national security. for it is the president who must take responsibility for the nsc system and deal with the consequences. item -- president reagan's personal management style places an especially heavy responsibility on his key advisers. knowing his style, they should have been particularly mindful of the need for special attention to the measures in which this arms sale initiative developed and proceeded. on this score, neither the national security adviser, nor the other nsc principles deserve high marks. item -- the national security advisor failed in his responsibility to see that an orderly process was observed. item -- the chief of staff also shares in this responsibility, more than almost any chief of staff of recent memory, he asserted personal control over the white house staff and sought to extend his control to the national security adviser. he as much as anyone should have insisted that an orderly process be observed. in addition, he especially should have ensured that plans were made for h

we share our commitment to national security. this revised order will bolster the security of the united states. now, we have spent the morning briefing the congress, the continue to talk with key stakeholders this afternoon. experts from the department of theland security, department of justice and our department hosted a hour-long call with the media on this topic this morning. our collective teams will continue to follow-up with the congress, the media and stakeholders to answer your questions. i will now turn to the attorney general for his comments. thank you mr. secretary. one of the justice department's pop -- top priorities is to protect the united states from threats to our national security. i want to discuss two points. first, the national security basis of this order and second, the department of justice possible in defending the lawful orders of the president of the united states. first, as president trump noted in his addressed to congress, the majority of the terroristiccted of content is gaining from iran. seekingt

you heard a lot about the staff of the national security council in recent months. i can tell you, they are good and dedicated government employees who put in long hours for the nation's benefit. they are eager and anxious to serve their country. one thing is still upsetting me, however. no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions. this led to my failure to recollect whether i approve an arms shipment before or after the fact. i did approve it, i just can't say specifically when. rest assured, there is plenty of record-keeping now going on at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. for nearly a week i have been studying the report and i want the american people to know that this wrenching ordeal has not been in vain. i'm going beyond the board's recommendations so as to put the house in even better order. and taking action in three basic areas, personnel, national security policy, and the process for making sure that the system works. first, personnel. i brought in an accomplished and highly respected new team here at the white house. they bring new blood, new energy and

we could not take our nation's security for granted. homeland security must be our top priority. we need to overcome our collective inability to take and connect the dots of intelligence and arrange them into a more comprehensive picture of the threat posed to america. much has changed over the past 14 years. both in the world that is more iserous and at dhs which much better. our enemies often use our own freedoms and generosity against us. today's executive order was going to make america more secure and address long-overdue concerns about the security of our immigration system. we must undertake a rigorous review and are undertaking a rigorous review of our programs to increase our confidence in the decisions we make relative to visitors who travel to the united states. we cannot risk the prospect of a malevolent actor using our system to take lives. this order focuses on preventing the entry of new foreign nationals from the six designated countries. accordingly, it is important to note that nothing in this order affects existing lawful, permanent residents or people with cur

the biggest one that dropped today is the news that former national security adviser, fired national security advisor michael flynn is offering to testify in exchange for immunity. he's obviously in a position to know a lot about the worst case scenarios within this scandal, so that is a very big deal. only something that big a deal could overshadow one of the other shoes that dropped today. "the new york times" named two trump administration officials who allegedly funneled classified information to devin nunez, head of the intelligence committee. the man you see here works in the white house council's office. he was formerly a staffer on the house intelligence community his name is michael ellis. the other figure is the controversial young intelligence chief. after michael flynn was fired at nationals adviser, it was widely reported mcmaster was given free reign to staff the council as he saw fit. he would not be micromanaged by the white house nor would he be stuck with mike flynn's leftovers on the national security council. that promise apparently led general mcmaster to believe

this close cooperation with countries in every region and world who share our commitment to national security. this revised order will bolster the security of the united states and her allies. we spent the morning briefing the congress and the press and we will continue to talk with peace stakeholders this afternoon. experts from the department of homeland security, from the department of justice and state department hosted an hour-long call with the media on this this morning. our collective teams will theinue to follow-up with congress, media and stakeholders to answer your questions. i will now turn it to the attorney for his comments. >> thank you, mr. secretary. department'sstice top priorities is to protect the united states from threats to our national security. i want to discuss two points. first the national security basis of this order and second the department of justice's role -- efending as president trump noted, the majority of people convicted in our courts for terrorism since 9/11 came here from abroad. seekingknow many people to support or commit terrorist attacks will try to

i'm mary mccord, the acting assistant attorney general for the national security division of the department of justice, and with me here today is fbi executive assistant director paula bates, just attorney for the northern district of california, brian stretch, and office of international affairs director. we are here to announce a major law enforcement action related to one of the largest stated breaches in u.s. history. today we are announcing the indictment of four individuals responsible for the 2014 hack into the network of e-mail provider yahoo!, the theft of information about at least 500 million yahoo! accounts and the use of that information to obtain the contents of accounts at yahoo! and other e-mail providers. the defendants include two officers of the russian federal security service and intelligence and law enforcement agency of the russian federation, and to criminal hackers with whom they conspired to accomplish these intrusions. dmitri and igor, both fsb officers detected him and directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusi

our embassies and consulates will play an important role in making sure our nation secure. and the state department will implement the provisions in this order that allow for the admissions of refugees when it is determined they do not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the united dates. upon the president's order issued on january 27, the state department's consular affairs and diplomatic offices undertook a review in coordination with department of homeland security to identify additional measures that would strengthen our vetting of those seeking entry into the country from 70 namedies. -- seven countries. iraq is an important ally in the fight against isis with their soldiers fighting with men and women in uniform. this review over the past month identified multiple security measures that the state department and the government of iraq be implementing to achieve our shared objectives of preventing those with criminal or terrorist intent from reaching the united they -- states. i want to express my appreciation to the prime minister of iraq for his support in imple

he's a lawyer that work on national security issues. he reportedly worked for the house intelligence committee. the second man is a 30-year-old named ezra watnick from the national security council. according to several reports, president trump saved his job after the national security advisor, lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster told colin watnick that he was moved to a different position. that apparently happened because of concerns that the man was too political, too pro trump. much of that pressure came from officials at the c.i.a. the white house refused to comment. a reporter reported that sean spicer last week when spicer himself said it would be ridiculous for the white house to given nunes the information. listen. >> there's reporting within the white house that they're sources of this. >> number 1, the first quote that you're reading, if you go back, i was responding -- very clear that i said based on what chairman nunes has said. >> so there's something new since then. tell us -- >> i comment on this both yesterday and today. yo

flynn was the national security advisor.he can get immunity and say i'm not going to discuss my conversations with the president. or at least if i were running in the investigation i would make sure he's not going to get immunity and then clam up about discussions with either accounted trump or president-elect trump or president trump, so now you're right at the oval office door. >> stunning news "the wall street journal" breaking tonight about flynn. anyway, thank you all. and we've been looking at how the story of chairman devin nunes has evolved over time. watch. >> we will never reveal sources. >> even to members of the committee? >> nope, never. >> the house intel chair devin nunes still not revealing his sources. but a timeline in "the washington post" raising questions about coordination with the white house. here is what we know. march 15, in the evening president trump tells fox news this. >> we will be submitting things before the committee very soon that hasn't been submitted as of yet. but it's potentially a very

it's one thing to pick somebody manifestly unfit for the job of national security adviser to be national security adviser, that's one thing. it's another thing if you bring somebody on board to a top national security position while they're also on the payroll of a foreign government and you either don't notice or don't care and you have them sit in on the president's daily brief and you have them receive and deliver intelligence briefings while another government i paying them to reprent that foreign government. that's a second-level scandal here. but it's a third level of scandal when you start making utterly implausible denials that you had any knowledge of this thing that not only happened in plain view but you very clearly did know about it at the time that it was happening and you were notified of it directly. what's going on with the michael flynn story and his links to foreign governments? honestly it didn't make sense why they hired him in the first place. their explanation for why he was fired makes no sense whatsoever. especially if you believe that mike pence was the innocent

i'm thrilled the president picked him as national security advisor. he did an event a year ago and what he helped write the army operating concept or win in a complex world. he is aware of the broad range of conflicts, so if you were going to look at hr mcmaster as an indication, it's one more voice in favor of not oversimplifying future combat. that's my one sentence takeaway but obviously remains to be seen how the internal debates shake out and who influences which di decisions, so if you could wait for a microphone and identify yourself. two questions at a time and then we'll go to the panel. we'll start with the gentleman with the red tie. please. >> hello, tony from mid side defense. i want to ask about capacity over capability. it seems that there's a lot coming from congress about getting the forces larger. there's a lot of that readddadr. and it's going to be a larger force. is there concern that the onm and personnel would eat into n monetization? >> the gentleman here in the brown jacket on the aisle, and then we'll do another round. >> ken

national security? >> yes, sir. >> so it's safe to say without having this tool, it would be a threat to our national security? >> it would significantly impact my ability to generate the insights that i believe this nation needs. >> in the media there's a lot of reporting about certainly called incidental collection. can you talk about what incidental collection is? >> yes, sir. incidental collection is when we are targeting a valid foreign target, for example, in the course of that targeting, we eat get a reference to a u.s. person or suddenly a u.s. person appears as part of the conversation, that's what we call incidental collecting. >> and what do yodo when something like that happens, if there's a u.s. of an interelection what kind of safeguard are put in place? >> it depends o on the legal authority we're using to execute in the first place. we step back and we ask is there something that we expect to encountered that we now encountered. if we come to the conclusion it's a u.s. person, we ask are

national security adviser by trump, but only lasted a month. he was fired in mid-february after lying about conversations he had with the russian ambassador. that coming weeks after acting attorney general sally yates had warned the white house that flynn was vulnerable to blackmail by the russian government because of the nature of those conversations and the falsehoods he used to describe them. tonight after news broke that he offered to testify in exchange for immunity, flynn's lawyer released a statement reading, in part, general flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it should the circumstances permit. he is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by members of congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated. no reasonable person who has the benefit of advice from counsel would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution. congressional officials have previously told nbc news there was no agreement yet on

stop terrorists, just banning citizens of some list of countries does not make any sense in national security terms so that was a few days ago. that was leaked. that document from the intelligence agency inside homeland security was leaked to the associated press last week. the trump administration may not want this to see the light of day but we'll leak it. banning people on their nation of or gin is national security nonsense. so we had that before tonight. now tonight we have this. this is another leaked report. i won't tell you how we got it but the department of homeland security has tonight confirmed that this is authentic, that this is real. you can see at the top of it here, i think we have it on that small print there, "prepared by the office of intelligence analysis" that's the homeland security agency. but it was coordinated with customs and border protection, state department, immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e., national counterterrorism centerand the u.s. citizenship and immigration services. all those people coordinat in crting this report. now here's the title "most fo

i was informed in a letter from white house counsel that national security council staff found these materials in the ordinary course of business. now, that timing concerns me. if, in fact, the national security council staff that discovered these materials reportedly in the ordinary course of business are the same national security staff that provided them to the chairman to be provided to the president, it raises a profound question of why they were not directly provided to the white house by the national security staff and instead were provided through a route through the chairman. if that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the white house is doing that need to be answered. and i have asked the white house for their assistance in answering those questions as well. the third point i want to make in addition to what will be necessary to answer the questions the white house has asked us to look at in terms of the procedures, we will look into that. we want to find out also if, in fact, these are the same materials or subse

every visa decision is a national security decision. our fraud prevention officers' efforts complement the multifaceted security process we and our partner agencies built to screen all visa applicants. this includes a sophisticated global information technology network that shares data among the department and federal law enforcement and intelligence agen agencies. no visa can be issued unless all relevant concerns are fully resolved. mr. chairman, senator feinstein, and i want to thank the panel members, we spoke earlier. i thought they provided some moving testimony that will certainly inspire us to do more. our efforts to detect and prevent fraud marriage continue. we strive to increase our effectiveness to seek more opportunities to collaborate with our partners including you to address this important and urgent issue. i appreciate your feedback and suggestions and look forward to your suggestions. >> thank you very much. no n >> chairman grassley, ranking member feinstein, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the op

the national security expert going to play this. the national security expert clinton watts giving chilling testimony about tracing russian influence. listen to this. >> follow the trail of dead russians. there's been more dead russians in the last three months that are tied to this investigation that have assets in banks all over the world. >> they are dropping dead in many countries. >> can we make that connection though? >> putin is not what we would call good news unquestionably and there's been a -- there have been reports of a long standing decade long or more foreign intelligence operation to influence the politics of other nations. he's playing a kind of precold war great game. he wants spheres of influence. he wants energy rich countries, he is willing to do almost anything to contain the opposition at home and to exert his influence abroad. and i think to some extent, we may even be underplaying this. mitt romney was ahead of the curve. remember people mocked him five years ago when he said that russia was our most politic

national security? >> yes, sir. >> so it's safe to say that without having this tool, it would be a threat to our national security? >> it would significantly impact my ability to generate the insights that i believe this nation needs. >> in the media there is a lot of reporting about something called incidental collection. can you talk about what incidental collection is? >> yes, sir. it's when we're targeting a valid foreign target, for example. in the course of that targeting, we get a reference to u.s. person or a u.s. person appears as part of the collection. that's what we call incidental collection. >> and what do you do if something like that happens, if there's a u.s. person part of an incidental collection, what kind of safeguards are put in place? >> it depends on the legal authority we're using in the first place. but in broad terms, again, it various by the specific authority we're using, we step back and ask ourselves first, are we dealing with a u.s. person here, is there something we did

general michael flynn who served as donald trump's national security adviser for less than a month before being fired for lying about his contacts with russia is reportedly trying to cut a deal, offering to talk to investigators about the trump campaign and russia in exchange for 'm from prosecution. for the trump white house, things just got real. >> "the wall street journal" is now reporting former trump national security adviser general michael flynn -- >> general flynn is a wonderful man -- >> offering to testify in exchange for immunity, when you are given immunity, it means you have probably committed a crime. >> i think it's very, very unfair what's happened to general flynn. >> now that we know that it's his own staffers who were briefing devin nunes. >> it now raises more questions about whether the white house is actively interfering in this investigation. >> if i start going down the path of confirming and denying one thing, we're going down a very slippery slope. >> that's why you have press conference, buddy, to answer questions. >> every day in this investigation you wake up

national security? >> yes sir. >> it is safe to say that without having this tool, it would be a threat to our national security. >> it would impact the ability to generate insight this nation needs. >> in the media, is a lot of reporting about something called incidental collection. can you talk about what incidental collection is? >> yes sir. it is when we are targeting a valid for a target, for example, in the course of that targeting, we either get a reference to a u.s. person or a u.s. person appears as part of the conversation. that is what we call incidental collecting. >> what do you do when something like that happens if there is a u.s. person part of an incidental collection? what kind of safeguards are put in place to make sure? >> it depends specifically on the legal authority we are using to execute the collection. in broad terms, it varies a little bit by the specific authority. you step back and we asked ourselves first, are we dealing with a u.s. person here? is there something we did no

i completed to join the head of the national security division and the executive assistant of the fbi to advice you on the criminal charges in connection with the widely reported yahoo! breach that occurred in 2014. as an important reminder to everyone, the criminal charges in the indictment announced today are allegations only and all are presumed innocent until proven guilty. we are investigating a national security lawyers and experienced fbi agents, who worked tirelessly with yahoo! and google to identify the responsible parties and their methods and means for perpetrating one of the largest data breaches ever. silicon valley is home to the world's leading technology companies. the computer infrastructure provides the means by which people around the world communicate with each other in business and in our personalize. everyday criminal hackers endeavor to gain unauthorized access to personal and proprietary information for nefarious purposes. the department of justice and the technology companies together share a common goal and responsibility to protect private communications fr

this kind of fraud can also pose risk to our economy, public safety, and national security. re are many different ways a con artist can commit marriage fraud. the most heartbreaking is when a foreign national dupes a u.s. citizen into believing they are in love. upon entry, the foreign national often drags out the engagement, or abandons the u.s. sponsor, becoming a visa overstay. or the foreign national will leave the marriage as soon as they obtain their green card. today, we will hear from victims of this type of marriage fraud. jamal hussain is a naturalized citizen and cardiologist in california who has lived in the u.s. for 20 years. he petitioned for a k-1 visa for his fiancÉ, who is a pakistani national he met while visiting his family in pakistan. instead of marrying mr. hussain as planned, his ex-fiancÉ abandoned him, fleeing their home around the time the 90 day visa expired. the next victim is ms. elena lopez, who met her ex-husband while he was traveling in the united states. he is a dutch national who proposed to elena, telling h he wanted to grow old with. howe

from the national security council. and according to the reporting by matthew, of "the new york times," president trump himself intervened to stop that removal. i want to play a clip of something that general flynn said on "meet the press" back in september. i spoke about this. he was speaking about secretary clinton and the people around her asking for immunity. let's play that. >> the very last thing that john podesta just said is no individual too big to jail. that should include people like hillary clinton. i mean, five people around her have had -- have been given immunity to include her former chief of staff. when you are given immunity, that means you've probably committed a crime. >> now, we should say, i mean, he was, you know, clearly had a political reason for saying that. you can argue that somebody can ask for immunity for a whole bunch of reasons and it's not necessarily because somebody's committed a crime, david gergen. >> that's very true, but at the same time, it's generally true that somebody asking f

you have the former national security adviser. the fired national security adviser now talking about and seeking publicly. his lawyer is publicly asking for a deal for him to testify potentially against people in the administration for which he served. >> if we are using the trump stan dafdard of how to talk abo this in the public domain, this must be the centerpiece of the huge criminal enterprise. that is how they spoke about hillary clinton with regard to the e-mail server and the investigation. there were leaks and interviews that the fbi conducted by the fbi. of course, the campaign was all too happy to run with that. leaks are tough things. in this case, i think it is worth under scoring what jeff said. this is a key figure. this is one of the two main senior advisers to the campaign and then the president who has been fired over not being truthful about the contacts with russia. if the question is collusion, if the question is improper relationship with russia at a time when russia was actively trying to manipulate your ele

attorney's office, along with the national security division and the f.b.i. to accomplish these initial results while maintaining the fundamental privacy interests of the account holders who had their information stolen. we commend both yahoo! and google for working with our office, the f.b.i., and the national security division lawyers to identify and seek justice for the perpetrators of these intrusions. i'll turn it back to mary. >> we'll take a few questions now. >> i was wondering, what do you see as the purpose of this conspiracy? financeable gain? intelligence gathering? >> what the indictment aledgetses is the fsb officers used criminal hackers to gain information that clearly some of which has intelligence value but in doing so, in using criminal hackers to do so, the criminal hackers used this opportunity also to line their own pockets and -- for private financial gain. >> you said this morning at "financial times" seminar that the government has a numb of tools at its disposal including prosecution. will the u.s. seek other means other than these i

what the court is saying is that there's no national security at all, no national security implicationat can you tie directly to the president's action? if you can't specifically tie a national security threat it must fall. so you then must look to -- the president is not doing it on the basis of national security, what is he doing it for? the court said it's an establishment clause violation, you're preferring one religion over another and you can't do that. if you want to talk presidential authority, you can't talk about what the president can do but in the context of what he intended to do and the court said the intent was a muslim ban. >> no court has ever looked at someone's personal history to decide. they looked at legislative history but no court has looked at someone's personal history in order to determine the intent behind a facially -- and you admit it is a facially neutral executive order -- >> time? good points on both sides. very strong. now you're the judge. what did you think of those argume arguments? who do you think made the better case? we'll do it on twitter. than

it's one thing to pick somebody manifestly unfit for the job of national security adviser to be national security adviser, that's one thing. it's another thing if you bring somebody on board to a top national security position while they're also on the payroll of a foreign government and you either don't notice or don't care and you have them sit in on the president's daily brief and you have them receive and deliver intelligence briefings while another government is paying them to represent that foreign government. that's a second-level scandal here. but it's a third level of scandal when you start making utterly implausible denials that you had any knowledge of this thing that not only happened in plain view but you very clearly did know about it at the time that it was happening and you were notified of it directly. what's going on with the michael flynn story and his links to foreign governments? honestly it didn't make sense why they hired him in the first place. their explanation for why he was fired makes no sense whatsoever. especially if you believe that mike pence was the innoc

i reminded the men and women of the national security agency that if i become aware of any such conduct, there is no place or you on this team. unacceptable to the nation. rep. rooney: well, i think that as we move forward, obviously i think that what you are speaking of is this sacred trust that the intelligence community has with the american people and the people representing them here on this dais. and if we -- i think it is vital that for those who break that sacred trust, if they are not held accountable, whether by the nsa internally or by the fbi through conviction or investigations/prosecution and conviction through the attorney general's office, of that crime, it is difficult for us to keep that sacred trust to know that what we are doing is valid and what we are doing has no nefarious motivations, and for us to be able to keep america safe without violating the constitutional protections that we all enjoy. mr. chairman, i'm not sure how much more time i have left. adm. rogers: congress may come can i make one comment if i could? i want to remind everyone in general that fisa

and john eisenberg, lawyer with the national security. we caught up here at nbc news with a couple of these people this morning. take a look. >> did you help provide devin nunes information? >> i'm not talking about anything. >> i have no idea. >> can you tell us anything, any information about the current investigation going on by chairman nunes? >> have a good day. have a good day. >> to the cameras this morning. and, again, we are still work on confirming exactly how this information wounds its way to devin nunes. now,ed am schiff, the ranking member of the committee did a press conference yesterday coming out and saying, look with, if these people found this information, why not just take it straight to the president of the united states? why do it in this way through the chairman of the house intelligence committee? and, of course, this has raised questions about the credibility of the intelligence committee's investigation. chris. >> casey hunt with, thank you. i want to bring my panel back in. so i want to play what the house minor

look at the question of the national security council operation. the national security council was never envisioned as an operational agency. the tower commission report makes it clear that it should never be used that way again. except under very, very exceptional circumstances, extremely limited, under direct knowledge and authorization of the president of the united states and i agree with that is no question that going around the institutions of government and avoiding the checks and balances that are in our system was one that camey problems out as a result of this iran matter. and the tower commission confirms that and supports that strongly, and i'm delighted they have done that. also, in commission dealing with the national security council operations, determined other things. one is that they do not recommend any legislative changes. i am not ready to adopt that in full. but conceptually and principally i think they are on the right track. nonconfirmation by the senate of the united states on the appointment of the national security advise

provided to the president t raised the profound of why they were not directly provided to the white national security council staff and, instead, were a secured route involving the chairman. if that was designed to hide the that of the materials, raises profound questions about white house is doing that need to be answered and i have asked the white house their assistance in answering those questions as well. the third point i want to make, to what will be necessary to answer the questions the white house has us to look at in terms of will look res, we into that. we want to find out also if, in these are the same materials or a subset of provided to lier he chairman why that secureittous method, to use a diplomatic term, was provided to the committee. finally, i want to make one issue will l, this not distract us from doing our russian investigation. if that is the object, we will be successful. we are going to look into everything the russians did to we are e our election, not going to be deterred or distracted. important and part of our ordinary oversight and we will oversee them. we will get to th

national security, ned?>> well, wolf, let me be clear up front i can't vouch for the authenticity of these documents. let's also remember what this is and what this is not. this is the most recent attempt by, as i said before, a veritable arm of russian intelligence to discredit america. >> wikileaks is an arm of russian intelligence? >> we from january 2017 intelligence report into russia's meddling in the 2016 election wikileaks is acting as a cut out for russian intelligence, specifically russian military intelligence in this very operation. we know there are close ties between these organizations and reflected in their coverage. this is the latest attempt on the part of wikileaks to discredit the united states. but let's also remember what this is not. there is nothing in this tranche of documents that i have seen that speaks to anything that would be construed as illegal, improper, or anything that wreaks of mass surveillance. this is a can far cry from the documents edward snowed in, whatever you think

national security?it's not quite clear what we're dealing with yet so certainly the information that's already been revealed that haslem ted the potential to compromise sources and methods ongoing collection on targets the cia is currently undertaking. wikileaks has also claimed to have a lot more additional information, including cia targets and the actual tools themselves. not just the description that they have released. if that is true, that has the potential to be devastating in terms of the consequences to national security. however, in the past wikileaks has sort of exaggerated about the substance or significance of its leaks and, so, there is a reason to sort of be skeptical here until we actually see that additional information. >> whatever they have, though, potentially could be very damaging [ inaudible ] revealing sources and methods how the u.s. gathers this kind of information, very damaging potentially if enemies of the u.s. get their hands on this. nia, the white house today explained th

what have you learned former national security michael flynn has offered to the fbi and others? >> reporter: we learned through his lawyer he had conversations to achieve some sort of immunity in exchange for his testimony or cooperation in terms of the fbi. those discussions, understanding it happened in recent days, and a statement out from michael flynn's lawyer saying he would agree to testify under certain circumstances and they have had these conversations. his lawyers are saying their concern is not so much michael flynn had something to hide, they're saying he doesn't or something he should be concerned about but that in this political environment he would not be treated fairly. he's asking for immunity from any prosecution to be able to give his testimony and cooperate and not have any consequences should something arise that could be criminally prosecuted. >> the fbi as well as the house intelligence committee and the senate, the house intelligence committee spokesman for chairman nunes said michael flynn has not asked for immunity. the lawyer's statement does talk abo

had e's up here with the former national security adviser. we've never had a national security adviser accused of anything like this since john poindexter in the reagan years. >> usually they want a bigger fish. >> exactly. >> who's bigger than ham? >> that's right. one of them is the president of the united states that you would think of. i think they're going to build their case more carefully, and over time. and they may eventually give him immunity. but i think it's early. >> david is giving us perspective here. if i can go to my historian here, john. because, you know, you've dealt with watergate. with ekeep bringing up watergate. no one has been prosecuted. no information has been found. but it is huge that he's asking for immunity. all the president's men, right? what about that comparison? to put it in perspective. we're 70 days in and we have a former national security adviser asking for immunity. >> you're right, your presidential memoirs, this is not the way you want to leave. your national security adviser asking for immunity befo