thanks for watching this hour of "msnbc live" i'm chris jansing. right now on a day tailor made for her incomparable experience, "andrea mitchell reports." >> and yours chris jansing. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," shakeup. national security adviser michael flynn is out officials say for lying to the vice president about his conversations with a russian am bassor. now questions about what the president knew and when did he know it. despite justice department warnings week ago that flynn could be compromised by the

russians, the white house is trying to move on. >> the fact is that general flynn continued in that position and was in the presidential daily briefings as part of the leader calls as recently as yesterday, general flynn -- >> kellyanne that makes no sense. last month the justice department warned the white house that general flynn had misled them and that as a result he was vulnerable to blackmail and at that moment he still had the complete trust of the president? >> matt, i'm telling you what the president has said, which is that he's accepted general flynn's resignation and he wishes him well and that we're moving on. >> the president ignoring questions this morning. >> let's get going. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. and from capitol hill only the beginning of the investigations. >> i think there is significant dysfunction in the national security apparatus of the trump

administration, when you see that you don't know who's in charge, this flynn situation, the whole environment is one of dysfunction in the trump administration. >> it wasn't flynn's lie that brought him down. it was the public exposure of that lie. >> should there be a broader bipartisan independent investigation into the administration's ties to russia? >> i think that situation is taken care of itself. >> i think the key is this, that as soon as this person lost the president's trust, the president asked for his resignation and that was the right thing to do. >> good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. national security adviser michael flynn's apparently forced resignation is

unpredented 14 days into the presidency. with the vex of the fbi and both congressional intelligence communities this is only day one of the crisis. peter alexander joins me, he's been tracking it all night. peter, what do we know, we have heard from the speaker of the house that this was a requested resignation. nobody's putting a gloss on this. >> reporter: yes. no, i think that's exactly right. the bottom line is we're hearing from multiple officials close to this president right now. this is a decision that was agonized over for days. obviously they indicate that president trump is, in their words, a very loyal individual which indicates why he was willing to stick with michael flynn for so long, notably even after as we have learned over the last 24 hours that the then attorney general, the acting attorney general sally yates had reached out to this white house communicating her concerns about the fact that flynn had misled some of his top advisers, including the vice president, and the risk that he could be vulnerable to russian blackmail, so that's notable because that

would have happened about three weeks ago, roughly three weeks ago, but this morning we heard from some top aides including kellyanne conway that michael flynn's position here in the white house had not been diminished. the bottom line a guy who became famous for the phrase "you're fired" was reluctant to fire his national security adviser. ultimately the folks claimed it was unsustainable given the fact he had misled not just the vice president but other top advisers. >> you refer to kellyanne conway on the "today" program with matt lauer. here's more of that as the white house tries to put the best foot forward. >> the fact is that general flynn continued in that position and was in the presidential daily briefings, was part of the leader calls as recently as yesterday, was there for the prime minister's visit from canada yesterday. and as time wore on, obviously the situation had become unsustainable and general flynn -- >> kellyanne that makes no sense. last month the justice

department warned the white house that general flynn had misled them, and that as a result, he was vulnerable to blackmail, and at that moment he still had the complete trust of the president? >> matt, i'melling you what the president has said, which is that he's accepted general flynn's resignation and he wishes him well and that we're moving on. in the end, it was misleading the vice president that made the situation unsustainable. >> which the white house knew about last month. and yet yesterday you went on the air and said that general flynn had the complete and full confidence of the president. >> and general flynn decided that he should resign last night and the president accepted that resignation. >> peter, what about replacements? we know that general kellogg is an acting director of the national security council, but he is basically a flynn person, and they've already passed over his number two, k.t. mcfarland.

they're looking for new blood. >> reporter: one thing you played in the conversation with matt lauer i think is important to communicate to our audience right now is that the white house indicates that the reason that michael flynn was pushed out is not on the merits of whatever the conversations were with the russian ambassador. it's on misleading individuals within the white house. they haven't spoken about the merits of that conversation, whether it was appropriate. right now we're trying to find out whether any of the transcripts from those conversations have been seen by individuals in this white house and specifically by whom. you talk about the process of going forward. right now i'm told by several sources close to this president that there's basically a trifecta, three names being considered, first the acting national security adviser, keith kellogg, as you indicated, separately the retired general david petraeus but his past history and handling of sensitive classified information could pose some challenges for him, which makes the front-runner robert harward, a

name you should keep a close eye on, a decision whoever it is to come soon. harward is a former navy s.e.a.l. demand commander, he has bipartisan support, i've heard from former obama officials as well and the closeness of his relationship to the now defense secretary james mattis, harward served as his deputy at u.s. central command. andrea? >> thanks so much, peter alexander. joining me from capitol hill republican congressman adam kensinger. thank you for joining us, congressman. let me play something just said by senator lindsey graham on the other side of the capitol, another republican point of view, and then i'll get your reaction on the other side. >> well i think he served his country well in uniform for a long time and apparently he did mislead the vice president. did he just do this as a rogue

general flynn? did he just decide to call the russians up one day and say, you know, we're going to have a different, you know, sanctions don't worry about it or did it come from somebody else in the white house. if general flynn was directed by somebody to contact the russians, don't overreact here, we may change policy, that's not a crime. i think that's bad form. it's probably inappropriate, violates the president tradition but there's no use lying about it. i mean, what will get you in trouble when you begin to mislead people about what you actually did. >> so lindsey graham was hard to hear but he said it wouldn't be a crime to be in touch with the russians and to signal a policy shift on sanctions. what would get you in trouble is lying about it afterwards, misleading people afterwards. >> yes, i think in this case the coverup is the crime, it's worse than the crime. there's questions whether this was a violation of the logan

act, never enforced before, i can point to other violations in the past and real concern about general flynn's contacts with russia, even prior to his involvement in the administration, and i think this was -- look, general flynn is an honorable guy. he did extremely well in iraq and afghanistan, fought hard on behalf of the united states. this is a problem, and i think he became a distraction for the president, whether the president asked him or he made the decision is irrelevant. he did the right thing by steppingside and we need to move on. we need to hold the russians accountable to their bad actions in the world, and hopefully we can do that. >> what is still left unclear is whether he was freelancing, directed by president trump or others, steve bannon, we don't know, and whether he debriefed the president and others about his conversations with the russian ambassador. >> yes, it is unclear and i don't have answers for that. it's something i hope the administration would come forward with. again i think even the act of it and look i am not in favor of

lifting sanctions against russia, i think it was extremely improper to do it when another man was president, president obama, but i don't think there's anything wrong with having conversations going forward to say hey, look, we want to work together on these different issues. the huge problem came when he said "i never discussed sanctions," and had he come out and said "i discussed sanctions maybe the ambassador brought it up, maybe i brought it up as part of future negotiations" i don't think we'd be talking about it. honesty is important in this administration and the prior administration because the american people deserve the truth. >> what is the big issue here? what is lost? what is the cost to the administration, a new administration losing the national security adviser after 24 days, and dysfunction widely reported within the nsc. you can have other resignations, other people refusing to come in, high-powered people from past republican administrations saying they don't want to work for this white house. >> i think it's an embarrassment, not something you want to have happ. every new administration has to

ge their legs under them, they run into stutters. this is a big one so hopefully this is an opportunity for the administration to say okay we've got to shake some things up in the nsc. it's new. again it didn't work out the arrangement we had. let a's get somebody good, maybe pa tray was or the other names pushed around for director of that and i think an opportunity to make this better, stronger and help to reclaim america's role in the world, and you know we've got a lot of questions we need answers to. i think general flynn is an honorable man and did the right thing in stepping down here. >> what about investigations, the intel committees are investigating, the fbi is investigating, should those investigations be pursued to find out what did russia do, and was there any other nexus to the russian attempts to interfere with our election? >> i think that's important, any time, any outside power tries to interfere with our democracy, we need to know about it and it's also important, going forward, we know that the russians are attempting to influence the election in europe so the thing we have to be careful on, this

isn't casting anyily legitimacy of the president of donald trump. he was elected by a majority of people in the right states to make him president. going forward, we are not a former russian satellite country. we're the united states of america, and we ought to be free of outside interference in a political system, so i think answers need to come forward on that, not even as much to relitigate the last election but to say how do we protect ourselves in the future. >> congressman, thanks very much for being with us today. >> any time. >> joining me now martin indic, previous ambassador to israel and former assistant secretary of state and ambassador as well. thank you very much for being with us. to the bigger question of what's at stake here, for national security, for national policy with you know, president or rather prime minister netanyahu arriving tonight and uncertainty throughout the national security team? >> well i think you've really hit the nail on the head when

you enthusiastic about incoherence and problem of a functioning national security team but we shouldn't forget the substantive impact of general flynn's departure. he was the ideological driving force between two related issues. one was the war on radical islamic extremism as he referred to it and the other issue was iran and the need to confront iran in the region. don't forget, he was the one who put iran on notice on day two of the trump administration. so that with prime minister netanyahu coming to town and wanting to focus his discussion with the president on iran, he has lost his wing man for that effort. >> in terms of russia, what about u.s./russia policy? russia so far has certainly succeeded if what vladimir putin wanted to do was shake up confidence in the national security posture of the united

states. >> well, yes, i think that you've got similar situation there, where clearly flynn was part of trump's outreach to russia, and had developed a strategy for partnering with russia against, in this war against so-called productical islamic extremism particularly in syria where flynn wanted to try to get the russians to separate from iran as part of that effort. so i think that the strategy towards russia is now going to come into question as well, because naturally, the role of the secretary of defense, mattis and secretary of state tillerson is going to become more important. >> and as netanyahu has dinner tonight scheduled at least with secretary tillerson, secretary tillerson is going to be on his way tomorrow, you have a meeting with netanyahu and the

president, no secretary of defense. there's a gaping hole as the president meets one and one surrounded only by steve bannon i guess and jared kushner. >> it will be interesting to see if steve bannon is in that meeting. up to now he hasn't wanted to play in the arab-israeli arena at all. he left that to jared kushner. i assume it would just be the president and his son-in-law. we'll have to wait and see how that plays itself out, but i think that they have two issues that they're going to discuss, the one that the prime minister wants to discuss is iran, and how to deal with its hedgemoic ambitions in the region. the one the president wants to discuss an unwelcome surprise to the prime minister, the president wants to talk about the ultimate deal between israel and the palestinians. >> one that you tried so hard to produce for so many years. so we'll see whether this new team can accomplish that.

>> well, i think that's going to be a high bar but jared kushner has the confidence of the president which will help him. >> thank you very much, good to see you. we'll have to talk about netanyahu tomorrow and the follow days. looking forward to that, andrea. >> coming up, what did the white house know and when did they know it breaking down to michael flynn's resignation coming up here on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us. the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise here you go.picking up for kyle. you wouldn't put up with part of a pizza. um. something wrong? so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day?

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welcome back. we want to take you through the time line that led to general

flynn's resignation. first, the call with russia's ambassador kizliak december 29, that was theame day president obama announced new sanctions and the expulsi of 35 russians from the u.s. one d later vladimir putin says he won't retaliate. this is highly unusual a very unusual response, raises questions within the fbi so they look back over routine intercepts of russian diplomats, including the ambassador and lo and behold they find the flynn conversation with the ambassador on the same day as the expulsion or announcement of the sanctions. two weeks later, a column in "the washington post" by david ignatius, first reporting that the call occurred between flynn and kislyak an that day. days later vice president-elect mike pence goes on tv says flynn told him nothing about sanctions was mentioned on that call. >> it was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. they did not discuss anything having to do with the united

states' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against russia. >> by then the fbi and u.s. intelligence knew from the intercepted conversation that that had been a discussion of sanctions, so that sets off alarm bells with the then director of national intelligence james clapper, cia director john brennan, acting attorney general sally yates. they wanted to alert the incoming white house on january 19th before the swearing in, but fbi director comey was objecting at the time saying it could compromise an ongoing fbi investigation into are urussia. on january 23rd sean spicer said he assured him the night before sanctions were not discussed. sally yates at justice persuades comey it's time to let the white house know, comey withdraws any objection. at some point following that day in the following days yates

informs the white house council, the trump council that the national security adviser is apparently misleading the vice president and the white house press secretary. what is not clear, who did the white house counsel tell and when? joining me is msnbc security analyst jeremy bash, who served as chief of staff to leon paneta in the defense department and the scia. there are so many different power centers in the white house so it wouldn't be clear who the white house tell the chief of staff, steve bannon, the president, would he tell anyone? what is the line of authority? and is it credible that the president, that flynn would have been freelancing with the russian ambassador having this conversation about sanctions either before or after, not briefing the president? >> well first on who the white house counsel would tell, let's drill into that, andrea. when the attorney general of the united states comes and tells the white house counsel that the national security adviser may be

a counter intelligence threat that's not just something that the white house counsel says we might get to that next tuesday. no, he goes directly into the oval office and tells the president, and he probably tells the chief of staff as well, and they right then and there should have been formulating a plan to carterize the national security adviser from sensitive information unless they were okay with the conversations flip was having with his russian counterpart, the second question who authorized the national security adviser to be dealing with kislyak in that fashion. as i've said before i think if flynn was just talking to kislyak about sanctions policy it's okay. it is not the conversation per se bad but it was a quid pro quo, the russians would help trump in the election and the trump administration would do something the russians very much wanted which is the relaxation of sanctions. that quid pro quo is illegal and

against the u.s. policy and that's something that investigators will have to dig into very significantly. >> and it occurs that what was happening over the few days after sally yates informed the white house counsel was the whole creation of the executive orders which were sprung on people that week and there was that weekend, friday, saturday, sunday, she was fired on monday, but friday, saturday, sunday, when they might have been assessing this situation, they were focused on the executive orders. >> we all had assumed that the president relieved sally yates, the career prosecutor, who has served republican and democratic administrations, she came in as a prosecutor under the bush administration. she was a career national security professional. we all assumed the trump administration fired her because she wouldn't enforce the executive order on the travel ban. it's possible now andrea, we'll have to understand whether they also fired her because she was blowing the whistle on this potentially illegal and compromising activity. >> at some point will a special counsel have to be brought into this? is this something that the jeff

sessions justice department can properly investigate? >> i think it's highly doubtful that congressmen, members of congress on both sides of the aisle, senators will allow this to be investigated just by the republican justice department, the trump justice department. i think in any normal circumstances would have a bipartisan look, probably a select cmittee i congress, maybe a jot quiy and certainly an independent review. >> let me ask you to take a step back. you have no national security adviser, although several kaebts. the secretary of state doesn't have a deputy. the deputy he had chosen was refused by the president of the united states. he is having dinner with netanyahu tonight but then winging his way to a meeting in bahn so he will not be here in the meetings in the white house with the president and prime minister, and neither a national security adviser. is donald trump home alone? >> let me add one more to that question, which is general mattis is now on his way to his

first meeting of all nato defense ministers in brussels, leading up to next week's munich security conference which we talked to a lot of our allies in europe about the security challenges facing us. we need to know what our policy on russia is. the defense secretary in europe needs to know what is our policy on russia. i don't think it's clear if we're going a different direction or try to get tough as many people want him to. >> in fact, general flynn was supposed to be there at that munich conference. mike pence is supposed to be there. so mike pence is basically carrying the ball on all of this. >> it will be interesting to watch what they tell our counterparts in europe and also what they tell the russians who will also be at that conference. there are going to be some interesting days ahead for russia policy, for europe policy but i think unquestionably we're going to need to know a lot more information about these conversations between the justice department, the white house, the oval office and the intelligence community. >> jeremy bash, thank you so very much. >> thank you, andrea. joining me senator ben

cardin. i think you've got your work cut out for you, senator. are you going to get cooperation from republicans to get to the bottom of all this? >> andrea, we've seen some key republican senators come out today calling for a full investigation. i think we have to have an independent investigation, similar to what we did after we were attacked on 9/11, it should be an independent collision that can look at all aspects of it, have the time, have the resources and can report back to congress and the american people. >> and do you think that this administration has been as forthcoming as it needs to be about the reasons for this obviously forced resignation, and what the president knew about all of this in real time? >> reporter: andrea, we really need to understand what russia is trying to do, and how russia has penetrated our government. we know their m.o. they try to get compromising information on key officials, key leaders. we don't, we know what they did

with general flynn and the vulnerability there. we don't know where it goes beyond so yes, we want to know the specifics of the general flynn contact, not so much as it relates to general flynn but as it relates to vulnerabilities that we have with russia's activities here in the united states. >> in and of itself, would it have been appropriate for mike flynn to have discussed these issues with the russian diplomat, the logan act has never been pursued by the courts, so what would be wrong about that if he had not misled the vice president about it? >> well we have one president at a time, and russia attacked our country trying to interfere with our elections. president obama took the appropriate steps by imposing sanctions. to have somebody like general flynn tried to undermine the president of the united states in a private conversation with the ambassador of russia was wrong, should not have been done, and then to mislead the

vice president, that is obviously has its internal problems in the security of our country, so there are issues involving general flynn that go beyond just his conversations. was russia trying to infiltrate general flynn? had they succeeded in anyone else that's close to president trump? what are their objectives? are they trying to bring down our democratic system of government? what do we need to do in order to protect ourselves? these are issues that need to be debated. >> and if they are not properly investigated, in your case, by the senate intelligence committee, what recourse do senate democrats have? >> well i'm for the senate swell jens community conducting its investigation and i'd like to see the senate foreign relations and armed services. we have limited jurisdiction, we have limited resources to do that type of investigation. we need a broader investigation that's not restricted by any one committee's jurisdiction that you have people devote their full time blue ribbon commission

experts so that we have the credibility with the american people. yes, congress needs to do its work, but i think the american people are going to demand and will be demanding an independent investigation here. >> thanks so very much, senator ben cardin. we're waiting for house democrats led by nancy pelosi to hold their press conference about michael flynn. we'll bring that to you live. first richard stengel, now a fellow at harvard's kennedy school joining me and msnbc analyst as well as retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, an nbc military analyst. general mccaffrey first to you. you know mike flynn and you know the protocols here. what did he do wrong? >> well you know, i think mike flynn started to go down a dark, angry hole over the last year or two after he got fired by the obama team. this retweeting if you remember of a story about pedophiles and basement of a pizza parlor was surely demented, and then he was

in an angry struggle inside the nsc, so those are the background problems. the immediate challenge here, you know, was he freelancing with the russian ambassador on his own seems like nonsense to me. of course he was back briefing the president every day. there probably wasn't much wrong with what they were doing. it may have been political inopportune but the logan act nonsense, they were reaching out to the russians. mr. trump in public was talking about closer relationships, and acting like the president from the election on, so i think they probably told mr. pence, look, you're plausible deniability and then they got in trouble with lying to the justice department. >> for srick stengel, bad polic, maybe good policy to reach out to the russians certainly but if as ben cardin was saying, the

senator was saying there was a quid pro quo, or jeremy bash as well, if there was some agreement with the russians, implicit or otherwise, we'll lift those sanctions if you helped us with the election that gets into a dangerous territory. >> absolutely, i would agree with senator cardin who said we need an independent investigation. this is not just an investigation of something that general flynn may have freelanced or whether he's acting at the behest of the president. we had a foreign power, our adversary trying to monkey with our democratic system. they've been trying to do that for a while. they've been trying to undermine western and american values for a while. this is a large existential issue for the united states, only an independent investigation that looks at all aspects of this i think is the thing that the american people need and want. >> a proor at the georgetown school of foreign service and to follow up on that, what are the

implications here for the national security team? what is the cost, the big picture cost for this trump white house? >> well i think they were already pretty dysfunctional, multiple centers of gravity, no clear process, don't have a lot of people in the agencies and departments to pick up the slack, when flynn was the national security counsel. there was reporting k.t. mcfarland would be out soon, senior staff at the nsc who are flynn folks and a great amount of distance between the professional staff that's supposed to be there to help the president and that distance was already there before flynn left. i worry the national security counsel will be hall lowed out. >> while we wait for nancy pelosi to join the team of democrats from the house side, rick stengel let me ask you about the process, the paper flow, the failure to consult the

state department. you've been in and out of government. what went wrong here? >> well, it seems like so much has gone wrong and one of the things i think we don't talk about so much is the national security adviser needs to be an honest broker, part of the problem with general flynn is that he was an ideolog. we don't want an ideologue as the national security adviser knows and the general knows. >> adam schiff has started so you hang by if you will. adam schiff. >> and i think those are among the most serious allegations. if there was any collusion with the russians during the course of their illegal activities that would be of the utmost gravity. i think that is a part of the context, the set of allegations that can and must be investigated. what has taken place most recently surrounds the issue of flynn's contact with the russian

ambassador at the end of december, and to me, the salient point here is, if, in fact, the justice department alerted the white house, alerted the white house counsel weeks ago from inhad lied about his discussions with the ambassador, others in the administration were aware that the national security adviser of the united states had misled other administration officials who had in turn misled the american people, and they were okay with that. the administration was okay with the fact the american people were laboring under the falsehood they had not discussioned the sanctions with the russians. the resignation of michael flynn was brought about not by discovering the falsehood, but by the fact that the falsehood

became public. that should be deeply disturbing to everyone. this begs a lot of questions about whether or not those conversations between flynn and the russian ambassador were sanctioned by the president himself, or others in the administration, whether they were knowing of those conversations, and why those who were knowing did nothing to correct the record when the american people were told otherwise. all of this merits investigation. that next i believe ought to be done in part through the intelligence committee as part of the investigation we're doing now, and i was very disappointed to see the speaker today unwilling to investigate these communications between he and the russian am bassor. if the speaker is not willing to commit he ought to allow the

independent commission and get out of the way because these questions are far too important to go unanswered. i'm also, want to say that i'm pleased to see at least some republicans stepping forward today to call on the president to speak directly whether he authorized these communications between flynn and the ambassador. the president i believe owes the american people an explanation and ought to do that directly and not through aides. with that let me introduce elijah cummings. let me begin by asking everyone in this room a very simple question. to you hear that? do you hear the silence? this is the sound of house republicans conducting no

oversight of president trump. zero. that is what it sounds like when they abdicate their duty under the investigation. we've been asking for months for basic oversight of the president and his advisers and their ties to russia, but our chairman, jason chaffetz, has not lifted one finger. he has not requested a single solitary piece of paper and think about where we are right now. general flynn flew to moscow to have a lavish din we are president putin and celebrate the kremlin backed media outlet rt. rt is, and i quote "the kremlin's principal

international propaganda outlet." flynn now admits that he got paid for that trip, but he refuses to say how much he was paid. he may have violated the constitution in the process, as a retired officer he may not accept more than emoluments. the pentagon is investigating this and we may hear back from them this week. flynn was secretly communicating with russian officials at the same time russia was attacking our democracy. flynn was secretly communicating with russian officials at the same time that russia was attacking our democracy. flynn may have violated the logan act by discussing the sanctions imposed by the united states in response to russia's

attacks. we have no idea why flynn was doing all of this, and why he was trying desperately to help russia. d i know he's now resigned but he's not goingo get off that easy. we need some answers to a whole lot of questions, but the obvious questions are, what did the president know and when did he know it? was the president aware of flynn's efforts? did he support them? last night, we learned that the jugs department warned the white house counsel three weeks ago that flynn secretly talked with the russians about sanctions and may have lied about it to the vice president. the department warned that the national security adviser was at risk of being blackmailed by the russian government.

that was three weeks ago, three long weeks ago, 21 days ago. so why did the president say on friday he did not know anything about flynn's calls for the russian ambassador? did the white house counsel really never tell the president? because if that is true i don't see how the white house counsel could stay in his position. that would be a major national security breach, not to inform the president of such a serious charge. why did flynn continue to sit in on some of the most classified meetings until two days ago? ladies and gentlemen, something is wrong with that picture. i want the press to press these questions. who at the white house decided

to do nothing for three weeks as flynn sat in on meeting after meeting after meeting. did the president decide the way? did the counsel decide the way? something is wrong here. madam leader, just this morning flynn tweeted and this is a quote, "scapegoat." he basically described himself as a scapegoat, and so i believe we need to hold a public meeting with flynn. we held emergency meetings with clinton on a matter of a week or two and if there was any emergency at this moment in the history of this country, this is the moment. so we need to get his security clearance documents. i want to see them. i want to see what he put in those documents to find out if he was honest on those forms and we need to know how much he got

paid to have dinner with putin but that is only the beginning. does it end here? no, they cannot end here. ladies and gentlemen, we are in a fight for the soul of our democracy. the question is whether we will clearly understand that this is our watch and let's be clear. shift said it eloquently, the republicans need to join us this is not a democratic issue. this is not a republican issue. it's not an independent issue. this is an american issue for the soul of our democracy. it gives know great pleasure to introduce the ranking member of the judiciary committee. >> unless we want to yield to the leader. >> i'm sorry. >> ranking member. >> thank you so much.

the overdue resignation of general flynn last evening does not resolve this matter. i want to make that clear, because i've been trying to get my chairman of the judiciary committee to hold a hearing immediately today, certainly not later than tomorrow, what did president trump know and when did he know it? what did vladimir putin know, and when did he know it? how is it possible that the white house counsel knew this for about three whole weeks and did nothing? now the american people deserve

answers and not receiving them from the trump administration or the republican congress. we'll do everything we can in our power to continue to get to the bottom of this very serious breach in trust and security. we have not heard back from our leadership today and we've called repeatedly to the chairman about this matter. now, why is it that the flynn resignation does not resolve this matter? we need to know and to find out who authorized flynn to speak to the russians. we need to know why he lied to the administration, and the american people, and why the

white house counsel's office sat on this information for three weeks. now it would surprise me to find out that flynn was acting on his own. he seems to speak to the president of the united states almost every day, and so we want everyone to know that this is just the beginning of inquiry that we're not making accusations, we're just trying to find answers to these very vexing problems. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm benny thompson, ranking member of homeland security.

from what you heard from other members, this resignation only starts the issue. there are a lot of unanswered questions. you can't blame the press for a person's resignation. the press, just like the people, have a right to know. there are a lot of unanswered questions that go with this resignation that, as members of congress, we're dutybound to try to find answers to. so i'm looking forward to the leadership, should they desire on the republican side to step forward and do the right thing for this country. russia under any circumstance has demonstrated that they are a bad actor and xlcomplicit in what's going on. the people have a right to know so we're here today to put front and center that, while this is the people's house, the people just like members of congress,

have a right to know what's exactly behind the resignation, who knew what was going on, the 40 phone calls, were there transcripts available? we understand there might be but that's why congress can get engaged in this as well as the people, so we can finally get some answers. thank you. >> good afternoon i'm elliot eng engel. thank you madam leader and thank you fellow ranking members. good afternoon. the national security council is at the top of our foreign policy decision making apparatus. if the council is dysfunctional and the leadership is compromised it puts our national security at risk. so it's a good thing that general flynn stepped down. but his dpaurt tour raises more questions than it answers. what promises did general flynn

make to putin's ambassador and who else was involved. how deep were the connections between russia and president trump's campaign prior to the ection? why did the white house ignore the warnings of the justice department and allow someone subject to putin's blackmail to remain in a critical national security role? this problem therefore is far from resolved. we need to pursue, punish, and protect. pursue the answers about russia's interference in our election and putin's ongoing ties to this administration, punish those responsible for trying to undermine our democracy from overseas, and protect future elections from this sort of unlawful interference. legislation introduced by ranking member cummings, to

protect our democracy act and my own bill, to secure our democracy act, would put us on the right path. these bills should be no-brainers. but we don't hear much from our republican friends. unfortunately house republicans don't seem to have any interest in dealing with this challenge. it's really hard to believe, a foreign government tried to undermine our democracy and until last night, had compromising material on a very senior administration official that we know of, republicans don't seem to care. what else does putin have? and on whom? apparently house republicans aren't interested in finding out. already today their leadership has offered a collective shrug when asked if there should be an investigation. that's the definition of putting party before country, but we're not going to back down. we're going to press this issue again and again, until we get

answers. democrats are not going to remain silent. house foreign affairs democrats are not going to remain silent. this isn't about politics. this is about gppling with a real threat to our securit and our democracy. thank you very much, and now it's my pleasure to introduce richard neil, the ranking member of the -- >> and as we've been listening to the house democrats calling for an investigation, we are still joined by retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, back with me colin call, rick stengel from public diplomacy and joining us michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia, now at the institute for international studies at stanford. mike mcfaul what went wrong with the way mike flynn handled his interactions with russia? >> well, a lot of things.

it depends on the story we're talking about, the specifics of course with the conversation with ambassador kislyak. the if, thing he should have known was that conversation was being recorded and he shouldn't contradict whatever he told the vice president or the american people about that. secondly, he was undercutting the president or so it seems. we should have one president at a time. i don't want to get -- i think we're getting a little too wrapped around the axle with this logan act. americans every day are talking to foreign diplomats, and expressing opinions about policies they don't like, but to do so on the day that the obama administration put in place sanctions for a very serious offense, that is what i think needs attention. that is to say the russians interfered in the most sovereign of acts that we do in the united states of america, our presidential election. the obama administration rightly, in my view, put in

place sanctions that day, in my view there should have been more sanctions but at least they did something and it appears he was undermining that very act so there's the process question, but there's also the policy question. why was the trump administrati, the trump transition signali that they didn't care about the interference of the russians in our most sovereign of acts, electing the president. >> do you think that was done without the president's knowledge? hold that thought. sorry to interrupt, let's listen to nancy pelosi's comments. >> i didn't know until i heard from our colleague that the tweet of general flynn today was "scapegoat." do you know what a scapegoat is? that means in a community, where people want to absorb themselves of guilt they get a goat and

they heap all of the ills onto the goat and they run the goat out of town. so the inference to be drawn from his statement is that other people had blame that should be shared in all of this. the good news is that general flynn is gone, because he was totally inappropriate, wrong for the job, but the questions that arise are even bigger. i have a tweet i'm going to make, i'm telling my staff right now, it's not scapegoat, it's stonewall, and that's exactly what the republicans in congress are doing. the intelligence committee has said they're not pursuing this, the judiciary committee said they're not pursuing this. we don't know what's happening in the senate. i'm just talking about the house. we need to see the truth of president trump's investments. his committee has the authority, the chairman of the committee in

the house or the chairman in the senate, chairman brady or chairman hatch, and in addition to that finance committee and ways and means committee, the joint committee on taxation, the chairman of that committee mr. brady again have the authority to ask the president, excuse me, the secretary of the treasury for the tax returns of anyone in our country, if there's reason to know that. they can ask for the president's tax returns, and then by a vote of their committee, they can decide whether they should be released to the public. so there's another stonewalling because they said they can't be caught up in what is it, rummaging. this isn't rummaging. this is truth and consequences. the truth is -- the american people have a right to know the truth. we see the consequences that can be dangerous to our national security. we want to know by what

authority did general flynn have these conversations and who did he report to after that, among the other questions that our colleagues have posed. i'm sure they'll be pleased to answer any questions you may have. >> a couple of questions. so the chairman said today it's not within your -- >> you said you found it unlikely that the president did not know about this. mike mcfaul, what about what the president could have known with mike flynnperating this way with the russians? >> again, the trump team does things differently, but think about what general flynn was talking about to ambassador kislyak. he was talking about a major policy change, lifting of sanctions on russia. i just find it hard to believe that, in a transition period, when he's just becoming the national security adviser, working with a new set of players that he doesn't know

that well, that he would take that decision by himself, at least to confer with somebody in the trump circle, but most certainly i would have guessed the president-elect himself, and the other part of the chronology here, let's remember that a couple of weeks after that, i think two or three weeks after that, president trump then called president putin. i find it unbelievable, i cannot believe they wouldn't have talked about that previous phone call as part of the prep, the prebrief as it's called, before he talked to president putin, because obviously president putin would have been briefed by ambassador kislyak as to the contents of that conversation. at least by that time the president had to be fully read in as to what that conversation was about. >> colin, are people likely to want to join this national security team as by your own account detailees from other agencies want to go back to

their mother agencies, they want to get out of there. >> it will be hard for them to recruit people. they're enquanlging or threatening witchhunts, we'll see if that continues when flynn is replaced. you also have a creeping irrelevance of the national security council as the parallel structures assert their authority. steve bannon's strategic initiatives group is something that is clearly filling the void, conducting reviews that traditionally get led by the national security adviser. to the transition of obama and trump we were told bannon would oversee all national security issue, placed above flynn in the hierarchy. so flynn is gone but the real problems you have over there persist. >> and rick sengle, quickly before we have to leave, your final thoughts here? >> as many people have said, this is a big cosmic issue for you us, the relationsp with russia, infiltring our

sovereign space and it needs to be investigated. i think the american people need to know answers on all of these issues. >> thank you so much, rick stengel, colin, general mccaffrey thank you and ambassador mike mcfaul. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow us online on facebook and twitter. craig melvin is up next right here on msnbc, and craig will have the sean spicer briefing. >> we will indeed. good afternoon. good afternoon to you. i'm craig melvin here in new york city. live look at the white house briefing room. any moment now we are expecting press secretary sean spicer will have to answer some questions, lots of questions hopefully about what has become the biggest controversy of the still young trump administration, the resignation of national security adviser mike flynn, out, amid reports of potentially illegal contact with russia. new developments right now, 1:00 on the east coast, first of all

sources are telling nbc news that the top democrat on the house intelligence community told house democrats to expect more information, more information to come out in the coming days about flynn's ties to russia. just a few moments ago you saw those top democrats in the house wrapping up a news conference demanding answers, on the democratic side. meanwhile on the republican side, gop senators also want some answers. among the questions? did president trump not merely know about the call with the russian ambassador or was flynn acting on orders from the president? also if administration officials knew that the general was vulnerable to blackmail for weeks, why was he allowed to continue serving as national security adviser? let's get to our reporters and contributors spread out across washington, the white house. let's start with hallie jackson. let's start by showing everyone this, not 24 hours