politics. here the clock continuing to tick to that critical health care vote. a programming note for you as well, senator john mccain is going to join greta on "ford record" that is just over an hour from now. you won't to want miss it or miss mtp daily which starts right now. good evening, i'm chuck todd, welcome to mtp daily, it is 5:00 p.m. here in washington, 9:00 p.m. london time where a deadly terror attack rocked the british capital. three major stories tonight, the terror attack in london, extraordinary development on capitol hill after the chairman suggested that communications from mr. trump's team were incidentally swept up by foreign wiretaps. and of course, we've got the health care cliff hanger in just about 24 hours ahead of the crucial vote of the president's plan to repeal and replace

obamacare. it was going to be a big news day as planned before this awful incident in london and before the surprise announcement from the chairman of the house intelligence committee. this afternoon, apparent attempt to validate president trump's wiretapping claims, which we are going to now disrupt because here's adam schiff, the ranking democrat on house intelligence responding to devin nunes. >> and therefore, it is really impossible for us to evaluate any of the merits of what the chairman has said. he needs to decide if he's going to be the chairman and includes allegation of potential coordination between the trump campaign and the russians or he is going to act as a surrogate of the white house because he cannot do both. and unfortunately i think the action of today throw great doubt into the ability of both the chairman and the committee to conduct the investigation the way it ought to be conducted.

. i have expressed these grave concerns with the chairman. i only learned about this the way that all of you did. when the chairman briefed the press in advance of briefing his own committee members. and that is a deep, deep problem. i think it does underscore the importance of establishing an independent commission. a body that is fully independent of any political considerations including those that may emanate from the white house. that would certainly give me a lot of confidence that in addition to whatever work our committee does and the senate intelligence committee does that there is a truly independent body that is looking into the grave issues that have been raised. second, with respect to the intercepts themselves that the chairman referenced, those have not been provided to the committee for evaluation, but on the basis of what the chairman has said and the basis of my conversation with the chairman, i can say this, there is still

no evidence that the president was wiretapped by his predecessor. president trump's claims that he was remain as baseless today as they were yesterday. and they were the day before where the directors of the fbi and n is testified that they were made without any basis and fact. if the incident today is an indication that after making the baseless claim, the president then aggravated the damage by implicating the british in a potential plot to have the british surveil him on behalf of president obama, and now is attempting to interfere in the congressional investigation. again with the effort of trying to provide some substance to acclaim without substance then the damage, the wrecking ball of this allegation has just claimed another victim, that being our own committee.

what i understand from the chairman is that he has reviewed intercepts of foreign intelligence. and what i understand from the chairman is there is no indication that surveillance was anything but lawful. and what people need to understand about the incidental collection is if we are listening to two foreign spies, for example, talking to each other on feign soil or two representatives of a foreign grovmt, and they menon a u.s. person. that is incidental collection. it doesn't necessarily mean there is a call from a foreign party to a u.s. person, even the mention of u.s. person is incidental collection, and that name would be masked. if there is a call with the u.s. person or u.s. person identities are involved at all, those names are masked. but there are proper procedures for unmasking a name. when it is necessary for the intelligence agencies and they

cannot do that when the names are masked, you can properly unmask the name. the chairman has provided no evidence that any name tharps unmasked were unmasked improperly. and of course without the ability for the committee to look at the intercepts, we're not in a position to seflt whether the procedures were followed or not followed. moreover as i understand from my conversation with the chairman, most of the names in the intercepts were in fact masked. and the concern was he can still figure out the identities of some of the parties even though the names were masked. well, that doesn't mean that the masking was improper. and so, again, it's impossible to evaluate whether there is any there there in terms of these intercepts without the committee being able to look at them. and thus far, the chair has no not provided this evidence to the committee. this is deeply troubling along many levels, but among the most significant levels is it really impedes our ability to do this investigation the way we should.

i've been part of investigations that were conducted properly when the house intelligence committee investigated benghazi, and i've been part of investigations that were not such as the benghazi select committee. it was my hope that our investigation could be conducted properly. it's still my hope that this investigation should be conducted properly, but unfortunately, the actions of the chair throw that very much in doubt. and i'd be happy to respond to your questions. >> yes. >> what is the democrat's next step here? planning on pulling out of this investigation the way that he did to the benghazi inquiry? and two, did chairman nunes reveal any classified information? >> well, on the first one, we actually stayed on the benghazi select committee. though we knew from the outset that it was a, essentially going to be a political instrument to tear down secretary clinton's

numbers. of course we will have to analyze what this development means. i do think that if there is any chance remaining for us to conduct this investigation we need to do it as i said earlier in the week, we could do a tremendous service to the country if we're able to do a credible investigation and at the end of the day provide a report to the american people that has democrats and republicans on the same page. but if you have a chairman who is interacting with e white house and sharing information with the white house when people around the white house are the subject of the investigation, and doing so before sharing it with the committee, it throws a profound doubt over whether that can be done credibly. >> did chairman nunes reveal classified information today?

>> well it certainly inappropriate for us to be discuss i discussing people were the subject of collection to any degree that can divulge who the targets of that surveillance may be. so, i'm not prepared to say that what the chairman said was classified or unclassified, i can say that it is beyond irregular to receive any evidence that's within the scope of an investigation and clearly if the chairman is right about the content here, it's when the scope of the issues we're looking at about whether masking procedures are followed and whether things are being leaked, and i would -- i would say that the most profound concern here i have is that these actions simply raise enormous doubt about whether the committee can do it's work. and i think that more than anything else i've seen, this

makes the most profound case for the formation of an independent commission. >> to follow-up on his question, on monday we heard quite a bit about from several committee members about improper unmasking of individuals who were collected and warranted surveillance. what is this fundamental difference between what the chairman did today and what the complaints were on monday? >> well first of all, with respect to what we were discussing on monday, we could actually discuss concrete things. we could, you know, if there were a specific instance where there was an unmasking that we were concerned about, we could ask the questions about it. here we have no information about who was masked or who was unmasked and indeed, based on what the chairman told me, the names were masked apart from a single name which wasn't necessarily anyone connected with the trump organization. the concern the chair raised with me was that the names that

were masked he believes were associated with the president or his associates. >> can you unmask the president? >> i don't know. you know, again, this is the problem. this is the precise problem when the information is not shared with the committee itself. we will be seeking this information. we will be evaluating it and once we've had a chance to restrew, i will issue a statement about what i think it says and what ting doesn't say. but here we're operating on hearsay on hearsay, and this is simply not a wayo conduct an investigation. yes. >> on that int, had the committee briefed about the intercepts in general or had you had any background knowledge about these intercepts? you say you don't have these intercepts, but were aware of these intercepts? did members of the committee have information about that? >> it's impossible to know because we don't know what intercepts the chairman is

referring to. so again, my assumption from what the chair said is that these are intercepts that we don't have, but he also said this doesn't relate to the russia investigation. so, if it doesn't relate to the russia investigation, if they were lawfully conducted and he said there's no reason to believe they weren't, then, we wouldn't have them as a part of the investigation. now we have made a request of the intelligence agencies for information about their masking procedures, if indeed it's within the scope of our request, then it's information we should be getting. and if that's true, and i think the chairman indicated he thought that the information he had received is within the scope of what we've asked for, then it's a significant question that if this is within the information we've asked for that the agencies are going to be delivering to us later this week, then why make the statement to the press before we have it? it's just begs more questions frankly than it does answers.

>> is there any reason to believe -- i know we discussed briefing the president, but just to clarify, is there any reason to believe that the president or members of his family were people present in these documents. >> you know, again, you would have to ask the chairman because he's the only one on the committee that i'm aware of that's been able to see this. >> did he express that to you? i think these people are involved? >> you know, i don't to want characterer ittize what the chairman said. if you look at what he's said publicly, it's not clear because the issues words like may have been or it might be, and how can we evaluate the strength of that information. we just can't. and again, this just underscores why this is not how you conduct an investigation. you don't take information that the committee hasn't seen and present it orally to the press and to the white house before the committee has a chance to

vet whether it's even significant. yes. >> i'm not sure that at this point we're likely to get those kind of assurances. certainly we're going to have a much more lengthy discussion of this when we meet as a committee, but it casts quite a profound cloud over our ability to do our work. and i do think that the concern over russian intervention in our election is one that permeates the congress. and it's concern the democrats have and it's a concern that republicans have. and i have to think that most of the members of the house want to bipartisan investigation to be

done. but this is not the way to do it. yes. >> did chairman nunes tell you how, or where or what way he viewed these documents and also you've said that your concerned and are you pursuing a more -- [ inaudible ] >> this is not a situation i think where you can pursue something like that. you know, we still have a very important job to do even apart from this investigation. but right now, the country is counting on us because in the house of representatives, we're the only investigation there is. if we don't do it, no one is gogo do it. now perhaps the white house would like it that way. but the american people, i think, want there to be a credible investigation. and if we're not going to conduct it, then we need to have an independent commission do it. and if the chairman is going to continue to go to the white

house rather than his own committee, there's no way we can conduct this investigation. you know, i don't have a lot of details on it. the most i think he was able to say is that it was shared with him alone. so it doesn't appear to have been shared even with the other republican members of his committee, and so all of us are in the dark. and that makes what the chairman did extraordinary. >> do you have concerns about the separation or who it would have come from. he said he doesn't have the documents in his possession, so but he knows where they are. >> well, you know, obviously there are a lot of questions. i mean if this came from people within the intelligence community, then you're looking at sort of a channel 4 leak to the press which raises a whole other category of concerns. if this is within the

intelligence community it ought to be shared with us by the intelligence community. i don't know if that's the source of it. and -- >> he also went and called the nsa, cia, and the fbi. >> you would have to ask the chairman. again, we have no idea where these documents came from, whether they even show what they purport to show, but even if they do on the basis of what the chairman said, the underlying fact is still the same. there is no evidence to support the president's contention that he was wiretapped by his predecessor. so i'm not sure what the point of this extraordinary process is, and i have to hope that this is not part of a broader campaign by the white house aimed to deflect from the director's testimony earlier this week. but again, not having seen the documents, not having the chairman share those documents with either democrats or republicans on the committee, there's simply no way for us to

evaluate. >> do you have any idea of how many names were in here, masked or unmasked? >> i have no idea. >> dozens? >> there's no way for us to know. yes. >> it seems like the decision about an independent commission is in the hands of paul ryan, have you talked to him about that and do you have any plans to do so? >> i certainly intend to do so. the request has been made by our minority leader as well as the entire membership of the democratic membership of the house of representatives in the form of the sponsorship of legislation by my colleague eric swawell and elijah cummings. we have certainly made it clear now for many weeks that we ought to follow the model we did after 9/11 where we do an vestigation through our intelligence communities committees, but we also have a truly independent commission. and there are two reasons why i think the commission now is more essential than ever.

the first is that a commission would have a dedicated staff and resources focussed solely on this issue and an investigation of this magnitude really justifies that kind of investment. but second, it takes a completely out of the political realm. and today's events show why that is just so essential. a commission like the 9/11 commission wouldn't have one of it's chairs go to the white house when it obtained new information. and we just cannot continue along that kind of a path. so, i think more than anything else today's events have underscored the imperative of an independent commission. >> did he tell you -- >> yes. >> does the chairman give you any indication why he decided to go to the white house before he came to you with any information? >> no. and that's a good question for the chairman. i'd certainly did express my concern that that is simply not way to conduct a credible

investigation. thank you. >> wow. extraordinary counterpress dprompbs adam schiff, the ranking house democrat. all of this is in response to an initial, stunning decision today by the house intelligence committee chairman devin nunes who apparently got new information about perhaps folks that were caught up in incidental surveillance when it comes to a foreign intelligence that folks that may have incidentally caught up in the gathering of information, important on things overseas. and the question is, he dldsed to brief the president before he briefed, essential anybo in the intelligence committee outside the speaker of th house, this so-called gang of eight. i'm going to get to this story in a minute. joining me now is joe manchin. he is a member of the senate select committee on intelligence. senator manchin, it was an extraordinary decision from devin nunes today, does it --

how -- what's your level of concern about what you've seen and heard today between devin nunes and now adam schiff? >> my level of concern is what i think most americans would be right now, congressman nunes be impartial in his deliberation on whatever information we gather and the investigation that we're doing. it's ben done as we know. we're going to be hearing that gathering of information, and have to make some decisions. and it's going to be hard for people to believe that he could be impartial. >> you know, this comes at a time, if you recall, and i know this happened a couple of weeks ago, but the white house essentially reached out to the two republican chairman of the intelligence committees, devin nune serks and richard burr whose the republican chairman of the intelligence committee that you sit on, to essentially help push back on some of these stories. that made a lot of folks in congress uncomfortable because these are -- these are oversight committees. that are designed to provide

accountability of the executive branch by the legislative branch. these are not staffers of the white house. how concerned are you about senator burr? >> chuck, the only thing i can say is knowing senator burr and knowing senator warner, both are chair and are ranking member, i'm happy to say that i don't believe that this would have ever happened in the senate from one of our intelligence chairs or leaders. with that being said, i think it would give everybody cause and pause to be very careful what they're saying and how involved they're going to get and what's involved in the committee setting. that's theeason we go into a room we go into. a secured room. that's the reason the press or public is not there. for us to discuss openly and get information that's needed and the facts basically that comes from our intel community takes us to where we need to go. we're not there yet. >> are you concerned that this

puts a stain on your investigation? >> well, it puts not on the senate side, it's not going to. we were never basically being led by the house. the house is doing their own thing. they had an open hearing. that was great. we're going to do one a little bit different. we'll have an opening hear, and weir going to get to the crux of where we are and what we want to hear. there's, you know, there's a certain thing that people need to know. first of all, the visa court, if it's a foreign agent, and after suspicion and the fbi is basically investigating that, they go to a fisa court and get an order and basically allows them to show there's cause for us to be concerned and in a wiretapping would be ordered. it's an individual citizen, then it has to be caught up, as they're saying it is. they have to go to a regular court and the fbi has to show cause of why that person. so there must be reason for someone to have cause or you're saying it's an illegal tap. that's a whole other accusation. and we don't see any facts

whatsoever that leads us to believe that president obama or any individual citizen of this country could have done that. >> now we heard from chairman nunes that this was incidental, multiple fisa warrants, but none of them had to do with the russia investigation. so at this point, why even bring this up? is it even part -- is it even part of the scope of the investigation? >> i don't know. i mean, investigation might be larger than what we think and we're finding that out wz we continue to have the intel communities come to us whereby the fbi said it in open hearing there. you had fbi director comey basically saying they had been conducting an investigation since starting of last july. so we're hearing more about that. question only go to level we can discuss that goes up to a, you know -- >> i understand that, let me does you this, confirming a fisa court, confirming a fisa court subpoena being granted, isn't that something you're not

supposed to confirm on the record? >> well, you wouldn't be supposed to do that if it was an ongoing investigation. we haven't had that, but i'm telling you the fact was how it would happen. did it happen or not? i don't know. him saying that today leads me to believe he's basically stating there was a fisa court order or civil court order that basically gave cause. >> has than been confirmed to you? >> no, we have not. >> nobody has confirmed any fie is a court order related to the russia investigation? >> absolutely not. not in our intel and not in meetings i've intended. i've been to all of them. >> and that have included the director of the fbi? >> correct, when he first came in. we have not had him back since he went in an open hearing on the house side. he will eventually be coming to us, but there's an awful lot of other people that we would like to talk to before we get to director comey. >> interesting, chairman nunes brought up the fact that it's

not uncommon for members of congress to see their names caught up, where intel -- and it's incidental, and that there is a procedure he was talking about where a member of congress would be informed if this happened. what is that procedure? can you enlighten us anymore? >> no, i don't know, i don't know that procedure. i would like to think if we were caught up in something. we're talking to people. we're trying to build relations. we want a peaceful world. and if you can't communicate, you've got serious problems, chuck. that's our job. and especially if you're on foreign relations, if you're on armed services which i've been for six years. you want to be able to talk. and find out if there's a pathway forward. i would assume that if we got caught up in an incidental, knowing that we were trying to do good, that they would let us know we're not a target whatsoever and we do have that. that has not been brought to my attention. >> you have stopped short of calling for a special commission, you know, either outside of congress set it up

like naechb commission, something like that. given today's events, are you -- are you changing your mind at all? >> makes it much more difficult to say why don't you let us do our job. let the intel committee do the job. if they want a select committee and i've talked to lindsey graham about this, i support a select committee, anything you want to do, i support. but the intel, we're able to go a little differently than most any other committee and get their faster. we would love to do that. and i have confidence we can. i think what happened today would give pause to think that the house intel with chairman nunes could do that. >> senator manchin, i will leave it there. senator --ne final question, do you think the president is correct in saying he was somewhat vindicated today? >> you know, i don't want to comment on that because i still think that with what we know,

that an apology is still warranted to president obama. >> he still owes president obama an apology in your book? >> from what we know because i know, and everyone that knows anything about how the law is in our country that unless he's accusing president obama of an illegal wiretap, i don't think that was the accusation, so you're saying that he directed somebody -- president obama can't do that. sop i would think that an apology should be warranted. >> so he sbhont calling himself somewhat vindicated it sounds like in your mind? >> i'd be label the cautious on that. >> all right. senator joe manchin, democrat from west virginia. i know you've got to run. appreciate you coming on. >> good to be with you. all right. so how did we get here today kpep this is one of those cases where the live events are moving faster than the initial news item. let me catch you up. republican chairman of the house intelligence committee nunes claimed that communications from president trump's transition team and potentially the president himself were incidentally collected by the

u.s. intelligence community as part of a broader fisa surveillance effort not having to do with russia, he said. nunes spoke outside the white house after briefing the president on this. just the speaker of the house, then the president, nobody else. and then the press. here's what he said this afternoon. >> what i have read bothers me and i think it should bother the president himself and his team because i don't -- i think some of it seems to be inappropriate. this is information that was brought to me that i thought the president needed to know about incidental collection where the president himself and others in the trump transition team were clearly put into an intelligee reports that ended up at this white house, and across a whole bunch of other agencies. >> and again, nunes said they were swept up legally in november, december, and january, after the election, and that the surveillance did not stem from

any investigation relating to russia. >> in the dozens of reports i was able to see, i was able to determine that will it was -- it looks like it was legal collection, incidental collection, but then knead itself into intelligence reports. so it has to deal with fisa and multiple number of fisa warrants out there, but there's nothing, nothing criminal at all involved. >> ah, general fisa warrants out there. what are they? legal orders that allow the government to monitor communications with foreign spies a inside the united states or other foreign dignitaries. it's unclear how the trump transition would be connected to a fisa warrant and generally illegal to publicly disclose the targets of fisa warrants. now how does this play into the president's accusation of president obama wiretapped trump tower? here is what nunes has to say about that. >> i think wiert tapping, you know, if you use it generally like the president has said, you

know, he clearly, you know, used it differently than what a lot of people took it, did obama actually wiretap trump tower, no, i think the president's been clear on that. >> wiretapping, do you see anything -- >> no, no. >> one of the great phrases, just simply say i think the president's been clear about that when you don't to want say exactly what the president might have said. meanwhile, president did react, very quickly, after nunes spoke. >> i somewhat do. i must tell you, i must tell you i somewhat do. i appreciated the fact that they found what they found. >> fast moving story. i want to quickly check in on capitol hill, kasie hunt been running around all day. a little crazed. all right. we had adam schiff, heard you question him. have we had a response from devin nunes yet? we have a growing list, right now it's all democrats of essentially saying the house intelligence investigation is essentially been corrupted.

>> reporter: chuck, i think we're headed in that direction. i think congressman schiff who of course is a former prosecutor chooses his words carefully walked right up to that line. didn't quite step over it here, but i do think, especially considering the lack of clarity on where this information come from, why did chairman nunes have an opportunity to view it but not move it anywhere that could imply it he viewed it in a secure facility, but at the same time we don't know. that has left democrats unable to view the information and make a judgment for themselves. and it really does the house and senate intelligence committee is much more than the others have a tradition of bipartisanship. and they have been working in concert as oversight committees in the course of this investigation. so, i think the sense up here is really that this raised a lot more questions than answered. >> kasie, by the way, we are going to talk to adam schiff on this show in a few minutes. let me bring in my panel. jeremy bash, nbc national

security analyst. former chief of staff for the department of defense, and nbc national security analyst and foreign policy contributor and a former department assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, and yur asia. and ken, our intelligence national security reporter right here at nbc news. welcome all. jeremy, ooirm going start with you, you have some experience. you were a staffer on the house intelligence committee before being on the other side of the cia. you had strong words for what devin nunes did today. adam schiff stepped right up to the line, what do you expect happens next? >> well, i think today was devin nunes standing on his tippy toes trying to hold an umbrella over the president during a hurricane. it was a debacle for the white house. the fbi director repudiated the claim on wiretapping and he announceto the world that trump and his inner circle are under federal, criminal, and counterintelligence investigation. i actually expect the democrats

will stick with this investigation. i think if that walk away, chuck, they're doing what the white house and devin nunes wants which is to collapse the investigation. they want to get the information. >> this could politically it seems like backfire either one of two scenarios. one is you have more republicans that say, you know what, special commission. congress, we don't want it. or nunes can't fight as hard on trump's behalf going forward. >> right, i'm curious what is paul ryan thinking? because he -- i -- >> he was apparently briefed on this. and like gave him the okay to the white house. >> he's now quiet. i actually think that paul ryan would probably be most interested in having this move out of the house and he will not be held responsible. having the white house interfering is likely if it's happening in the house.

>> ken, we already learned, they got in tight with trey gowdy and helped him during on monday. so they're clearly the white house is very much trying to have a lot of influence on how the questioning goes in this investigation. then you have this development. on one hand, they're clearly wired. on the other hand, have they gotten too close to the edge here? >> well, i want to break down what we might be talk about hearing. there might be much less here than meets the eye. incidental collection could mean one foreign leader talking to another foreign leader about an american. and that's their captured and -- >> we're surveilling, it's putin and xi talking on the phone. what do you think of the trump guy. oh, trump's name is mentioned. >> and it could mean a diplomat under foreign surveillance calling somebody at trump tower and speaking to them. but nunes did make interesting charges. why were some of these people unmasked? why were their names revealed? th're supposed to be blacked out unless tre's a reason. and then secondly, he said that

some of the stuff didn't seem to him to have intelligence value, yet it was circulating around. i'd like to know more about that. >> you worked at the cia, i thought it was interest, he made it clear he did not get it to the heads of the agencies and now wants to know why he didn't get information from the heads of the agencies. what do you think happened here? >> he made a suggestion that somebody kind of slipped it to him under the table. basically -- >> whistle blower -- but it was illusi illusion. >> or someone who had the same political affinity as he did or someone who had the same as the white house. someone who wanted to give them ammuniti ammunition. now there are some very interesting cerebral issues about the way the law applies here. but as a process matter concerned about the oversight function. he would have briefed the entire committee, briefed the democratic ranking member and said what are we going to do?

he ran down the white house to tell the president, hey, i have something for you. >> the part i don't understand is, just for his own cya, bring schiff with you. >> right, right. >> and i mean it was always you want to have the basic facts, the intelligence shared with one another. they do trips together, bipartisan trips generally, so i think that's really important. but what also bothers me here is whether some of the surveillance was in a very closely held compartment, and so, how this person who slipped it over the trans -- i understand test the chairman of the committee, but still, some of this is very, very sensitive information. and then to go over to the white house, how many people were in the room? so, not everyone in the white house is cleared into, and i'm thinking specifically about russia channels. it's very small number of people. and if i could just say sothg abo incidental

collection. i mean, i read thousands -- not thousands, but i read many reports where i was the person masked, but i was having a discussion with a foreign diplomat. i read reports of other diplomats complaining about u.s. diplomats and i could tell who it was. it was masked again. so i think there are so many questions left unanswered here. >> can we go to the most logical explanation? somebody supportive of trump wanted to scour anything they could find to support the president's contention that he was somehow surveilled. >> right. >> and it's like, voila, i found something that kind of, sort of, somewhat vindicates to borrow a phrase that the president used, maybe somewhat vindicates him. that's what this smells like. >> here's what's weird, this came from the executive branch. the president of the united states could have ordered, fwrougt his desk every communication surveillance that referenced somebody. why is it being routed through the legislative branch -- >> doesn't it give it more -- if

he's the guy that's conducting the investigation. doesn't it give it more, it would be less believable coming straight from the white house. >> right, but instead of conducting investigation, he's acts as an agent of the president. priest briefing reporters favor to believe trump. >>. >> the professionals. he said that the collection was inappropriate. on a day that our intelligence professionals are working with the british -- >> around the clock. >> counterterrorism, in london, he's out there actually criticizing joining the trump team's critique of the intelligence community. he can't trust them. this has been a campaign from day one. and nunes added to it today. >> i'm going to pause here. sneak in a quick break. congressman adam schiff will join me right after the break.

joining me now, adam schiff. congressman schiff, welcome back to the show. let me start basically, when did you first learn what devin nunes shared with the public? >> well, i think i first learned, chuck, when you did, when the chairman had his presser and made this statement. we got notice they were going to do a press availability. we've done those jointly and much as we ask what the subject was we weren't informed, and that was iort of guess the

beginning of our concern. and bring it to the white house instead of bring it to your own committee. today's actions, i think, have really been a body blow to the credibility of the committee and we're going to have to have a real heart to heart about this tomorrow. >> well, let me -- have you had a conversation with him since though? with chairman nu necessary? >> i expressed my grave concerns with what the chairman did today, the fact that none of us have seen the intercepts that he has seen and i don't think either democrats or republicans on the committee really have the capacity to theflt because none of us have seen it. whether it is significant or not, we can't say. i also can tell you from our conversation that it appears

that the names that were masked in the information although there may have been some names that were unmasked, they didn't appear to be related to the trump organization or trump transition team. he could figure out who the masked names were. that doesn't indicate that there was any problem in the masking. so it's not clear whether there is even a there there. and this is particularly the problem when information is not shared with the committee the way it should be, but instead is shared with the white house. and that problem is compounded, chuck, when it's the president's own campaign team that is the subject of investigation. a lot of problems with this and i think a real threat to the credibility of the investigation. >> one thing that chairman nunes also said was this came from not the official channels, didn't quite say they were unofficial,

but saying it didn't come from the heads of these agencies. whichoncerned him more. are you concern if there was even sething as incidental as this that the heads of the fbi, cia, nsa, dni weren't as forthcoming with the committee as they should have been? >> no, not at all. and i think the director's were fully forthcoming about this. in which people's identities were incidentally collected. what that can mean, chuck, you have let's say two chinese business people talking to each other about how they wanted to do business with donald trump. and his name is mentioned. that would be incidental collection even though it doesn't involve communication directly from a chinese official

to anyone in the trump organization. the fact his name is mentioned is considered incidental collection. his name would then be masked. his name could be unmasked if it was important to understand the significance of the intelligence. what i gathered from the chairman was, the names of the u.s. persons, if they were names were in fact masked. so it's very difficult to disearn what's the relevance here? even on the basis of what the chairman said, doesn't cast doubt on what we've heard from both directors this week and that is there is simply no evidence that the president was the subject of wiretapping by his predecessor. >> didn't we already know what trump officials were caught up in the fisa wiretaps? mike flynn and his conversations with the ambassador. it was putting this way, everybody in your situation that has got an briefing implied, of course the russian ambassador is

commonly under surveillance. >> chuck, i don't know. i assume that's it is not that simple because the chairman says it doesn't involve russia. but nonetheless, we really have no idea. and again, we will be requesting in the committee access to whatever evidence the chairman has received. if it can be called evidence to see whether it has any pert pans in whatsoever to this investigation. and if indeed if it doesn't involve russia that raises a profound question about whether it is pertinent. nonetheless, in the absence of that, we can't evaluate any of these claims. >> i have to ask you something that you said also to me on sunday. is that you took -- you thought that at the time, form er james clapper was definitive at the

time he served of this year. what basis can you feel confident saying that the director of national intelligence oversold something? >> i don't think it was deliberate, but all i can tell you is reviewing the evidence that i have, i don't think you can conclude that at all, far from it. >> reporter: but you admit, all you have right now is a circumstantial case. >> actually, no, chuck. i can tell you that the case is more than that. and i can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now. so, again, i think. >> reporter: you have seen direct evidence of collusion? >> i don't to want go into specifics, but i will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial, and it very much worthy of investigation. so, that is what we ought to do. now, again, i think we have been

dealt a serious body blow to the credibility of our ability to get answer by today's events, and to me it underscores the importance of having an independent commission look at this as a supplement to anything that congress does. >> have you completely lost confidence in devin nunes to be your partner in this? >> i have to say, my confidence has been severely shaken today. and we will certainly have a heart to heart in the days to come about how we go forward. >> what can he do? what can he do to reassure you? >> you know, i think that the chairman needs to think about which role he wants to play here. is he going to play a role as a surrogate for the administration or play a role as leading an independent investigation? he can't do both. and if he decides to do the latter, which i think is the real public service here, then i think he needs to explain what he did here today and commit never to undertake something like that again.

>> so what you're saying, there's a chance for this relationship between you and him to recover? >> well, look, i hope so because, again, at the moment we are the only investigation going on in the house. >> so you're not walking away. under any circumstance? >> chuck, at the end of the day, and however this turns out, i want to know that i did everything possible to make this investigation succeed. and that's why i'm trying so hard, but i have to say, today was very discouraging. >> it's an interesting word you used, succeed, what is the definition of success? >> is in my view success here is that we conduct a nonpartisan investigation and we reach a common conclusion that we can share with the country. that to me is what is most in the national interest then, you know, that's what i'm trying to do. i need the chairman to commit to trying to do that as well. and today's events were deeply discouraging. >> congressman adam schiff, i appreciate you coming on last minute. you got it. let me bring back the panel.

jeremy, sounds like he is taking your advice, don't walk away from this yet. >> yeah, i think he wants to be in the room. he wants to issue the subpoenas, get witness testimony, look at documents, maybe even give immunity to some witnesses to turn, if you will, state's evidence against the target. i've got to say one thing, put one thing on the table. the president has a nuclear option here as well. he could pardon the people in his inner sucker who will are under investigation. it would extinguish the fbi criminal investigation and take a lot a wind out of the investigation. it's a big move, but don't put it past them. >> manafort and a stone. people that are not in the administration? >> yes, op the grounds that this is a sham. deep state trying to attack him. >> wow. >> meanwhile, russia attacked our government. russia attacked our elections. and i want to use jeremy's phrase, reminder of the 20

executive committee members of trump's transition team devin nunes was one of them. the minute you started looking at collusion and members of the trump transition, i think we were already in hotwater, at le from the house perspective. you kpont have an independent investigation at that moment. >> ken, the other thing that popped in the interview is it's more than circumstantial, but i can't say what it is. >> adam schiff just made some news. >> okay. >> i mean, and he made news the other day when he said circ circumstan circumstantial. he red from the dossier the former british intelligence operative wrote and read that into the congressional record. he talked about carter page going to moscow, alleged payoffs, talked about a conspiracy between the trump campaign allegedly and russian effort to subvert the democracy.

this is a former federal prosecutor, careful guy. >> jeremy, i have this feeling that we're on -- we're this close to where it is all intel officers for themselves. and we're going to see so many leaks and so many piecemeal leaks that it is going to paint a picture that we can't see. >> and that would be horrible. our system, chuck, is the envy of the world. we got the strongest intelligence committee and the strongest oversight of intelligence. that's a hallmark of our strength. if we pull away one of those pillars, it's going to upset the whole balance. i fear our defenses are going to be down. >> this war between the sort of nonpolitical actors and the political actors, i think is going get worse, not better, evelyn. >> i think you're right. this should not be as political as it is, chuck. this is, again, i'm going to say it again because i'm the russia, you know, fanatic. this is about russia attacking our elections. it's about them not wanting us to be a strong democracy or strong country at all. they wanttous us --

>> should be bipartisan support to stop that. >> to stop that, exactly. >> that is the one thing here, ken, does it -- especially in the senate side, does it become more than mccain and graham? >> well, that you could see explode quickly. >> you know, obviously senators in private are -- republican senators are very disturbed by this. the question is, when did they go public, chuck? >> and i keep going back to, you brought up the paul ryan, paul ryan and mitch mcconnell, they have a hard enough job trying to figure out how the heck to pass health care. this is a stink bomb they want out of congress. at the same time, they don't want to admit congress can't do this. >> that's right. again, going back to the point of the news that adam schiff made on your show, he said there's more than circumstantial evidence, it's clear this investigation is picking up steam. this may be an attempt by the chairman and white house to slam the brakes on it. >> certainly smells like it a little bit. >> independent commission. >> there you kngo, we'l you go.

we'll see. after the break, the other giant story of the day, the latest into the investigation on the terror attack, maybe isis inspired, in london. stay tuned. i joined the army in july of '98. i did active duty 11 years. and two in the reserves. our 18 year old was in an accident. when i call usaa it was that voice asking me, "is your daughter ok?" that's where i felt relief. it actually helped to know that somebody else cared and wanted make sure that i was okay. that was really great. we're the rivera family, and we will be with usaa for life. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

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we're back now with the other major breaking news today, what was a horrific scene outside british parliament. three people are confirmed dead. plus the attacker. at least 120 have been injure d 20 have been injured. a four-by-four vehicle was turned into a deadly weapon, mowing down pedestrians and

several police officers as it drove over westminster bridge. the vehicle then crashed into a fence near parliament where at least one armed man exited then tried to enter parliament. a policeman was stabbed and killed by the apparent attacker who was shot and killed by police. at this hour, one police offi r officer, two civilians and the suspected attacker are dead. the current working assumption, at least among some security experts including the ranking member of house -- on the house intelligence committee, is that this attack has the appearance of an isis or al qaeda attack. now, today is the one-year anniversary of the brussels terror attack. here at home, president trump spoke with british prime minister theresa may, according to the white house, he offered her the u.s. government's full support in responding to the attack. joining me with the latest is our own matt bradley in london. and i know we're getting obviously much later london time. so, matt, where are we on who the suspect is and any -- any known ties yet?

>> reporter: well, chuck, there's been no claim of responsibility so far, and there's been really quite a lot of speculation in the media about who the attacker is. i'm not going to into what people are saying because we don't want to give you the wrong information and nbc news is trying to find out exactly who's behind this. of course, this guy was shot dead. his body is in police custody. so they know who this -- who this assailant is but they're not revealing the information so we don't want to speculate because there's already been some speculation that's been shown to be wrong. theresa may has come out and called this attack basically disgusting but said that parliament was going to be opening and going to be holding its session tomorrow on time as usual. and you know, chuck, so much about this is continuity, it's just showing that the politics here in britain are continuing, that everybody's moving on despite h despi despite this horrific attack. while this was a horrific attack, it certainly wasn't a surprise. the police here have been girding for this for the past several years ever since we've

seen the terrorist attacks in capitals throughout the conti e contine continent, throughout europe. londoners have been asking when this is going to happen, not if but when. l there was a severe level of warning in london. there were 600 additional police officers deployed into downtown london last year, last august and all armed with live ammunition. i'm not sure if you've been to london but it's very rare to see policeffers here armed and visibly armed. that's what you see now in downtown landdow downtown london. we're going to see that more and more, maybe not to the level in a new york sub way where you have a soldier in fatigues holding a weapon. you're going to see more of the visz bl police presence you start to see throughout europe. >> one big difference between london and the united states and washington, d.c., is frankly the perimeters around washington, d.c., government buildings are much bigger. than in london. are we going to see more? >> reporter: that's true. >> very fast, matt.

>> reporter: that's true. you're starting to tha-- the fa is there are so if people here that actually carry guns. not as much as a situation here. the police don't feel compelled to be quite as armed as they would in the states. chuck? >> matt, thanks very snumuch. you're going to be working for us all night. don't get any sleep. "for the record with greta" starts right now, her big guest, john mccain who will have a lot to say i bet about devin nunes. >> indeed, he does. thank you, chuck. what in the world is going on here in washington? some big news just made on possible collusion between president trump's team and russia. also, why did the house sbechblgs chairman ra intelligence chairman race to the white house to kbrebrief th president? will this possible bombshell give president trump some cover on his wiretap claims against president obama? senator john mccain is here to respond for the first time a owl of this. but first, the news, the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman devin nunes, dropped a bombshell today. he said president trump's