president waits to tweet until 6:13 a.m. friday morning it becomes his longest ever twitter drought. not too early to remind you 2:30 eastern time we are on the air for white house press conference tomorrow afternoon. that is our broadcast for tonight. thank you for being here with us. good night from new york. run for office. run for something. public service has gotten a bad rap in my generation and i think subsequent generations. i'm old. public service has gotten a bad rap. but forget that. just run for office. we are a small "d" democratic country. our government is of the people, by the people. why not you? why somebody else? why not you? but if you were never persuaded by that argument before, if you never felt motivated to serve your fellow citizens, if you never felt that impulse to shape

the future of our country and your community, even if none of that stuff moved you in the past, today, we all got one big fat new, very persuasive reason why we should run for office. you should run for office if you're nosey, because it's the only way to satisfy an acute sense of nosiness. only people who once ran for office and want a seat in the united states senate and got themselves onto the intelligence committee, only those people got to hear the really juicy stuff today. >> what do you know about the russian bank v.e.b.? >> nothing that i can talk about in an open setting. >> was the fbi able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the document?

>> mr. chairman, i don't think that's a question i can answer in an open setting. >> is the not true mr. flynn was and is a central figure in this investigation in the relationship between the trump campaign and the russians? >> i can't answer that in an open setting, sir. >> when you read the dossier, what was your reaction given it was 100% directed at the president-elect? >> not a question i can nance open setting, mr. chairman. >> does that mean the dossier is not being reviewed or investigating or fold up on in any way? >> obviously can't comment either way. i can't talk in an open setting act the investigation. >> did you have at the time that story was published any indication of any contact between trump people and russians russian intelligence officers, government officials or associates of the russian government? >> i can't answer sitting here.

>> did you ever come close to closing the investigation on mr. flynn? >> i don't think i can talk about that in open setting either. >> are you aware of any meetings between the trump administration officials and russian officials during the campaign that have not been acknowledged by those officials in the white house? >> that's not -- even if i remember clearly, that's not a question i can answer in an open setting. >> do you believe trump colluded with russia? >> it's a question i don't think i should answer in an open setting. >> i want to know. [ laughs ] only one way to find o. what we saw today was the open session, obviously. the public hearing which we were all allowed to watch. but after the public session ended up at 2:00 p.m. today, that same small group of senators, they got to question the fired fbi director again, except in the afternoon session we weren't there.

it was the closed session, classified, and presumably he was able to give them answers to all those questions he said he couldn't answer in the open session we got to see on tv. even in that unclassified testimony that we all saw that we did learn a ton, i think the most surprising substantive thing we learned -- we learned a lot of gossip things, but the substantive thing we learned today which i definitely didn't see coming, and it has now turned into a story that is continuing to develop into this evening, the big surprising substantive reveal today was about the current attorney general of the united states, jeff sessions, attorney general sessions appears to be in the cross hairs in a way we didn't previously understand. yesterday we got an advanced copy of director comey's opening

statement for his testimony to listen to we got that in writing. and part of that statement explained james comey's allegations allegation that president trump told james comey in a one-on-one meeting in the oval office that the fbi should let go its ongoing criminal inveigation into the trump national security adviser mike flynn. the investigation in mike flynn and his contacts with the russian government. in his written testimony that we got yesterday in advance, comey said after president trump told him to lay off the flynn investigation, director comey left that meeting and immediately wrote a memo about what had happened at that meeting. he also told his senior staff at the fbi exactly what had happened at that meeting and what the president told him to do. but he did not tell the head of the justice department. he did not tell his superior or attorney general jeff sessions. and this is how he explained why he didn't tell jeff sessions. this is what he put in his written statement.

quote, we concluded, it made little sense to report it to attorney general jeff sessions who would likely recuse himself from investigations. he did so two weeks later. we got that in writing from james comey yesterday. at the time that statement came out yesterday, we were all wondering, how did the fbi know two weeks in advance that attorney general jeff sessions was going to have to recuse himself on the russia investigation? there's an answer to that. director comey solved that mystery and explained that today and his explanation, frankly, made perfect sense. >> we were convinced, in fact i think we heard the career people recommending that he recuse himself, that he was not going to be in contact with russia related matters much longer and that turned out to be the case. >> that does make sense. the fbi director is saying the president told me to stop the fbi investigation into mike flynn concerning flynn's

contacts with russia. comey told multiple other people about that directive from the president, told multiple other people at the fbi. but he and his top team at the fbi deliberately decided they weren't going to alert the attorney general because all of this people at the fbi knew the attorney general was going to have to recuse himself from russia related matters and soon. he explains the reason he knew he was going to have to recuse himself is because a process was already underway at the justice department to decide about whether or not he was going to have to recuse himself and the career people at the justice department knew he was going to have to recuse himself. that was known at the justice department. the fbi people had heard about that. so that makes sense. in short order, jeff sessions isn't allowed to know anything related to any investigations so don't tell him about the flynn investigation now if he's going to have to pretend to forget about it two weeks down the

line. all made clear by today's testimony. all makes sense, all is well. except for the reason you should run for office. in case you're nosey so you can get into that freaking closed session. because in addition to always recusal stuff which was put to bed and explained in totally normal terms today, apparently there's something else going on we're not allowed to know about yet with regard to the attorney general and russia. >> in your statement you said that you and the fbi leadership team decided not to discuss the president's actions with attorney general sessions, even though he had not recused himself. what was it about the attorney general's n interactions with the russians or his behavior with regard to the investigation

that would have led the entire leadership of the fbi to make this decision? >> our judgment as i recall was that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. we also were aware of facts i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russia related investigation problematic. >> so in addition to the he's going to have to recuse himself which is normal and can be discussed on tv. in addition to that there's something classified concerning the current attorney general which the director of the fbi and the whole top team at the fbi knew about in february well before the attorney general was ever recused from these matters. something about the attorney general and russia -- let's play that bit again.

the word he used was problematic. play that part again. >> we were also aware of facts that i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russia related investigation problematic. >> like i said, run for office. it's the only way you find out on a day like today whatever it is that can't be discussed in an open setting. what happened next on this matter concerning the attorney general is that these senators went into a closed session, a classified session with director comey where they got to ask him again all these questions that he couldn't nance an open setting. after they had that classified closed door session, senator joe mansion of west virginia came out and talked to reporters from nbc news and told them essentially the attorney general needs to explain, at least one of his own meetings with the russians. >> jeff could add a lot of light

to it if you just want to know why he recused himself, or his meetings he had or wwas said and this and that or what we don't know or you know we've pretty much god gotten pretty good records of everything. >> there's one meeting that he won't. there's one meeting that we don't. people would like to know about it. what's that? so now we are in an unexpected place. the fbi, the fired fbi director says he and the entire top leadership at the fbi were aware of something classified about the attorney general, something that cannot be discussed openly but made it problematic for even other top law enforcement officials in february to talk with the attorney general about something that related to russia. and that's separate and apart from the issues from reaccusing himself from the russia

investigations a couple weeks later. i did not see this coming. i have no idea what this is about. presumably, additional light will be shed on it at some point. but what's going on with the attorney general here? that just came out of nowhere. we may find out something about that soon, at least he may face questions about it soon. this that i'm about to show you here, this was not a very high profile thing before today, but now with the revelations today, it's now all of a sudden a big red letter item on the calendar that attorney general jeff sessions is expected to give testimony in the senate on tuesday. previously scheduled, it's an unrelated topic, tuesday morning 10:00 a.m. you will be allowed to call in

sick to work that day according to me. i should note the attorney general has a history of getting shy. he was due to testify to the house and to the senate a week before last again on previously scheduled matters unrelated to the russia investigation he canceled both of those appearances at the last minute. something came up. so we'll see if he keeps his date for next week. right now he's scheduled to speak to a senate subcommittee tuesday morning, 10:00 a.m. so the attorney general jeff sessions i think was the big revelation today. and then we have what i think is likely to cause the president himself the most serious legal trouble. >> do you believe the russia investigation played a role?

>> in why i was fired? yes. i was fired because of the russia investigation, something about the way i was conducting it, the president felt created pressure on m that he wanted to reveal. i was fired because of something of the way i was conducting the russia investigation was putting pressure on him and in some way irritating him and he fired me because of that. i was fired because of the russia investigation. i was fired in some way to change or the endeavor was to change the way the investigation was being conducted. that is a very big deal. >> yes, that is a very big deal. the fbi director being fired by the president to try to change or stop an fbi investigation into the president's campaign and his top staffers, that is a big freaking deal. even if there's no russia factor here, even if this investigation was into criminal cheating at

tiddlywinks, the president firing the fbi director to try to change or stop an fbi investigation into the president, his campaign, or his top staffers, or anything, the president try to affect an ongoing investigation. regardless of the big context. and it's very important for the president's future that most observers believe that potential obstruction of justice is being investigated by the special counsel now. >> do you believe this will rise to obstruction of justice? >> i don't know. that's bobueller's jo figure out. >> that was a matter of

speculation and assumption. >> special counsel bob muller is investigating not just russia, not just the question of whether or not trump colluded in the attack. according to james comey's deck lub erations today, he is -- declarations today, he is investigating whether there was a criminal effort after the russian attack to obstruct justice as the russia affair started to come under investigation, he's investigating whether there was an effort by the president or other people in the administration to obstruct justice has those matters were being investigated. and here is the gigantic that the president of the united states now has with that. >> did you at any time urge former fbi director james comey in any way, shape, or form? >> no. next question. >> that was the president last month, no, no, i did not not urge comey to close down the investigation.

director comey has now testified under oath that the president did urge him to close down the flynn investigation. he also testified under oath that when the president denied that, he was lying. >> in his press conference on may 18th, the president was asked whether he urged you to shut down the investigation into michael flynn. the president responded no, no. next question. is that an accurate statement? >> i don't believe it is. >> thank you. >> here's what this fight is boiling down to, this may be what the presidency ends up boiling down to. did the president tell the fbi director, james comey, to kill the mike flynn investigation or did he not do that? did he try to kill the flynn investigation or didn't he? that's what it boils down to even if the russia things never happened. the president has a new private sector lawyer now. as soon as james comey's testimony was over today, that

lawyer went into a press availability and denied this claim, denied that the president ever tried to shut down the flynn investigation. he denied it on the president's behalf again in no uncertain terms. they are declaring essentially that this is the hill they want to die on. >> the president never in form or substance directed or suggested that mr. comey stop investigating anyone, including the president never suggested that mr. comey, quote, let flynn go. >> president in form or substance did not direct or suggest, everyone told the fbi director to let the flynn investigation go. this is it. this is the nut. if there's only one thing that everybody on earth is going to remember about this -- this is what it's boiling down to. on the one hand, there's the

president. president now and the president's er on beha of the president saying i never did that. i never told the fbi to shut do the flynn investigation. on the other hand, there's the fired fbi director who says the president did do that. there's the memo the director wrote. as soon as he says that conversation with the president happened. and there's the people at the fbi who the fbi director told contemporaneously right after that conversation with the president happened. a list of people who the fired fbi director described today at length. >> who are those senior leaders at the fbi you shared these conversations with? >> as i said, deputy director, my chief of staff, general counsel, deputy directors, chief counsel, and then more often than not, the number three person at the fbi who's the associate deputy director and quite often the head of the

national security branch. >> so just to summarize here, there's the president saying i never told the fbi director to stop the flynn investigation. so that's the president. on the other hand, there's james comey saying, yeah, the president did that. and, by the way, i wrote it down at the time and, by the way, i told at the time the fbi deputy director, the chief of staff, the general counsel, the associate deputy director and probably the head of the national security branch at the fbi. so it's their word and the written documentation of the fbi director on one side, and also maybe they've got tape. >> do you believe there were any tapes or recordings of your conversations with the president? >> it never occurred to me until the president's tweet. i'm not being facetious. i hope there are.

i will consent to the release. >> both of you are in the same findings. you both hope there are tapes and recordings? >> all i can do is hope the president surely knows whether he taped me. if he did, my feelings aren't hurt. release all the tapes. i'm good with it. i've seen the tweet about tapes. lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> even if the whole russia thing never happened -- the russia thing happened. there was a russian attack on our election. there's a question whether they colluded or helped. set all that aside. even if russia never happened this is what it looks like it's coming down to as of today with the special counsel looking into the possibility that there was obstruction of justice. this is what it's come down to. the president trying to stop an ongoing fbi criminal investigation is a text book obstruction of justice. the evidence for whether or not he did that just on the terms of the flynn investigation, just in

terms of michael flynn being investigated, that's how it balances out as of today. on the one side, the president denies it. on the other side, james comey says he did it and his memo says he did it and he has witnesses of the entire senior structure of the fbi saying they will corroborate that i said he did the nht that i said he did it. and maybe also it happened on tape. that's the balance of the evidence. president's denial versus all of that. and that is why it's a problem for the president that as of today his legal defense doesn't appear to be awesome. we have more on that ahead. plus, we've got "the new york times" reporter whose story was attacked by james comey and my multiple republican senators at today's hearing. the "times" is sticking to its guns on that story. lots ahead. stay with us. i'm leaving you, wesley. but why? you haven't noticed me in two years. i was in a coma.

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>> "the new york times" wrote an article that suggested that the trump campaign was colluding with the russians. you remember reading that article when it first came out? >> i do. it first about electronic surveillance. >> correct. that upset you to the point where you went out and surveyed the intelligence community, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> on february 14th, "the new york times" published a story saying trump campaign aides have repeated contacts with russian intelligence. you were asked earlier if that was an accurate story.

wouldn't it be fair to say that story is entirely wrong? >> yes. >> almost entirely wrong. those are words that get reporters' attention. calling a story like that not true. here's that story they were talking about at the comey hearing today. it's from february 14th, "new york times" reports, quote, phone records and intercepted calls show that members of donald trump's campaign had repeated contact with senior russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. quote, the national security agency which monitors the communications of foreign intelligence services initially captured the calls as part of routine foreign surveillance. that was bombshell at the time. this was the first report about multiple contacts between the trump campaign and the russians during the campaign. huge bombshell for obvious reasons. it came out the day after michael flynn resigned from

contacts with the russians. when the "times" published this it had pushback from the administration at the time. the "times" was not lone in that reporting. they may have been first, but a whole bunch of iterations of this story followed from different news outlets. but all reporting that same basic story that trump campaign so he talks had multiple contacts with russians during the campaign. the "times" was first but they were not the only outfit that reported that. the fact first follow store came within 24 hours, february 14th, within the same day the "times" published their piece, cnn posted their own version of the story. then thereafter, here was "the washington post," quote, u.s. intelligence reports cite multiple contacts between members of trump's team and

russians with links to the kremlin during the campaign and affirm ward. -- afterward. by march the times with a similar story. american allies including the british and dutch provided information of meetings between russian officials and associates of donald trump. this one from cnn, british intelligence passed trump associates' communications with russians on to u.s. counterparts. and then further confirmation from a different ally, from the "guardian," through summer 2016 a number of western spy agencies shared information with the u.s. government on contacts between trump's inner circle and russians. basic nut of this story was even confirmed on the record under oath by the former director of national intelligence. >> over the spring of 2016,

multiple european allies passed on additional information to the united states about contacts between the trump campaign and russians. is this accurate? >> i can't answer that. >> general clapper, is that accurate? >> yes, it is and it's also quite sensitive. >> okay. let me ask you this. >> the specifics are quite sensitive. >> okay. so the u.s. got multiple reports from multiple european allies about them oerving contacts betwn trump campaign and the russians during the campaign. yes, that's accurate, it's quite sensitive, but, yes, that's accurate. confirmed. so "the new york times" was first to report on trump campaign aides having repeated contacts with russian intelligence but it's not like the "times" stands alone on this story. for some reason from the day

this story was published all the way up to today, james comey himself, the fired fbi director, and multiple senators were pushing hard on the "times" story having been wrong here. the "times" is standing by its reporting against all that pressure today. and wouldn't you like to hear from the reporter on that story about what he thinks? oh, good. he's here next. dental professionals recommend using an electric toothbrush. for an exceptionally fresh feeling choose philips sonicare diamondclean. hear the difference versus oral b. in a recently published clinical study, philips sonicare diamondclean outperforms oral-b 7000, removing up to 82% more plaque and improving gum health up to 70% more. its sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth. from the most recommended sonic toothbrush brand by dental professionals. switch to philips sonicare today. philips sonicare. save when you buy now.

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couple days ago investigative reporter michael isakoff had a scoop from yahoo news saying the president was having a hard time finding a lawyer. lots of big-name lawyers and law firms were all saying no when the white house approached them or the president himself personally called them to ask if they would represent the president on the russia issue. the president may not have been able to get big-name lawyers to represent him, but it's not like he's going without. he did get a lawyer to represent him but what he got was one of his old lawyers from new york who represented him in his casino business. he's come to d.c. to represent donald trump in this very different matter. and that defense started out today with a swing and a miss, with a total basic screwup.

>> although mr. comey testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the "new york times" was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies mr. comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory. >> the debut of donald trump's new slash old lawyer today zinging "the new york times" and getting it totally wrong. did the math wrong or basically sort of did the reading wrong. this is an embarrassing error. absolutely 100% missed. this is the way it actually happened. this is a story "the new york times" published on may 11th, two days after comey was fired. it's a story about how the

president asked james comey for loyalty during a dinner conversation they had. the day after that story came out, the president tweeted there might be tapes of his conversations with james comey. that was may 12th. then it was four days after the president's tweet that the "times" published this scoop, asking flynn to kibosh the investigation and he wrote a memo about it memorializing it and making a record of it. that's the way this happened. today we got an explanation from the fired fbi director as to why that timeline happened the way it did. >> i asked -- president tweeted on friday that i better hope there's not tapes. i woke up in the middle of the night on monday night because it didn't dawn on my that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape. and my judgment was i needed to get that out in the public square so i asked a friend of

mine to share the content with a reporter. but i asked him to because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. >> so that's very straightforward. first, may 9th trump fires comey. two days later "times" publishes that story about the president asking for comey's loyalty. and friends who comey told about that dinner and the loyalty request at the time. the next day, the president tweets that comey better hope there are no tapes. and then the following monday after that weekend, comey says he wakes up in the middle of the night asks his friend to share the contents of his memo about the mike flynn with a reporter. the day after this, his friend shares the contents of that memo and the "new york times" publishes their story based on the memo. the headline is clear.

and that's the timeline. that's what happened. trump's lawyer completely blew that today. >> although mr. comey testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the "new york times" was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet. >> nope. exactly wrong, not at all, 100% failure. obviously a lot of the importance of james comey's testimony today and the importance of him in a figure in this scandal is about what he says happened versus with the president says happened. but this from the president's brand new lawyer, that there's a "new york times" story proving james comey lied about when he shared the memo with the press and why, that is categorically not true, swing and a miss.

that does not bode well for a president that may need serious legal help. joining us now is a key person who was never named in the senate hearing today. he's the reporter who broke the story about the comey memo last month. he is also the reporter who wrote the story about reported evidence of communication between russia and the trump campaign during the campaign. his name is michael schmidt. you've had a wheal of a day. thank you for being here tonit. >> thanks for having me. i appreciated that rundown. it's been a busy month, so thank you. >> you've been doing a lot of work. on that last point first, that timeline, did i basically get that timeline correct? seems to me the president's lawyer just sort of blew it, got that backwards today. is that how you understand it as well? >> i've tried to make this point

over the past few weeks. this really illustrates it. the tweet is what causes what happened today. comey sees that tweet and says, wow, there may be a way to back this up. i really need to get this out there. and that is the reason why we knew that trump asked him to end the flynn investigation, and that's why we had the hearing today. it's just another example of the president's tweets undermining him. >> when james comey explained today his thinking about that, and his decision to ask his friend this law professor to share with you the contents of that memo that he wrote, memorializing the questions about flynn, looks like he was going out of his way to be clear that you were never given the memo itself. is that true? is that what he was indicating? >> we don't have the copies of the memos. we're not sitting around with them on our desk.

and we pointed that out in our stories that portions of the memos were read to us, but that we've never actually had them ourselves. >> when yoreceived those memos, can you talk about how you verified they were what they appeared to be? >> there's different things about whether the times line up. was comey indeed at the white house on the 14th? that was something we ran down pretty quickly. he was there. there was a meeting. there are basic things like that that you can use to corroborate your facts, and we do. but then you have to trust your sources and you have to know who you're talking to. and we felt comfortable with the information we had. >> michael, let me ask you about this other issue today with a story you broke on february 14th, one of the biggest scoops of this entire scandal thus for, members of the trump campaign having contacts with the russians for a year before the election.

director comey today said that that article was almost entirely wrong. he repeated that assessment a few different times. do you know what he's objecting to and do you believe there's anything wrong with the reporting in that piece? >> no. and we've posted a full story on our website, myself and my two colleagues who did the original story, that lays out why we are standing by this story. comey did not explain today why he thinks this story is inaccurate. we point out in the story that since it ran we learned about contacts between carter page and russians, jared kushner and russians, and about different things that have been collected by the intelligence community. the one thought that we think the disagreement may be here on, which we point out in the story, is on the use of intelligence officials, the fbi has a very narrow definition of that, folks

in the intelligence community abroad have a more looser definition of that, especially with russia where the intelligence apparatus is deeply ingrained in the society. but we've never been given an explanation by the fbi. we went back to the fbi today and said please clarify for us. tell us where we were wrong, and they did not provide us that information. we have a story about this, and we laid out the information that we have. we stand where we are. >> as we've noted and a lot of other people have as well, and you note in tonight's story, multiple news outlets after your initial report have corroborated various aspects of this, citing different sources and different details. it's really strange this is hanging out there with nobody explaining the objection. michaels schmidt, reporter for

the "new york times" whose writing was very much a part of this news. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> we have much more tonight. stay with us. okay. got it. rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel

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so it's no longer that he told other people. we now know who the other people who he told. he says he told the deputy director of the fbi, the chief of staff to the fbi director, jim rybicki. he told the general counsel of the fbi, james baker. he told the deputy director's chief counsel. we don't know that person's name. he told the number three person in the fbi, the associate deputy director david bow ditch, and he said he told the head of the national security branch, the executive assistant director of the fbi. his name is carl ghattas. the question i have now is this going to be the a battle of witnesses, a battle of claims between the president and james comey in terms of whether or not the president appears to have obstructed justice.

does this mean all of those named leaders of the fbi could be called as witnesses? join us is congressmen adam schiff, top democrat on the senate intelligence committee. >> let me ask that direct committee that i just laid out here. we heard a list of positions to attack names. people that the director says he confided in after he had these conversations with the president. with those people now be called to testify, do you expect about whether or not they can back up what director comey says? >> i would like to see them come before our committee and share what information they have. as you remember from the director's testimony, at least some of them were even present when director comey was on the phone with the president and could testify about at least one-half of that conversation was. but yes, we should reach out to all of them to see if they can corroborate what the director said. i would add a few more witnesses and that is the directors of the cia, director coats as well as

director rogers of the nsa. we would want to know did the president approach them to lobby comey on dropping the flynn case. we've already asked for the memoranda. those will be important. and as we saw in the testimony today, a very basic rudimentary matter is if there are tapes, we need to get them. and if there are not tapes, the white house has to come clean about why they made that suggestion to begin with. but that's a threshold question that we need answered. >> you mentioned that the director of national intelligence dan coats and admiral mike rogers testified to the senate intelligence committee yesterday and avoided answering that direct question of whether or not the president asked them to intervene, interfere in any way with the fbi investigation. they basically just said that they didn't want to answer those questions.

what's the way around that from your perspective? do you think that your committee would have any better luck with them? >> first of all, i think that was completely unacceptable response there was no claim of executive privilege. the information they were asking was not classified. and fact that they would rather not share it is beside the point. first thing i think we bring them back in closed session. and if there is an executive privilege claim, let the administration make it. i think frankly it would fall because they have already including the president's lawyer today represented what these gentlemen had to say about that very question. you can't basically make a representation and then say but we're going to invoke privilege as to any other views of that same conversation. so i think they would be willing to talk in closed session. i have raised this already with director roger that was testimony. and if there is a claim of privilege, i think we should challenge that claim because this is information we need to have. ultimately, it's also information the american public

needs to have. >> congressman, your committee has been the subject itself of some controversy, your committee chairman. sort of took himself out of the leadership, his leadership role specifically on this investigation after some controversy and house ethics mmittee investigation into his behavior. how do this and at your committee right now terms of whether or not you are making good progress, whether we should expect hearings, whether you're getting good responses from witnesses? >> we are making good progress. mr. conaway and i are working together well. we are conducting the investigation. it's true the chairman is doing his own thing. but we're trying to keep our focus where it should be and not allow ourselves to be buffeted by what others on the committee may do, including the chairman. so we are bringing witnesses in. we are receiving documents. we are scheduling additional open hearings. we'll have one with former secretary jeh johnson in the near future.

well need to get to the bottom of these questions. one other observation i do want to make about the hearing today, rachel, because this really stood out to me viewing it as a member of the investigation, but also as a former prosecutor, and that is between these two competing claims now, between director comey and the president, the white house has no good answer to the question if the president wasn't bringing up anything improper, if the president didn't ask the director to drop the flynn case, why did he empty the room? why did he tell everybody else to leave? as a prosecutor i can tell you that strikes me as evidence the president knew what he was about to do was wrong. so i don't think we've heard any answer to that from the white house, and i don't think there is a good answer to that question. >> congressman adam schiff of california, the top democrat in the intelligence committee. thank you, sir, for your time tonight. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back.

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for our closing thought tonight, it is very apt that we have here nbc presidential historian michael beschloss. michael, thanks for being here. it's nice to have you here. >> thank you, my dear. and it's so nice to see you back. >> thank you. that's nice of you to say. watching today's hearing, i was thinking about you, thinking about watergate, thinking about other presidential scandals, wondering where you put today's hearing on sort of the number line of presidential scandal. from a historical perspective, how serious is the president's situation right now? >> well, people have been saying today that donald trump may be in danger of getting impeached.

i think that's not an overstatement. the amazing thing, rachel, here we are. can you believe that donald trump was elected only seven months ago tonight? >> wow. >> it seems like years. and in that quick time, he has gotten into this trouble that does have echoes of nixon. discussion of obstruction of justice and attorney general under a cloud and maybe white house tapes, and something we 't see with nixon which is anbiirector in public saying e president is a liar. >> because it is a legal matter, the cloud over the attorney general, because of the hearing today really stood out for me. that a historically unprecedented situation? >> it's not. richard nixon's attorney general went to prison for 19 months. he was sentenced to about eight years for obstruction and perjury and conspiracy. >> nbc presidential historian michael beschloss, thank you for being with us tonight, sir. it's great to have you. >> thank you. be well, rachel.

>> that does it for us tonight. it's been seven months since the election. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> rachel, when i was watching your last hour, oh, we were taking notes together when we rachel, when i was watching your last hour, oh, we were taking notes together when we were watching the hearing. the jeff sessions stuff jumped out at me right away when james comey said, well, we weren't going to tell him because we knew he was going to have to recuse himself really stunning. every line in the written testimony that we got yesterday which was explosive enough had tentacles, had expansions in that hearing today. >> you know, the sessions stuff is super interesting to me because there was this mystery left over from the written testimony, which was how did the fbi know two weeks in advance that sessions was going to recuse? he sort of cleared that up. but then we got this other super red hot stuff about jeff sessions today, that comey was willing to talk to ses