more hour. it's 2:00 p.m. on the east coast, and on this hour of "nbc live," refusing to be recused. devin nunes says he's not stepping down even though being pressured to do so. secretary sean spicer stood by nunes saying his position is up to speaker paul ryan. >> he's conducting an investigation. he is the elected or appointed, i can't remember how they do it over there, but appointed and confirmed or however they put that by his colleagues in the house and the speaker. he is the chairman. nothing that i see is problematic in him conducting an investigation. >> i'd like to speak to paul ryan about this, but both dems and republicans are talking about what are improprieties in handling this. >> we want this over as much as

you, but we recognize there is a process that has to take place. >> they'll give us their opinion on the probe into the presidential election. let's begin with a couple of our reporters. nbc's peter alexander is at the white house and nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill. peter, are we any closer or any sooner to figuring out who exactly signed devin nunes into the white house last week? >> reporter: it's a good question. the simple answer right now remains no. if you look at the visitors page, it's not available. they're not providing those records. it does exist in a system, and in the past they would make that information publicly on a regular basis right now. sean spicer was pressed on this issue once again to be clear it is person who may have cleared chairman nunes into the white house a few weeks ago is not necessarily the person that gave him that classified information.

his secret source has the word. nonetheless, it's likely they have more information about that, maybe. here's a conversation with sean spicer in the briefing room. >> you said to us on the podium you would look into how chairman nunes was cleared here and with who he met. we tried to ask you that yesterday when he walked out. can you tell us if you can provide more details about how that happened in a process that you toldus, again, is aboveboard and totally appropriate. >> i don't have anything for you on that at it time. but again, i don't -- >> have you looked into it. >> i have asked some preliminary questions. i have not gotten answers yet. there seems to be a fascination with the process. it's how did he get here, what door did he enter as opposed to what substance are we finding. >> reporter: there is a process that needs to play out which is sort of unique in this situation right now. you have president trump that says the whole russia story is a hoax and the white house is

trying to acknowledge there is a process playing out. in the words of chairman nunes himself, there is now a cloud that hangs over all things that go on around this administration given these questions still swirling out there about what, if any, ties existed between trump campaign associates and russian operatives, katy. >> the white house press corps has been asking the same questions of devin nunes since he showed up at the white house, such as who let him? what was he doing there? sean spicer only asked preliminary questions about that? is it conceivable he wouldn't have that information about who signed him in? >> reporter: he was asked specifically if he knew who it was that cleared in devin nunes. he said he did not know the answer to that question. i spoke to a spokesman for the national security council here under president obama and he said that would not be difficult to find that information. you can go into the computerized records and find it very easily, but it's fair to say there is

obviously a conversation taking place behind closed doors right now about whether or not this is information the white house wants to reveal and ultimately is willing t reveal. i imane it's a conversation that may include the attorneys here at the white house, because as i understand it, there are occasions under which people's names can be purged from that list or not released publicly because of concerns surrounding national security. whether this kbaqualifies as onf those moments, it's not clear right now. >> peter alexander with a long day at the white house. i can guess you're having some allergies. >> we've got a little bit out there. >> kelly o'donnell, the house investigation is stalled right now in the intelligence committee, but the senate intelligence committee, the leaders, burr and warner, are going to be coming out in just a little bit of time to give us an update of what's going on in their committee. do we have any idea what they're going to say? >> reporter: i've been given some guidance that they will have some news but no further details beyond that.

and that shouldn't be surpria surprise. if you're holding a news conference typically you have something you want to reveal and then be willing to take questions. they have been at the center of this russian investigation conversation and so much of their work is done behind the scenes. so this is a real opportunity for us to find out if the ball is moving forward. as you and peter were talking, chairman nunes was about 10 feet away from us and went into the house chamber. so he is here and around and at work today, and as he talked about not wanting to give up his spot, that is not unusual for a chairman who is under fire, especially in the early phase of feeling that heat. so that's not entirely surprising. but it has given the senate leaders on the intelligence committee more of an open lane to be viewed as almost more in charge, even though these are two independent probes. the senate has conducted itself in such a way that they have perhaps the upper hand here and an opportunity. now, senator burr, who is the chairman on the senate intelligence committee, earlier on had also gotten a little heat

for talking to some reporters about information at the request of the administration to try to set some facts straight as he saw them, but the burr-warner announcement is coming probably within the half hour and perhaps we'll have a new turn in this very intricate web of news, information and secrets. katy? >> and a reminder we'll bring that to you live. nbc's peter alexander at the white house and nbc's kelly o'donnell on capitol hill. thank you, guys. the house committee chairman is still refusing to explain what exactly he was doing at the white house. here he is in an exclusive interview with nbc's alex moe. >> reporter: can you tell us why you were at the white house? >> we're not going to talk about any of that. >> not talking about any of that. contributor devin spikes and mike, let me start with you.

postponed in the house intel committee. what are you hearing about how much longer the republicans are going to be able to stand by chairman nunes? >> what we're hearing is bafflement about the fact there seems to be every effort to promote conversation about a topic you would think they would all want to go away. no republican looks good in this conversation, and yet the cloak and dagger, the prolonged unanswered questions mean that it is going to be a continuing topic. and you and i talked, katy, that by asking for this congressional probe, the white house ensured that it would go on for months and months, that perhaps till the end of the year, the optimistic scenario for when all of these loose ends will be nailed down, the price they were going to pay was that congressional committees can get testimony, they can get documents, and in the end, there could be embarrassment in their

finding. but katy, what we have now is the worst of both worlds from the white house's point of view that there are these investigations going on and yet they're talking about it all day every day. it's dominating their conversations rather than what else they might want to be talking about. >> so what does the the white house do, charlie? >> well, if they really want this to go away, if they really think there's nothing there and trump will insist this is a completely bogus sry and do everything possible to discredit the investigation, debunk the investigation, wouldn't you think they would want the most credible entity to investigate this, to exonerate trump and his men? as opposed to what we're seeing now, because devin nunes is an ally of the administration. he's clearly ruined his own credibility. it's been said both he and adam schiff should recuse themselves. >> why is that? >> both of these guys have been talking about what the evidence is, what it's not.

at some point i want to learn what the truth is. i think it's an important issue. you need to have somebody who is credible on this. it's either going to be the intelligence committee or someone on a mission. this is not going away any time soon. the president should want to be exonerated or they'll be stuck with what they have right now. >> is there a behind the closed doors push that is going on? >> democrats, as you know, are actively pushing for an independent commission or a special prosecutor. so i think that will continue. those calls will get louder. i think you'll see even more democrats call for nunes to step down, to recuse himself in this capacity. i think you're also going to see more republicans at some point do it. we've already seen some do it. and nunes is taking some hits in his own district right now because of his behavior. his hometown newspaper said his behavior ispt i a

bewildering. the irony is, as we said earlier, he's giving cause and reason for people to think something is definitely remiss here. the word "cover-up" is being used in large part because of nunes' own behavior. that's what's really strange about this thing. as this plays out, you'll see democrats continue to push this issue because it is an important issue and you'll see more support from the media because people will do more and more digging, and that is not going to be good. >> you never want to see your hometown go against you. mike, let's move on and talk about health care. we thought the issue was dead. that was certainly what the white house was claiming as of last week. it seems like it's back on the table. who is going to be spearheading this push for, what do we call it, a repeal, replace, a fix of obamacare? >> conservatives were very happy about the speaker repeating what john boehner had also said about obamacare being the law of the

land. that was definitely sand in the gears for conservatives. so there's been messaging from the house republican saying, oh, yeah, we're going to take another look at this. but what we're hearing, katy, is that there needs to be a cooling-off period. you saw the president last night saying this will be an easy fix. he was joking, folks. i think katy said some of your competitors didn't get that he was kidding around about that. body tnks that's going to be easy, but there also is not going to be a lot of mind share put into this. what we're told right now is the focus is going to be on funding the government, on keeping the government going, avoiding a shut-down, which could come april 29th, day 100, of the trump presidency. a couple weeks before that, you have congress going home on its easter break. so figuring out a fundamental government quickly is a priority, and after that some tax reform infrastructure.

can you figure out a private money program when you put money into airports and bridges. that would be something, because president trump wants to work with democrats not because he wants to, but because it's a mathematical imperative. >> if he wants to move on, why does he keep bringing up health care? >> because of the conservatives. there needs to be a little diplomacy done there, and they were unhappy with how things went down friday, so this is an effort to smooth things over, but i think we'll see a turning of the page quickly. >> charlie, talking about tax reform, that's not easy to do. >> no, it's a very heavy lift. and mike is right, it's very important for the president to at least tell his conservative base, i have not given up. but again, tax reform is -- this should have been the low-hanging food. this should have been easy on repeeling and replacing

obamacare. tax reform is an amazingly kwul fid issue and what the public opinion polls are saying. >> what's the solution? does he abandon the freedom caucus, move everything wards the middle and now do a hard reset to try to find a way to work with democrats? >> good luck with that. i'm not telling you what battle and of course we want to work out some kind of solution. i think the democrats are kind of emboldened, i think they are waiting until it holds water. they want to be able to say, i'm the one that helped the president get blank done. >> last night they were hosting at the white house, and at one point he looked over to chuck schumer and said shs hi, chuck,

in a very neuman like way. infrastructure is a big spending bill and a big priority. >> the problem for president trump is he is choosing to be on the side of issues that are not on the side of the american people. and the democratic party is not going to support him in anything that involves taking someone's health care away, giving more tax cuts to the wealthy. those things are non-starters. where i do think there may be some bipartisanship is around infrastructure, andlye i will t you why. there is a huge project right around this region called the gateway project. it's important to senator shoe m -- schumer, senator booker and others. it would have to be in a way that is appealing to democrats. but you're not going to see it on any of these other issues because there is no reason for

democrats to get on that sinking ship. >> charlie, is it sinking? >> i agree, but think how complicated this will be for conservatives in the house who railed for seven or eight years against the obama stimulus package. there is a deficit problem. >> so the republicans not wanting to fund the border wall, which the trump administration wants to be put into this debt limit talk that we're supposed to be having very soon. before you go, tara, i want to play a moment from last night. hillary clinton was in san francisco and she was giving the most political speech that she has given since losing the election, and she addressed sean spicer and april ryan in that tustle they got into in the white house briefing room yesterday. take a look. >> april ryan, a respected journalist with unrivalled integrity was doing her job just this afternoon in the white

house press room when she was patronized and cut off trying to ask a question. one of your own california congresswoman, maxine waters, was taunted with a racist joke about her hair. too many women, especially women of color, have had a lifetime of practice. but why should we have to? >> hillary clinton alluding to bill o'reilly saying she couldn't focus because he was too enthralled with her brown wig. why is she getting on stage? why is she getting political again? >> when people talk about hillary clinton coming out again and getting back to the stage, one thing people say about neglect is she gets a ton of invitations to go and speak, just like a high-leveled.

>> i think she wants to fight, she wants to fight. if you're the one that stepped out of line, you're constitutional. i think she wants to push back and bite. >> thank you, guys. now since we've been speaking about hillary clinton, let's take a look at our microsoft polls question of the day. we've been asking, do you think she could launch a political comeback? cast your vote at pulse.m pulse.msnbc.com and we'll check back a little later in the hour. and next hour, before fibromyalgia, i was a doer. i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain

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. the top republican and top democrat in the senate intelligence committee are set to speak to reporters in just a few minutes about their investigation into russia's meddling into the 2018 election. it came earlier with a closed door meeting. christopher steel, the british intel operative, compiled the dossier on the campaign and

russia. as for interviews, they have volunteered to testify. the committee says it has not yet reached an agreement on how or when those interviews will take place. joining me now from capitol hill is senator angus king, an independent from maine and a member of the intelligence committee. what different is your committee doing different than the house, and can you tell me anything about that closed door meeting you just had? >> i can't tell you anything about the meeting. i can tell you what we're trying to do is maintain this investigation on a fully bipartisan manner. we are talking with each other, we're consulting with each other, we're meeting practically daily, and our entire focus is, number one, to get to the bottom of this, and number two, to do it in a bipartisan and credible and transparent way so the american people will have confidence in whatever conclusions the facts lead us to. but your fundamental question is what are we trying to do? we're trying to do this in a serious way but also in a

bipartisan way so that it has credibility when we get to the end of the road. >> are you implying that's not what's happening in the house right now? >> i would never imply such a thing. everybody knows that the house has had their problems and that they have some divisions. the ranking democrat has called for the chair to recuse himself, but i don't really want to comment on that. i think what we want to do is do it in such a way here that we're not going to have those kinds of issues. >> what does your committee hope to find out from christopher steel? >> well, i'm not going to confirm or deny that that is part of the investigation. i know you've got some sources on that. i'm not one of them. but we're going to be talking to anybody who we feel has relevant information to contribute to one of three questions that we're really looking at. what do the russians do? how do they do it in terms of

the national committee, wikileaks and all that? and the third that doesn't get much attention that i think is incredibly important is we know the russians tried to get into several or more than several state election systems, voting machines and registration lists, and that's a huge problem that i think we're going to have to focus considerable resources on and also figure out how to prevent it. because the information is they didn't change any voting results, but, you know, they weren't doing it for fun. so we have to be sure that doesn't happen in two years, four years or six years. >> on that topic, the fbi director said it didn't change anything, but are you saying that there's evidence that the russians were able to get into some machines? >> well, there's evidence that they tried. that was noted in the january 6 report. it was a little piece of it, but there is no question that they

tried and i met this morning, as a matter of fact, with one of the country's experts on the vulnerability of our election system. it's pretty scary, and we've got to really be -- this is a tricky area because the states generally control the election process but the states don't care about elections or borders or anything else. we have to know the states will protect themselves. >> you talked to that person who compiled the dossier in the obama campaign, but somebody who is a former governmentalie of ours who compiled pertinent information to the investigation, in a general sense, would that person be of interest to your committee? >> anyone who has information relevant to this investigation

is somebody we want to talk to and we want to get their information. we'll be able to assess the validity of it. as i say, i'm not going to confirm or deny. we're not goi-- confirm or deny we're going to talk with him or anybody else, for that matter. but we're not leaving any stone unturned. we want to get to the bottom of it. it's important, katy, that we do it in a way that's credible to both sides. if it's dismissed as propaganda and fake news on one half, and the other half, it's fake, vice versa, we're trying to be honest. >> is it possible to do that seeing the house is ongoing? is it possible right now for this country to trust any committee that has republicans and democrats? or does this need to go to an independent petitioner or a special prosecutor just the way this country is divided right

now. >> if criminal acts are found, it will go to a special prosecutor. you're talking about information gathering. as f as the independent commission, and someone has to set it up. they're going to be appointed generally by the speaker of the house, the minority leader and president and all of that, so you'll end up with a bipartisan commission, anyway, and you'll have to start all over with clearance, six months from now or eight months from now and you would have to start over. we have a bipartisan committee. it's very carefully balanced. it's eight republicans, six democrats and me. so it's 8-7. one republican who decides to change sides, it's 8-7 the other way.

i have a great deal of confidence in the chair, the ranking member -- it's not a whitewash kind of operation. it's a -- there are strong opinions on that committee, and for that reason i'm hoping that we'll be able to do as much of our work in possible so that at the end of the process, they'll say, yeah, we saw the evidence, too, and we understand how they came to this conclusion. >> an independent member of the intel committee. thank you for your time, sir. >> thanks, katy. we are waiting f the russia probe. that's where we will see them ask and answer questions. let me see what has been going on in this committee and a little more of how it's being done differently than what we're

seeing in the house. we will bring that to you live just as soon as it happens.

as promised, here is senator burr. i'm sorry, here is senator warner talking with senator burr. >> government officials who might have influenced in any way, shape or form the election process. we take that very seriously. it's not something that can be done quickly, and when you look at our committee, it is, in fact, the oversight role that we function in every single day. this is just on a little larger scale. for those that might think or have suggested that this is

outside of our expertise, let me remind you the last public investigation that we did was the senate investigation into benghazi. we devoted three professional staff to that investigation. it took one year. and in comparison to the public hearings that happened in the house, our report and findings were out much quicker than what they were. and i think are consistent with, in fact, what the house process looked like at the end. so let me share with you what we've accomplished to date. we have devoted seven pression staff positio to this investigation. these are sffers that already had the clearance and already had the knowled of the materials that they were going to look at that started on day one. now, what was day one? day one was the first public hearing that the committee held

with director clapper, director comey, admiral rogers and director brennan. when they came to the united states senate to testify on the completion of the ica, the report of the last administration on russia's involvement in the elections. the full committee had an opportunity to ask every one of the four ic members of initial questions, things that we knew to ask as of that time. let me assure you that as this investigation continues, we will certainly give those individuals at least once, if not more, opportunities to come back either in an official capacity or in a retired capacity, to come back and share with us answers to questions we might have. the staff has been provided an unprecedented amount of documents. those documents include

documents that up to this point have only been shared with the gang of eight and staff directors on the house and senate side. it's safe to say that our staff currently is working through thousands of raw intelligence and analytic products to, one, determine whether the process that the reviewers went through to compile their report were in agreement with, and to see if our confidence levels on their ratings of low, medium or high confidence, in fact, match. to date, as i said, they've been provided thousands of pages of documents and have reviewed to date a majority of those documents. we're within weeks of completing the review of those documents. i might say that we're in constant negotiations with the intelligence community about

access to additional documents, to where we access those documents, to how our staff notes are kept, and whether, in fact, we have the capabilities within the intelligence community spaces to use computers. this is not abnormal. it's been involved in every investigation i've seen in the 17 years i've been in the house of the senate committee. so i don't find this to be unusual but it is challenging, to say the least. it does not yet include the additional documents that the committee has requested and others that we will request to enable us ultimately to come to some finality, findings and conclusions of the mission of this investigation. this week we began to schedule our first interviews. to date, we have made 20 requests for individuals to be

interviewed by the committee. as we stand here today, five are already scheduled on the books and probably within the next ten days the remaining 15 will have a scheduled date for those individuals to be interviewed by our staff. we anticipate inviting additional individuals to come and be interviewed, and ultimately some of those interviewed individuals may turn into private and public hearings by the committee, but yet to be determined. there have been a number of individuals who have volunteered to be interviewed. let me assure you that they will be processed as the committee determines we're ready to conduct those interviews, or if they're even pertinent to the issues that we need to look into. the only individual who has

publicly been identified to date is jared kushner. and the committee will conduct an interview with mr. kushner when the committee decides that it's time for us to set a date because we know exactly the scope of what needs to be asked of mr. kushner. tomorrow's hearing, which will be the first public hearing that we've held, is to examine russian capabilities. they're capabilities to influence elections globally, what russia has done in the past, which is important for us to bring to light for the american people, what they're doing today both here and throughout the world, and more importantly, what we should expect for the future. we've got two panels, two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, to look at specifically the policies that we think russia is implementing

and to look at the technologies that display their capabilities. i would conclude with this, and then i'll turn it over to mark. we will always say to you this investigation scope wl go wherever the intelligence leads it. so it is absolutely crucial that every day we spend trying to separate fact from fiction and to find some intelligence thread that sends us to the factual side of all the names and all the places that you in this room have written about. just the fact that you say it doesn't mean it's fact. it's incumbent on our staff and on our members to, paft, connect that intelligence thread to that for us to make some determination as to the relevance of it in our investigation. so mark and i work hand in hand on this, and contrary to maybe popular belief, we're partners

to see that this is completed and that we've got a product at the end of the day that we can have bipartisanship in supporting. >> thank you, richard. i'm going to repeat many of the things the chairman has said, but i think it's important you hear it from both of us. obviously there is a lot of drama out there about the stories that all of you are running down. and i think echoing what the chairman has said, it's important for us, at least, and i think all of us here, to remember not to lose sight of what this investigation is about. an outside foreign adversary effectively sought to hijack our most critical democratic process, the election of our president. and in that process, decided to favor one candidate over

another. i assure you, they didn't do it because it was in the best interest of the american people. russia's goal, vladimir putin's goal is a weaker united states, weaker economically, weaker globally, and that should be a concern to all americans regardless of party affiliation. we're here to assure you, and more importantly the american people who are watching and listening, that we will get to the bottom of this. we've known each other for a long time, and the chairman and i both have a serious concern about what the russians have done and continue to do around the world. i'll come back to this in a moment when we talk about tomorrow's hearing, but some of the techniques that russia used in this election, as we find more and more, i think would send a chill down anyone who believes in a democratic process in this country or around the world. and echoing what the chairman

has said, the committee will follow the intelligence wherever it leads. we need to get this right, and sometimes that means, especially for somebody like me who wants things done yesterday, that it's not going to happen as quickly as i would like or many members of our committee would like. but getting it right is more important than to get it done quickly. i want to echo again something the chairman said. what i've been remarkably proud of is that the committee on both sides of the aisle, virtually every member, the level of seriousness they put into this work, the attention that they have given and the commitment as well to follow the intel where it may lead. let me back up again to what the chairman has already said. over the last month, we've seen some progress. our staff has been out reviewing these thousands of pages of documents, trying to look back at the source materials. we also -- the chairman has

mentioned they're starting to talk to some of those analysts who helped put together this report and the many ways we want to find out what was potentially left on the cutting room floor that might not have met the full levels of confidence but still might be worthy of further looking. and as the chairman mentioned, a number of those interviews are scheduled. the intelligence community, for the most part in terms of access to people, has been very cooperative. on some of the documents with some parts of the intelligence community, we still have a challenge. but we cannot do this job, we cannot tell the american people our conclusions unless we have access to all the pertinent information. and one of the things i really appreciate is that the chairman and i are committed to getting that. and i know that the patriots that work in the intelligence community want us as well to go

wherever the facts lead. as has been mentioned, the only person we've announced is jared kushner, and we won't schedule th that, again, until we have the facts to ask the appropriate questions. as richard said, there are a lot of names. the chairman mentioned names like thomas paigom a-- thomas sr paige and others. i think it will be interesting because some of the techniques which the russians used in this past election really go to the heart of how our democratic process works. i was a technology nut before i was in politics. and vet technology that has made our lives simpler can also be misused in ways to put false

information, for folks who potentially only get the news off a twitter feed or a facebook news feed, and that raises serious questions even beyond this investigation. so with that, i again want to thank the chairman for the cooperation we've had, and i think i speak on behalf of all the committee members, the most important thing we want to let you know is we're going to get this right and we're going to follow all the intelligence. we'll take some questions. >> we'll take some questions, but let me set the ground rules real quick. we'll answer anything about the senate intelligence committee's investigation. we will not take questions on the house intelligence committee. we would refer those to the house intelligence committee. >> the white house has continually said that any discussion about coordination between the trump campaign and russian officials is a hoax, and anybody who has seen any information about this knows there's nothing there. so from what you have seen so far, can you definitively rile out that there was no coordination whatsoever between trump officials and russian

officials during the election? >> we would be crazy to try to draw conclusions from where we are in the investigation. i think mark and i have committed to let this process go through before we form any opinions. and i would hope that that's what you would like us to do. as much as we'd like to share minute by minute, even the snapshots we get as a team going through it, are not always accurate and we find the next piece of intelligence. let us get a little deeper into this before you ask us to write the conclusions. that's clearlyomething we intend to do down the road. all the way in the back row, quick. >> sir, do you know why they sent a letter urging the committee to look closer between financial ties of trump associates and russia? is there a general sense that the committee is not already investigating the final aspect of this closely now? >> the committee is looking

anywhere intelligence suggests that there might have been any type of relationship or effort to influence u.s. elections. >> i would just simply add that i, for a long time, before we even started this investigation, that this president, like prior presidents of both parties, should have to release their tax returns. >> is christopher steele one of the 20 you've identified, and if so, does your company have the resources to interview persons outside the united states if you deem that necessary? >> we're not going to get into names that are on our list, but i can assure you that it's lengthy. mark and i have both agreed that we're willing to issue subpoenas. it's tough to make a subpoena go outside the united states, so we understand the limitations. but i'll only say this, that he

and i are tapping into everything they can to get information relevant to the investigation. >> have you personally coordinated with the white house on the scope of this instigation, andow do you prevent it from going off track? >> no, sir, i have not, and it's the relationship and the trust we have. >> let me also just add to that. there have been -- all the member of the committee, i have been constantly impressed. we know it's challenging. some folks want this to go away, some folks want this to be done and us reaching conclusions tomorrow or yesterday. but so many committee members on both sides of the aisle have constantly stepped up. i think it's not only our relationship, but it's the fact that the committee, i think, has got our back and want us to see it through. >> yes? >> without naming another committee, could you speak to

the level of satisfaction on both sides of the aisle within your community abo-- committee about assessments that have been given and so on? >> for the first time, not only have members had access to the gang aid of information. that is unprecedented in the history of the committee. so i think it starts with the trust that the intelligence community has with the staff, the professional staff and with the membership at large. it would be extremely easy for them to deny us to have access to some of the country's most sensitive things that deal with these methods. they have not. that's what gives us high hopes that we can reach a conclusion that has bipartisan support and that we feel confident and have explored every crevice we can find. >> we have to make sure we get that information.

part of this is the normal course, i think, of the intelligence community having concerns and i think we earned that trust. >> this is a two-part question. [ inaudible ] >> can you tell us whether that's happened already, and secondly, leaving some of these documents at the cia, for instance, it's a bewildering amount of information. is there something being done to try to help you get through this volume, large volume, of documents? >> i'm not sure who you're hearing it from. it's not the professional staff that's doing it. is it a lot of information? absolutely. is it clear to know where to go? yeah, it's in three binders. you open the front cover and you start reading until you get to the back one ask then ynd then

on the second and the third. in benghazi, our professional staff had to go out and figure out what intelligence they needed to ask for, didn't have sk assess access to gang of eight, had to figure out who to interview. this is one of the biggest investigations that the hill has seen in my tenure here. >> you go to a footnote and you've then got to go back and get a document that supports that footnote. we want to catch any of those individuals out in public. we want to assess whether it's appropriate to see them, and you might think it is appropriate. we have to know what the right questions are to ask. to do that, you have to have the underlying documents. [ inaudible ] >> i knew you were going to ask that, and i will not say, but i want to make sure the

inteigence committee knows so have been very responsive, some less so, but to do our job we have to have this information. >> let me answer on behalf of the agencies. not every document that an agency holds is the product of that agency. so it is impossible from a legal standpoint for one agency to provide another agency's document. the faster we can work through who has ownership rights, the quicker we can ask the appropriate agency for a specific document. let me go right here. >> as part of your investigation, are you asking the house chairman to share his sources with you? and will you seek the review the white house visitor logs? >> we're not asking the louse to play any role in our investigation west don't plan to play a role in their investigation. >> are you confident the white house has not interfered in the integrity of the investigation? for both of you, is the

ultimatetime write a bipartisan report? >> let me start with the second part of your question. absolutely. in terms of bipartisan. if we don't come to some joint the conclusion with the ma nip place took place in the election, and the spirit of the american people saying, what's going on here, i think we would not fulfill our duty. on the first question, i see no evidence. one of the things that mr. kushner volunteering to testify was a good sign. but i said repeatedly, and i think the chairman agrees. this is the right venue. if we see any attempt to stifle us with information or cut off the intelligence professionals giving us the access we need, you'll hear from us. >> will yo also be looking at the potential rewards with the questions of changes to the republican party platform? the convention or the way the

president refuses to criticize? is that part of what you're looking at? >> that's not in the scope the of investigation. i'll leave that up to you to report. yes, ma'am. >> has the white house or the doj or any part of the trump administration blocked sally yates from giving you information? >> i would like to see miss yates at some point. i did see a white house comment from the white house spokesman yesterday. he said he would be happy to have her testify. there may be some doj concerns. that's something we have to jointly decide on when the schedule will take place. >> so they haven't blocked her from enabling her to come before the committee or talk to you? >> no. >> mr. chairman? >> i think a lot of americans want to know if the president himself had anything to do with this. we have a government who is a trust issue right now.

a lot of americans, is there anything you've seen, either of you or your staff that would raise any direct links to the president himself to what happened? >> we won't take a snap shot in time and make any observations on it. we know that our challenge is to answer that question for the american people in our conclusions to this investigation. >> any circumstances to which you wouldn't share with mr. warner one of your sources? >> he usually knows my sources before i do. >> let me assure you, i have his cell phone which means heears from me more than he would sometimes like. >> the white house and supporters of the president complained at times that the intelligence community has leaked intelligence or communications, scooped up, by members of the transition team improperly. does the scope of the

investigation include any of that? >> the normal course of business for the intelligence committee is about leaks. that's an ongoing process that we look at. we will try to assess leaks if they take place in the same way. if we find them we will refer them to the appropriate law enforcement agency by requesting a crimes report. >> have you seen anything that anything improper, that it had to do with -- >> my answer would probably be no. we're so early in the investigation. i'm not sure that we've triaged every piece out there. >> and i think one of the things we are both very concerned, leaks can sometimes be extraordinarily damaging to our capacity for the men and women who serve our country. i do think that editorial comment here, that if the

administration has said they did nothing, i would hope they would continue. there is nothing to leak. on the other hand, the more cooperation we can get, the sooner we can get forward and remove this cloud. >> the fact the fbi has an active counter intelligence investigation, has that caused to you change your investigation at all in terms of trying not to step on their toes, or to do anything that could undermine a potential criminal investigation? >> i'll leave up to the fbi to make any comments on a cia investigation if there is one and the extent. we're also conscious of the fact we may go down a road and find we're in conflict with a law enforcement process at which time we will work the appropriate people to try to remedy that. >> there is historical precedent. watergate had an investigation while there were doj investigations going on but

we're very sensitive to that. >> for senator warner, can you give us a sense of the scale in terms of the number of people and the different facets of the attack? >> i would like the start off on that. we know about the hacking and the selective leaking of information. but as a former tech guy, what really kernels me is at least some reports, we have to get to the bottom of this. that there were upwards of 1,000 paid internet trolls working out of a facility in russia, taking over a series of computers. they can then generate news, down to specific areas. we have to find out, specific areas in wisconsin, chigan, pennsylvania. where you would not have been

receiving whoever your vendor might have been. trump versus clinton during the waning days of the election. clinton is sick or clinton is taking money from some source. fake news. we've also seen as well the fact if you think about, if you look just, for example, if you googled election hacking during the period leading up to the election, and immediately afterwards, you wouldn't get fox or abc or "new york times." what you get is four out of first five news stories that popped up were russian propaganda. rt news, others. i'm not here to relitigate the election. but the fact, i believe part of our responsibility as well is to put the american powerball a higher level of alert that this time it was russia. it could be other foreign nations as well. we are in a whole new realm around cyber that provides opportunities. the huge, huge threats for basic

democracy. and we're seeing it now. >> we're on the brink of potentially having two european countries where russia is the balance disruptor of their leadership. and what we might assess is a very covert effort in 2016 in the united states, is a very overt effort as well as covert in germany and france, already been tried in montenegro, the netherlands. so we feel part of our responsibility is to educate the rest of the world about what's going on. it is now in the character assassination of candidates. >> one of the things we as the committeeorng with the administration, how we really thin proactively about what kind of even potentially offensive strategy you have to take. we cannot allow this to happen again. this time it may have favored one party.

russia will act in its self-interests, not in america's interests. so we have to be careful going forward. >> a question for you, senator, and i ask this with no disrespect. it is a question -- >> he disrespects me all the time. >> having served as an adviser on the trump campaign, can you say hand over heart that you can oversee an impartial and serious investigation? >> absolutely. i'll do something i've never done. i'll admit that i voted for him. we always hide who we vote for. that's part of the democratic process. but i have a job in the united states senate. and i take job extremely serious, it overrides any personal beliefs that i have or loyalties that i might have. mark and i might look at politics differently. we don't look at the responsibilities we have on the committee differently. and that's to earn the zpruft the respect of the intelligence community so they feel open and good about sharing information

with us because that enables us to do our oversight job that much better. >> and let me go back. i have confidence in him that we together the members of our committee will get to the bottom of this. if you get nothing else from today, take that statement to the bank. >> have you been in contact with michael flynn or representative michael flynn? can you go into a little thought process between why you would have an interview behind closed doors or do it publicly? why you would talk to jared kushner behind closedoors or publicly? why would you do that? >> well, i think it is safe to say we have had conversations with a lot of people. and you would think less of us if general flynn wasn't in that list. from the standpoint of the interview process, if you feel like you're being cheated because they're noinub