbi director deliver that testimony and to see what kind of emphasis he puts on the words and why he chose those words. i think it's important to pay attention as to whether comey answers additional questions about this prepared testimony. if he does not go beyond the prepared testimony, that is a signal according to legal experts that a special counsel doesn't want him to discuss issues that are still of inve

investigative interests to robert mueller. what is the tone, the significance of the words, the dramatic pauses and will he go beyond what is written in the seven pages in black and white today, shep. >> shepard: thanks, catherine. we'll have coverage tomorrow on all of our platforms, on fox news channels at 9:00/8:00 a.m. eastern time. caught off guard on pennsylvania avenue. seems the president picked a nominee for the fbi but he didn't let his staff know about it. that's next.

>> shepard: 23 minutes past the

hour. the president announcing his pick to replaced the fired fbi director, james comey. we're told his top communication staff and senior white house team learned about it the same way everybody else did. from the president's tweet. today the president tweeted this. "i will be nominated christopher a. wray, a man of impeccable credentials to be the new director of the fbi. details to follow." the official statement from the white house came hours later. we know the president's statement are matters of policy because his white house spokesperson told us so. what we know about this man, he's a lawyer that served as assistant attorney general during the george w. bush administration. he was in charge of the criminal division and led the task force that investigated the enron scandal. since leaving the department of justice, he's worked as a private -- in private practice at a law firm. he was new jersey governor crist christie's personal lawyer during the bridgegate scandal in

the tri-state. in a statement from the white house, he said it's a great honor to be the president's pick. the president's announcement came hours before his news conference on healthcare and infrastructure. live pictures here on your screen on the left-hand side there. the president has returned from cincinnati. you may remember he had an i vent of sorts which we carried live on fox news channel earlier in the day. he's making his way back and has a full schedule tomorrow. there's indications he may live tweet if he sees fit during the comey testimony and at least on the fox broadcast network as we cover this, we'll be showing those live tweets if in fact they come. that should be an interesting juxtaposition. john roberts is at the white house awaiting the president's return. what is the white house saying about the timing of his return? >> not much at all. most of them were in the dark about it before the president tweeted it out.

you can make a logical assumption this was a preempt ty strike against the testimony in the senate intelligence committee. you've got over all the testimony. so we don't need to rehash it now. what is interesting, in terms of the decision on who the fbi pick would be, the president was down to two finalists. christopher wray, as you pointed out, former employee at the department of justice, high-powered attorney for king and spalding. he will take a huge pay cut, i assume, and john pistol. he was the second choice. the president met with both of them but settled on wray thinking he's the perfect man for the job. the best thing about it is, he's not a politician. you'll remember the president was looking at joe lieberman, which raised a lot of outcry from democrats in the senate that didn't want the president

to pick somebody that was political. the other interesting aspect, how close to the vest the president played this. he didn't tell his communications team, did not inform the chairman or the ranking member of the judiciary committee. he did not tell the speaker of the house. they all learned about it when they saw the president's tweet. here's what paul ryan said about it earlier today. >> did the president consult you at all -- >> no, he didn't. but i -- wray, right? i don't know the guy. but i've looked at his resume. seems like to me he's the perfect kind of person. i thought we should have a pers, somebody with experience. he fits that bill. >> the president returning from cincinnati where he did a couple things. he's been on a legislative push for his new infrastructure plan. he wants to create a $1 trillion fund to rebuild much of the united states infrastructure. talking about the waterways of

the united states and how we need to fix the dams and locks because they can be inland routes of commerce just like roads can. he meeted with victims of obama, people that experienced sky high premiums and deductibles. again, pushing the senate to get on the stick when it comes to obamacare repeal and replace. shep? >> shepard: thanks, john roberts. the president on the move from cincinnati. let's bring in sadie german. your thoughts on the wray nomination? >> i'm sorry? >> thoughts on the wray nomination? >> oh, the wray nomination is getting early bipartisan support because i think to the relief of many, this is a person with a lot of prosecutorial background, not a politician, which some fbi

agents and some people in congress were concerned about. >> shepard: people on both sides of the aisle wanted to make sure of that. the president has provided that. do you have any reporting on why it is that we got the word in the way we did? >> i don't know first hand and i don't know to what expect attorney general sessions new in advance this would be the pick. it's curious. usually members of congress have a heads-up so that they can prepare positive statements about the nominee. many said they were caught off guard by the announcement. it's curious timing ahead of comey's testimony before congress. >> shepard: on the matter of comey's testimony, this request for loyalty and the promise of honest loyalty, what do you make of how questioning may go on that matter? >> oh, i think that he will be -- comey will be questioned about that. in statements that -- in his opening statement that we received ahead of time, he said that he did offer assurances to

trump that he personally wasn't investigation but he was taken aback by some of trump's requests including that he back off of an investigation into his former national security adviser, michael flynn. he will be facing a lot of tough questions. >> shepard: sadie, thank you. for years the federal government has been capable of spying on every single one of us all the time. capable of it. it's difficult to understand just how far its powers go. ahead our own judge andrew napolitano. he says the whole debate over foreign surveillance is a bit of a joke. we'll look at the true reach of the government's eyes and why every step we make, every move we make they can be watching.

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cosby's chief accuser denying she had a romantic relationship were the comedian. the entertainer's attorneys try to poke holes in her story. this is the third day of the trial. bill cosby arrived from sheila fraser, a co-star from a movie in the 70s. cosby's accuser said cosby gave her three blue pills and violated her why she lay paralyzed on a couch. she testified that he told her they were herbal supplements. dozens have accused bill cosby of sexual assault. this is the only criminal case because many of the incidents allegedly happened too long ago for prosecutors to bring charges. cosby faces up to ten years in prison if convicted.

>> shepard: four of our nation's top security officials making their pitch to congress to reauthorize a quite

controversial spying tool that they say is the key to fight against terrorism. privacy advocates and some lawmakers say they're concerned that intelligence teams are abusing it and using it to spy on americans. the director of national intelligence, dni, the nsa director and the deputy attorney general all testified in front of the senate intelligence committee today and it was a barn burner. we reported earlier, lawmakers pressed them on the russia investigation and president trump. the reason they were there was over this spy tool. it's called section 702. it's part of fisa. it allows the nsa to track foreigners, e-mails and phone calls. americans get swept up in that surveillance. today the oregon democratic senator questioned who is really on the other end of the spying. >> who are the targets of a 702 investigation?

>> targets as i understand are non-u.s. persons, foreign individuals are the targets. 702 is directed and prohibited from directing targets on u.s. persons. >> we need you all in addition to protecting the liberties of the american people to tell us who the targets are. >> i would like to respond to that by saying some of those targets are classified, highly classified. >> i understand that. >> some of those targets by revealing those names release the methods that we use and then as turned against us. >> director coats said revealing names and messes could put agents lives at risk. earlier in the hearing, he claimed there's been no instances of violation of section 702. mike emanuel is live with more. what else came out of this hearing, mike. >> shep, national security officials noted section 702 that

told them in part about russian efforts to interfere with the election. officials were asked what would be lost if this authority were watered down or eliminated? >> admiral rogers, this is to you: if fisa 702 statutory authorities were to end or even be diminished, what would be the impact on our national security? >> i could not generate the same level of insight that the nation, our friends and allies around the world count on with respect to counter terrorism and counter proliferation. >> they said they would need a court order and provide probable cause, which is time consuming. some senators like rand paul are against this tool worried that americans could be swept up in the collection. it's not your typical republican versus democrat issue, shep. >> shepard: thanks. judge andrew napolitano says the debate over renewing the

surveillance program is a joke. he said "the agencies pretend to be following the law. we're the most spied upon people in all the world." judge napolitano is here. it's a joke why? >> the nsa says it's a combination of a ronald reagan and george w. bush executive order that declares because the nsa is in the military and works for the president as commander-in-chief, they will do whatever the commander-in-chief says they will do to keep the nation safe and courts won't get involved. stated differently, the nsa says to the world, the public, the congress, we're following 702. we go to the fisa court and get a warrant. in reality, the nsa is capturing in real time the digital version of every telephone communication, land line and cell, every text message, every e-mail, all data produced in the united states or transmitted in

the united states on fiber optic likes 100%,24/7 without exception. they can't review all that. it's there for them to access it when they want it. they will never acknowledge that publicly. what they also won't acknowledge publicly and i was very disappointed that admiral rogers and director coats, a severe admonition, some called it a condemnation by the fisa court itself, which is practically owned by the nsa, grants 99.9% of all nsa applications, harshly critical of the nsa's abuse of section 702, accusing the nsa of spying on a great number of americans without authorization. >> shepard: so this a dog and pony show going on? >> a dog and pony show. 702 was created to give the american public the false impression that the fisa court would regulate nsa. in reality, nsa pursuant to

these two orders, when were not just followed by bush but were followed by barack obama and trump. it unleashes the agency to spy all the time. the argument is, we need to capture everything from everyone and we will sift through it. it's the only way to keep america safe. >> shepard: information should be damned. >> it's information overload. they realize they had the cell phone calls from the san bernardino murders and the orlando murder took place after they took place. they have such information overload, they don't have time to look at it and catch the people before they engage in the acts of terrorism. >> shepard: i want to move on to the comey testimony. >> yes. >> shepard: donald trump according to the testimony that comey will give tomorrow has released in a prepared statement, donald trump tells comey to let it go on the flynn investigation. legally speaking where are we there? >> legally speaking, we are wherever the committee wants us to be. some could very well argue that

as the president attempting to interfere with a criminal investigation. it was followed up by firing the person that didn't comply with that. >> shepard: how could you argue otherwise? >> we'll hear that argument team because the investigation in fact was not stopped. they defied the president. it didn't affect their investigation. it continued going on. couple of very interesting things. a lot of our colleagues have criticized james comey for not reporting his suspicions about the president. we now know that he did. he's going to tell us tomorrow that he did. a lot of our colleagues have said, well, the president wanted to shut down the russia thing. he didn't. he was concerned with exonerating one person, which was just general flynn. he made these requests three time. >> shepard: and he wanted him to say that he wasn't under investigation. >> the investigation was a counter intelligence investigation to see who created the horrific dossier about him.

>> shepard: and now appears to be a counter espionage investigation. >> yes. we don't know where it's going to go. it's huge. it's all in bob mueller's court. we also know that bob mueller approved the statement that james comey released earlier today, that he will read under oath tomorrow. james comey is bob mueller's star witness. no prosecutor wants their star witness blabbing under oath to another tribunal in which the prosecutor is not there unless the prosecutor has approved what he's going to say. >> shepard: maybe the most significant matter since clarence thomas and anita hill? >> easily. >> shepard: if not going to watergate. >> easily. >> shepard: thanks, judge. >> you're welcome. >> shepard: more on james comey's testimony ahead of the senate hearing. we'll speak with a senior reporter from politico.

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>> shepard: more on what the former fbi director james comey plans to say during his hearing tomorrow, including his claims that president trump insisted on loyalty from him. also, two of our nation's top intelligence officials refusing to say whether the president asked him to down play the investigation into possible collusion with the russians. let's bring in josh gerstein. some of the questioners were surprised by lack of cooperation on this matter. >> they were, shep. that is one of the more interesting parts of the hearing. which republicans appeared eager to get to the bottom of this russia matter and which ones

seemed eager to have it go away. a few of them, senator rubio, perhaps senator mccain felt like there should be more answers available to the public, especially given the flood of leaked news stories we've seen about the various claims on both sides of this dispute. >> shepard: i don't remember seeing anything quite like it, josh. what we're talking about would be discussing cannot classified. we're not going to talk about it. whether you ask us or not. they could be held in contempt of congress, couldn't they? >> at the end of the day, possibly. you'd probably go through a few more rounds before that. it was quite interesting. it turned out that the director of national intelligence, dan coats, said it wasn't really a legal reason that he didn't want to talk about it. he checked in with the white house, i think rogers, the nsa director who said he got a not definitive response about the white house on what he should do on this executive privilege issue.

coats said he didn't want to talk about them out of what senses of what was proper and what was improper. he said he would be willing to talk about them behind closed doors, which is puzzling, because that eviscerates any executive privilege whether it's closed or open doors if you're talking to congress. >> shepard: as a matter of tomorrow, we know what the prepared statement is or what it's expected to be. we don't know much about the questions. we know that former director comey, who is not a government employee and is not under oath, can pick and choose what he answers and doesn't answer willy-nilly and it sort of is his ball game tomorrow. >> yeah, he can. he has the same obligation though to answer questions from the congress as anyone does who has called for testimony. maybe he has to be formally subpoenaed in some way, shape or form. i expect he won't want to do things that would undermine the investigation. so i don't the statements that we get about his direct interactions with president trump and the sort of just the

facts ma'am, approach that he tried to lay out in that prepared statement, i don't think you'll hear him talking much about the scope of what the government was looking into regarding russian, potential interferen interference. he does have to disclose classified information. >> shepard: after the opposition tomorrow around 1:00 eastern time, there's a closed session where they all have the intelligence clearances and that may be the one where congress finds some things out. >> yeah, they may get more detail of that session behind closed doors. the lawmakers are not allowed to talk publicly about what happened there. so it will be interesting to see what news reports might come out of that hearing. >> shepard: it will. thanks, josh. >> thank you, shep. >> shepard: there's word that u.s. officials believe that a handful of countries cut ties with qatar in part because of a false news report from the russians. details and the response from

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>> shepard: officials from moscow say a report that russian hackers planted fake news about qatar is fake news. the report claimed that u.s. investigators believe that russian hackers breached qatar's news agency and published a completely untrue story about that country's leader. the hack reportedly contributed to the decision from other middle eastern countries to cut ties with qatar. that's a big deal. qatar is a major ally of the united states. it's home to the largest united states military base in the region. they wanted to keep 10,000 military personnel at the base. i've been there. it's enormous. the size of a small city.

rich edson is live in washington. rich, this is causing ripples. >> it is. qatar's ambassador to the united states has just told fox news investigators in his country are working with the u.s. fbi to see who hacked the news agency and posted a pro iranian statement. now with reports suggesting russian hackers were responsible for posting the pro iranian statement, the russian government is denying interfering in another country. >> i think that cnn as well as some other mass media which don't deserve to be such and are misinforming the masses are just waiting for this kind of smelly story or some scandal to immediately without any proof blame the episode on the russian side, russian hackers or someone else related to russian federation. >> qatar says they're working

with the united states to help end this diplomatic mess. shep? >> shepard: thanks, rich. the government of italy formally recognized the catholic church's home in rome on this day in history.

>> shepard: on this day in 1929, vatican city in rome became the world's smallest country. the vatican had been the official seat of the catholic church for hundreds of years before that. but historians say popes often had power struggles with italian leaders after italy became a unified nation. some popes called themselves prisoners in the vatican. a 1929 treaty recognized the catholic church's claim to a tiny piece of land in rome, vatican city. it's smaller than central park here in manhattan and the pope became the ruler of a state 88 years ago today. some nice buildings there.

some fantastic gelato across the street. the dow is up today. oil is not up. apparently we have a little too much of that. here's cavuto. >> neil: all right. we're just getting a statement right now from the republican national committee on james comey's statement that he will issue tomorrow in person. it's out right now. by the way, on our website, if you want to read it. this is coming from again the rnc saying, and i quote, the republican national committee is talking again just exclusively about the statement saying "president trump was right" coming from the chair woman, ronna mcdaniel, that the president was never under investigation. both sides are seizing on different elements of this. republicans, the fact that