"james clapper now a cnn national security analyst provided inconsistent testimony about his contacts with the media including cnn." so in his book, james comey calls clapper, "the leader i admired most in government." mollie hemingway, writing today, "comey's memos indicate dossier briefing of trump was a set up." she will be here in a moment to take us through the anatomy of that leak as will congressman peter king of the intel committee and jessica tarlov joining us as well. first, catherine herridge with the latest tonight on comey, clapper, and why the democratic national committee is suddenly launching a slew of lawsuits at russia and the trump campaign over the 2016 election. good evening. >> thank you, martha. tonight that she was on the other foot with fox news confirming that comey is under investigation for leaking the memos, whether he might handle classified information, as well as in communication to outside the fbi including contacts with reporters. as you mentioned, another former senior intelligence officer who oversaw the 17 intelligence agencies, director of nationa

this is him this morning talking about the timing on what james clapper has said. >> clapper has already admitted that he did speak with cnn. now he is insisting that he didn't speak to any media until january 20th, but he indicated that he spoke to cnn in early january. cnn reported that high level people had confirmed this information with him. if one of those individuals is klapper, then he has a serious problem. he could be accused again of perjury. >> martha: what did he tell your committee? the house incredible intelligee committee, about the timing of this? >> first, he denied ever speaking to cnn about it. being involved in leaking at all. and then when he was confronted, he said he may have spoken to tapper and it was inconclusive. certainly my impression was that he spoke to jake tapper, somebody at cnn, in early january. that comment to me, is totally -- somebody like that spoken to the media, this is only known by a handful of people. the whole conduct of john brennan and clapper during that period, there were leaks coming from everywhere in the intel community. this dossier

but unlike martha stewart, james clapper got away with that. james comey is happy that he did. the most revealing moments come when coney describes the alleged russian plot against our democracy. comey claims that russia wanted trump to beat hillary clinton in the election. but if it's that simple, why did russian propaganda attack trump as well and stage protests against him? he doesn't address that. he said we know for certain that putin was working on trump's behalf. we don't know that for certain. the facts contradict that conclusion. comey is passing off speculation as fact. if comey and the fbi really wanted to get to the bottom of a russian plot against our democracy, why didn't the bureau examine the dnc servers to make certain that russia really hacked them? to this date regardless of what you hear, we haven't seen any evidence that the government of russia directed the theft. we take that on faith. everybody repeats it like it's true. we should we believe that without proof? because people like jim comey say so, because our intel agencies never lie to us? right. comey

what's interesting about the memos, comey said that james clapper told him to do the briefing, james per is an interesting name, former fbi intelligence -- howie: for obama. >> james clapper gave very inconsistent testimony about his leaks -- or his conversations with cnn and he now works for cnn. that dossier briefing occurred in four days later it was put out on cnn. that is very interesting. they did have high-level -- >> reporters had. i know for a fact. >> as james comey said, cnn said they needed a justification to put it out. howie: i have to jump in. another thing in the comey memos that struck me, susan, comey was talking to the president he says about stopping leaks, trump replied that we need to go after reporters and referred to the fact that 10 or 15 years ago we put them in jail to find out what they know, he mentioned judy miller at fox by name, spent couple of days in mail, does that concern you? >> judy miller was in jail for three months. howie: part of investigation. she wouldn't reveal sources. >> it's happened before, the threats are ongoing against reporters, wha

comey also h says that former director of national intelligence james clapper is the public servant hedmires most. the very same james clapper who lied to congress, falsely claiming that intelligence agencies don't spy on americans when he knew perfectly well that they do. >> does the nsa collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of americans? >> no, sir, . >> it does not? >> not wittingly. >> tucker: not wittingly. what you just saw it as perjury, it's a federal crime, but unlike martha stewart, james clapper got away with that. jim comey is happy that he did. the most revealing moments of the interview come when comey describes the alleged russian plot against our democracy. comey claims repeatedly that russiaus wanted trump to beat hillary clinton in the election. if it was that simple, why did russian propagandists apparently attack trumpga as well? comey does not just that. instead, he acts as though he knows for certain that they were acting on trump's behalf.f. we don't know that for certain. comey is passing on speculation as fact. if comey and the fbi

>> sandra: the house intel report on russian election meddling accusing former director james clapperongress about leaking the infamous steele dossier. congressman pete king on sunday morning futures. >> brennan was head of the c.i.a. clapper is director of national intelligence. do they launch an investigation? only a few people would have had access to these facts and conclusions. brennan and clapper are the people at the top and the ones responsibility. whether they did it or not are responsible. they have the nerve to criticize president trump when they allowed the worst leaks in the history of intelligence. >> sandra: judge andrew napolitano is fox news senior judicial analyst. you heard congressman pete king raising important new questions on all this. >> i understand his anger and i don't blame him. this is almost like made for television. so the house intel report had a lot of top secret information redacted. basically said when jim clapper, who was the head of the director of national intelligence in the obama administration is the boss of the c.i.a. and the n.s.a. was interv

introduceonor to james clapper to you today. [applause] mr. clapper: thank you.hank you, david for a generous introduction. i appreciate that. first of all, i was gratified to engaged in are serious study and analysis of disinformation. that is encouraging to me. sponsor -- want to thank the sponsors for this. some i had the privilege of meeting before this. i am also, in the course of talking to some people, i am now intimidated because clearly there are a lot of experts on this subject that no more than i do. linereminded about the old , some people appear bright until you hear them speak. my publisher would be mad at me fact idn't mention the am publishing a book along with other people. james comey has his. john mccain is coming out with a book next month. mine is due out around the 15th of may or so. the main lesson i learned from writing a book, i would never write another one. [laughter] andas a great opportunity cathartic to go back over 50 years of intelligence and the history of the intelligence , so it covers all of that. i served as the fourth directo

from the former director of national intelligence, james clapper. our correspondents and analysts are all standing by. let's go to evan perez. ev evan, what more can you tell us about those russian diplomats? >> among the 60 dip low hats that the trump administration kicked out of country, a group of suspected russian spies that u.s. law enforcement and intelligence officials were responsible for tracking russian defectors and their families here in the united states. in one instance the fbi and intelligence officials were aware of a group of russians who were believed to be trying to case someone resettled inside the united states as part of a cia program. this is a cia program that provides new identities to protect people who have vet led inside the united states. people who have helped the cia provide information to the cia in the past. this raised concerns among fbi counselor intelligence official who is thought the russians were preparing to target some of these people. we reached out to the russian embassy here in washington. they did not res

kind of get rid of the investigation which doesn't make that much sense to me. >> let's bring in james clapper've had a chance to briefly review these memos. just came out. i'm wondering what is your take on what you have seen and heard from james comey so far. >> well, first, the memos are more detailed rendition of what has already come out. they very much comport with what has been said before. i said before that i was -- had every confidence that when jim comey recorded his conversations with the president that they would be very meticulous and very detailed and that appears to be the case here. i have to say i haven't read through all of them but i was beginning to read them as i was coming in here. so, it doesn't -- i don't think any big surprises here. just more detail except perhaps apparently the president wasn't such a big fan of mike flynn after all which that was at least for me at least one surprise. >> a thing that jim comey has said that is that in that briefing of which you were present in which it was decided that jim comey would present to the president the information that w

kind of get rid of the investigation which doesn't make that much sense to me. >> let's bring in james clapperi understand you've had a chance to briefly review these memos. just came out. i'm wondering what is your take on what you have seen and heard from james comey so far. >> well, first, the memos are more detailed rendition of what has already come out. they very much comport with what has been said before. i said before that i was -- had every confidence that when jim comey recorded his conversations with the president that they would be very meticulous and very detailed and that appears to be the case here. i have to say i haven't read through all of them but i was beginning to read them as i was coming in here. so, it doesn't -- i don't think any big surprises here. just more detail except perhaps apparently the president wasn't such a big fan of mike flynn after all which that was at least for me at least one surprise. >> a thing that jim comey has said that is that in that briefing of which you were present in which it was decided that jim comey would present to the president the in

within it, there is a little nugget about james clapper. the esteemed james clapper.d of what james clapper said on cnn and read from the report and get you to react. this is what james clapper said as a flashback before about his role in the media. >> i didn't have any contact with the media until after i left the government on the 20th of january. i don't queet understand at least what i have read that somehow i leaked about the dossier. >> let me guess so you didn't leak anything about the dossier to any media? >> no, not -- i mean, i talked about it after i left the government but not during that period and certainly not between the 6th of january and the 10th when the president-elect himself talked about it. pete: he said he leaked it after. the report from the house committee says this clapper acknowledge would discussing the dossier with cnn journalist jake tapper and admitted he might have spoken with other journalists on the same topic. tappehis discussion may have happened with others as well. dan? >> >> pete, do you understand what a conniving snake this gu

that is followed by former director of national intelligence, james clapper, talking about russian influence on u.s. elections and other national security threat. tonight on q&a, our interview with michio kaku,'s new book explores the idea of humans developing a sustainable situation in outer space. >> our guest on "newsmakers" is scott gottlieb, the commissioner of the food and drug administration a physician and he oversees and his role a $2.9 billion budget and 15,000 employees. his jobs puts them at the nexus of a lot of big public health debates. thank you for being our guest this week. let me introduce are two reporters. ebney from bloomberg news. >> something on the minds of a lot of people are opioids and the overdose crisis that is going on. obviously you made a speech this week calling on facebook and twitter and other internet sites to do something about the offers for illegal opioids online where a lot of people are buying these drugs. have you heard from them at all? did you get any response from the companies? dr. gottlieb: we got some response from some of the companies and i

. >> did james clapper? >> no. not to my knowledge, no. >> bret: john brennan. >> i don't know who leaked it. i had no part in leaking any of it. it was four or five days later that it leaked. i remember because the president-elect called me about it. >> bret: did you ever try to find out. >> who leaked unclassified public document? no. >> bret: did you inform the president-elect at the time what you knew about how it was funded or who was behind it. >> no, i did not. >> bret: did you inform him that christopher steele had been fired by the fbi? >> no. >> bret: or that he had lied. >> no. and i didn't know those things at that time anyway. >> bret: or had abused at least in part to get this fisa application to spy on somebody in his campaign. >> no. didn't come up. >> bret: is it fair to say that president obama. >> carter page was in his campaign when the fisa order was. >> bret: tangentially. >> at one point, correct. >> bret: is it fair to is a president obama in his inner circle knew a lot more about the dossie

james clapper, president obama's top intel chief, went over there.adeline albright went over there. mike pompeo goes over there on a secret mission, pretty big. how does the trump administration not get suckered into a deal like previous administrations, the bush and administrations, and make that same mistake. >> kimberly: mike pompeo somebody has, i am not going to speak to the nature and qualities of past administrations but as it relates to pompeo, the relationship he has with the cia, the position is in. it's a wise choice and it shows the united states is willing to engage in diplomatic lives of discourse to be able to solve complex geo particle problems. it's a positive for everybody. taking it seriously, putting focus and attention on the, being open-minded. we want to talk to them and work out something in a good way that's going to be beneficial, not just to the united states and north korea, south korea, china, but globally, the world at large. put some positivity into it. hopefully he's going to be able to make some inroads. you can't do

former dni james clapper attended that briefing. he joins us with his take next. dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. woah. reach the top. dave says dark magic is a bold blend of coffee with rich flavors of uganda, sumatra, colombia and other parts of south america. like these mountains, each amazing on their own. but together? magical. all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters packed with goodness. anyone can get you ready, holiday inn express gets you the readiest. because ready gives a pep talk. showtime! but the readiest gives a pep rally. i cleared my inbox! holiday inn express, be the readiest. holiday inn express, moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis was intense. my mom's pain from i wondered if she could do the stuff she does for us which is kinda, a lot. and if that pain could mean something worse. joint pain could mean jo

i'll talk to you about the national director of intelligence, james clapper. he was in the room with comey, mr. trump was briefed on russia's election meddling. >>> somerset daniels reveals the man who allegedly threatened the porn star, she says, her lawyer says as well, that this so-called thug has an indirect connection to the president. we are hearing from daniels about the newly-released sketch and the threat she says left her shaken. . >> he had a something in his pocket. i looked at my daughter, i remember him saying, it's a beautiful little girl, it would be a shame if something happened to her mom. forget about this story, leave mr. trump alone. ♪ experience a blend of refined craftsmanship... ...and raw power. ♪ new innovations... ...and a tradition of excellence. luxury... ...and performance, engineered to take the crown. presenting the all-new lexus ls 500 and ls 500h. experience amazing, at your lexus dealer. so allstate is giving us money back on our bill. well, that seems fair. we didn't use it. wish we got money back on gym memberships. get mon

congressional report says otherwise suggesting the former director of the national intelligence james clappers. here to weigh in, george washington university law professor jonathan turley. jonathan, clapper has a little bit of a problem with truth because we know he has lied to congress before. is he doing it again? >> well, that is indeed the question. you know, clapper most certainly did lie to congress. he was not indicted. in fact, the statute of limitations ran out not long before he took the job at cnn. there's a serious issue here. you know, clapper has already admitted that he did speak with cnn. now, he is insisting that he didn't speak to any media until january 20th, but he indicated. interesting comey, the former fbi director said the cnn was looking for a hook in order to run the story of the dossier. he said that to trump. that hook ultimately became that briefing with comey will. that was used as the hook. cnn reported that high level people had confirmed this information with him. if one of those individuals is clapper, then he has a serious problem. he could be accused again

there is now no doubt that john brennan and james clapper and comey and mccabe and others worked to undermine the incoming president in a criminal conspiracy. mr. john huber, if he does his job, will be able to prove that quite easily. >> sean: gregg, you agree with that? >> i absolutely agree with that. i worry, we have the department of justicef investigating the department of justice. that is a recipe for corruption. >> sean: i want to give a shout out to all of you. sara carter, march 8th of last year, you and john solomon broke the story about the fisa warrants. it has taken a year to get what we are today. tip of the hat to your investigative reporting. you could write the entire time. gregg, you can write the entire time. joe, same with you. thank you all. all the media has been telling you about is a conspiracy theory with no evidence and stormy daniels. now when we come back, speaking of the corporate media, cnn, they have a serious credibility crisis and we have got the tape tod show you. we'll get reaction. michelle malkin, larry elder join us next straight ahead. ♪ i wanted to get

we should note this briefing was by james clapper at the time. he was the director of national intelligence. he had just told them about the interference efforts on behalf of russian -- what they did in 2016. just think about it. this meeting occurred right after the election, don. they knew, at least some of them knew, about a meeting that occurred in june in trump tower, june 2016, with the a russian operative who was supposed to be acting as an intermediary between the russian government. wi we do know michael flynn had existing relationships with russia. he was also at that meeting. this is no surprise and no surprise that reince priebus and sean spicer who awere at the meeting didn't speak up and say something. at that time you have to understand when you're working for donald trump you can never say anything that's going to anger him. you do not want to be in his presence. to talk about this would anger him. >> by the way, james clapper is going to be on this program later on. we'll certainly ask him about that and much, much more, mark. jo

and i believe it was james clapper who responds, no, we're not saying that. we don't know.ven't done that analysis. and then, you know, as the anecdote goes on, they are immediately still talking about how they want to tell the american public that they didn't benefit from it. i just thought that was very interesting and very telling. i think that's part of the problem. you see that james comey takes issue to that. it goes to he's not actually saying those words that i saw, you know, that they're lying, but that's basically what he's saying. he's saying they're twisting the words. they're saying things that aren't true just to make themselves look better. >> we've asked our guests to stick around. we have to fit a break in here. we're anxious to continue our conversation just on the other side. from the very beginning ... it was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. to do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. to fight cancer. and never lose sight of the patients we're fighting for. our cancer treatment specialists share the same vision. experts from

. >> former national intelligence director james clapper talked about digital misinformation and national security during a conference at the george washington university. he also talked about his time leading the intelligence community and russia's influence in the 2016 election. this is an hour and 15 minutes. ♪ [applause] >> i am going to start right up over here. i don't really need to stand here. maybe i will just because it feels good. good evening everyone. good to see you all. it has been a long but fascinating day. we're still here today to listen to someone i have been looking forward to talking with. i'm the director of the project for media and national security at george washington university school of media and public affairs. i have an office upstairs in this building. no conference on disinformation would be complete without using the quote from daniel patrick moynihan. in case it has not happened already i will do it. "everyone is entitled to his own opinion," as the senator said, "but not his own facts." now, this is a town where many people make a living off having an o

official and north korean leader since 2000. 2014, then director of national intelligence james clapperveled the north korea to secure the release of two american prisoners but he met with low-level officials. easter weekend in absolute sekrely mike pomp owe traveled to pyongyang and met with kim jong-un. on twitter the president writing, meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed. details are worked out now. denuclearization will be a great thing for world and also for north korea. >> suggests how serious this white house is about setting this meeting. look. if this works peace with north korea is a big deal. the path to nuclear war is more clear than ever. >> reporter: yesterday while visiting with prime minister abe the president teased the talks. >> we have had talks at the highest level. >> reporter: he hopes leads to the one on one summit likely in early june. >> let's see what happens. either have a very good meeting or won't have a good meeting and maybe we won't even have a meeting at all depending on what's going in. >> reporter: the president said they narr

that is followed by former director of national intelligence, james clapper, talking about russian influence on u.s. elections and other national security threat. tonight on q&a, our interview with michio kaku,'s new book explores the idea of humans developing a sustainable situation in outer space. >> our guest on "newsmakers" is scott gottlieb, the commissioner of the food and drug administration a physician and he oversees and his role a $2.9 billion budget and 15,000 employees. his jobs puts them at the nexus of a lot of big public health debates. thank you for being our guest this week. let me introduce are two reporters. anna

pompeo at the cia, and in the obama administration we saw james clapper, director of national intelligenceoing to north korea to get out an american hostage. clearly, there was an intelligence channel of some sort that was working, and i will be curious to find out whether mr. pompeo raised the fate of the three americans, who are currently held in north korea, because while we're looking at everything else we have a responsibility and obligation to get those americans home. >> we know what a success would look like, obviously. i spoke to one of your successor negotiators, chris hill, about what a failure of such a summit would look like. basically what he said was, failure would look something like, i've had a good discussion with mr. kim and am sure we'll arrive at something. that wouldn't do it. or, that we've achieved a moratorium on existing testing of either weapons, warheads or missiles that wouldn't do it either. so there has to be a bar. doesn't there? to be able to declare such a meeting a success? >> right. i think what's important here is that the president is not likely to in

you say the guy you admire most of in government is good old james clapper. the guy who doesn't leak or surveil us wittingly. he's another liar and a leaker who like you hates donald trump. this bozo like you flatly denied leak the dossier. he even released a statement to the public that he assured the incoming president that neither he nor anyone in the intel community was responsible for the leak. and he described the corrosive effects leaks have on our national security. meanwhile, this weasle told you to tell the president about the dossier at the same time he appears before a congressional committee flatly denying he leaked the dossier to the committee. and he has the chutzpah to criticize president trump? according to the house intel committee he later had to admit he told jake tapper, cnn, on the are journalists about the dossier himself. before trump's inauguration, and now he's on cnn's payroll. and tonight, isn't this sweet? as we speak, jake tapper and clapper are getting an award at the white house correspondents dinner for the report about the do

"the federalist" dug up some information about the whole dossier affair that had to do with james clapper was the director of intelligence mollie hemingway he said in that memo the house select committee on intel members had information showing he had been talking to jake tapper in early january. he lied by the and gave conflicting information. we are starting to see pieces of the puzzle put together that there was high-level contact between journalists and top officials during the obama administration. howie: you are not saying cnn shouldn't have reported it, by the was done to push the story out. mollie: when you have anonymous sources wanting you to push things out. you have to have why they are doing that and whether your coverage reflects the whole story. howie: it was a big story for cnn to report. but it's pretty damning about clapper if he didn't initially tell the truth about cnn. juan: when you are a reporter in washington and trying to get sources, if you can get to clapper or jim comey as fbi director or andrew mccabe, mccabe was found to have lied about contacts with reporter

reporters got that scoop and whether president obama's national director of national intelligence james clapper of the sources. it's a question congress says mr. clapper has been reluctant to answer directly. despite the fact he once told president trump that he did not believe the leaks were coming from within the intelligence community. now a closer look at the

and the person you most of admired in government, james clapper.nother outrageous liar who swore under oath before congress that the nsa doesn't surveil american, then in an obvious display of lying shifts his eyes and body and said, well, not wittingly. your book is as petty, unprofessional and illegitimate as a stormy daniels resume. you talk about the size of the president's hands, whether he used tanning goggles in a tanning booth and whether his hair is real. fbi agents behind your back called you cardinal comey. but you are not holier than thou, you are a polite scallop a tough to make yourself the center of a moral come pass. the fbi director brought from the fbi agents to make sure the secret service didn't block your dramatic entrance in john ashcroft's hospital bidside qulaimg you were willing to resign if the southern general didn't follow your suggestion. but enough about you, let's read the boodges excerpts. but you claim the president sitting at his december next oval office was a king sitting on a throne. a king because there was a b

you say the guy you admire most of in government is good old james clapper. the guy who doesn't leak or surveil us wittingly. he's another liar and a leaker who like you hates donald trump. this bozo like you flatly denied leak the dossier. he even released a statement to the public that he assured the incoming president that neither he nor anyone in the intel community was responsible for the leak. and he described the corrosive effects leaks have on our national security. meanwhile, this weasle told you to tell the president about the dossier at the same time he appears before a congressional committee flatly denying he leaked the dossier to the committee. and he has the chutzpah to criticize president trump? according to the house intel committee he later had to admit he told jake tapper, cnn, on the are journalists about the dossier himself. before trump's inauguration, and now he's on cnn's payroll. and tonight, isn't this sweet? as we speak, jake tapper and clapper are getting an award at the white house correspondents dinner for the report about the do

you say the guy you admire most of in government is good old james clapper. the guy who doesn't leak or surveil us wittingly. he's another liar and a leaker who like you hates donald trump. this bozo like you flatly denied leak the dossier. he even released a statement to the public that he assured the incoming president that neither he nor anyone in the intel community was responsible for the leak. and he described the corrosive effects leaks have on our national security. meanwhile, this weasle told you to tell the president about the dossier at the same time he appears before a congressional committee flatly denying he leaked the dossier to the committee. and he has the chutzpah to criticize president trump? according to the house intel committee he later had to admit he told jake tapper, cnn, on the are journalists about the dossier himself. before trump's inauguration, and now he's on cnn's payroll. and tonight, isn't this sweet? as we speak, jake tapper and clapper are getting an award at the white house correspondents dinner for the report about the do

in the book james clapper comes to us at that briefing he's told all this hacking going on is a russian operation. has no impact at all. they continue for weeks afterwards. they say it's a hoax, it's not happening. one thing we do say in the book, a little bit of an editorial is if you look at what he is saying in a way he is aiding and abetting the effort to. if you are in front of a bank and you are tol told there is a robbery going on in the bank and people are walking past few saying there is no robbery people go on about collusion i doubt very much he had a meeting with russian asian and figure out what documents to steal everybody's this is kind of a cooperative arrangement he was helping them by making the picture confusing. if you are watching this while the campaign is reaching out to you if i'm running this operation i'm getting a signal he's not unhappy with it. >> i want to ask about that now because the country has been quite were not over the question of collusion with your donald trump or his campaign associates looted or conspired with the russians. if somebody was going

in his interview with james clapper, comey couldn't answer whether he thought hillary would be a better president than trump. then he went on a podcast and said hillary would probably be better for the country. he gave threer. >> four classified memos to his columbia law professor buddy. comey comes out of this look even more self-serving and as trump would say, slippery than he did before. charles: it's one thing to be a hypocrite. a lot of folks, apolitical on both side of the aisle are starting to see that with respect to james comey. and it seems he put himself in an awkward position having legal problems. >> it's not just awkward it's illegal. it's a crime to mishandle classified information. people have been indicted for that crime over the years. but what is important for your viewers to know is that the same behavior fbi agents routinely prosecute people for are what mccabe and comey where being looked at for. the fbi agents and the fbi officials must be held to an even higher standard and they failed that test. charles: are you confident with the inspector general taking a look

even after on august 17 as the republican nominee he got an intelligence briefing and in the book james clapper the director of national intelligence confirms to him at that meeting all the attacking going on and coosa for 2.0 one wikileaks he told--michael flynn is in the room and chris christie is in the room too. it has no impact at all not on trump, not on the campaign. when the statement comes at an earlier toper that it's a hault just a hoax. one thing we do say in the book and we may be editorializing perhaps is that if you look at what trump is saying at this point in the campaign in a way he's aiding and abetting in the russian effort. the way i like to think of it and mike might think of it in a different way if you are told there's a robbery going on in the bank and people are walking past you saying there's no robbery here. that can only help the bank robber. i doubt very much donald trump had a meeting with russian agents to figure out what documents worst being hacked and released by wikileaks. this is a cooperative arrangement. he was helping them and if you are moscow in you are

joining me now is it cnn national security analyst james clapper, the former director of national intelligence. always a pleasure to have you on. thank you, sir. director clapper you saw cnn reporting that the president grew testy when the national security team warned of the risks of of withdrawing from syria too quickly. does the president understand the nature of kounlt counterterrorism? >> i'm not sure he does. i think the fact is in the case of a sudden withdrawal from syria, which actually caught -- appears to me to have caught everyone by surprise when he made that pronouncement. first of all the first point is the fighting isn't over yet. isis still has territory left. and the important -- and the hard phase comes after the fighting, when you have to stabilize and restore order and restore services, like food, water, electricity and get the people to come back and set up some form of government -- governance which hopefully will be a lot less brutal than they endured under isis. there are huge policy implications here from the standpoint of withdrawal in terms of ceding the syria to a

feinstein from california who is the head of the democrats for the senate intelligence committee and james clapperho worked for barack obama, both have said they see no evidence of collusion. democrats don't look for the truth. this is about politics. if you don't have the russian narrative and story, you might have to talk about korea and what happened today, you might have to talk about gdp growth and wage growth and securere border. democrats can't talk about those things. and that's why they have to stick on this narrative of russia collusion. they can't run anything this november election. this is about politics, not truth. >> leslie. >> oh, congressman, with all due respect, we can multitask, we democrats. this is political and it is partisan becauseis when you look at this committee, it's not the bipartisan committee that said no collusion. it's the republicans. there's a senate committee and we have an independent counsel by robert muller. i say democrats and republicans back off and let the guy do his job. if there is no collusion, we need to find that out. this committee has not intervie

james clapper, the man i told you last week that jim comey said he admires most in government, who welready know is a liar, based on his we don't spy on americans, well, not wittingly at least. clapper told comey to meet with the president to speak about the dossier. comey is dumb enough to admit it in the memo. he then says -- this is comey speaking, i then executed the session exactly as i had planned. i said the russians allegedly had the tapes involving him and prostitutes in moscow so they could lend credence to the hyped up russia collusion investigation. trump however interjects saying there were never prostitutes. comey lied and said the fbi is keeping a close hold on that dossier so there would be no excuse for it to expose his story. so let me make it real simple. clapper tells comey to meet with the president, to alert him about the prostitutes, which is a pretext to create a news hook so that cnn can leak the story about the prostitutes. but once comey is fired, he decides he's going to leak information to get to the new york times now that the department of justice is loo

>> james: clapper i mention. i came to admire barack obama. [applause] i was not a political supporter of barack obama. i gave money to mccain and romney, in part because they hounded me. but i thought people principal be the nominee from the other party. i worried that wing nuts might take over that party. [laughter] my dealings run national security issues. i came to respect not only the decisions he made, but the way he made decisions. especially the way he listened and created an environment where people speak to him. that man would listen for five or six minutes and then would ask question drawn from the first minute, third minute fifth minute. he was listening. i became an admirer of him as a leader. [applause] >> mike: whose someone you admire in business, philanthropy or academia? >> james: i work for a great ceo who came from the humblest of circumstances and was a grown marine in vietnam. got his first job helping build aircraft and he never lost that ability to connect people and try to get the truth. i admire him a lot. in case i l

eventually, this percolated to james clapper, the director, and they realized they had a problem. >> into his three-year term, clapper and vickers pull the plug on flynn. >> they went to flynn and said, you are going to serve your two years and then you are going to retire. he was deeply wounded by that. really bitter and upset. >> someone in the army that gets that high, they are very ambitious. they are a workaholic. the job is their entire life. now all of that is taken out from under him. so, yeah, he was livid, livid. >> for the first time in 33 years, michael flynn is a civilian. >> he wasn't an experienced businessman. i know he wanted to be like a lot of the people in washington that leave the military and go out and make a lot of money. >> he forces a security consulting firm. the flynn intel group. the following year begins cultivating clients and joins the ranks of former military officials on the pd speaker circuit. controversy rears its head. his appearance at the 2015 tenth anniversary celebration of rt, russia today, a propaganda arm of the kremlin, raises eyebrows. >>

james clapper, he gave false statements under -- while testifying before the committee. you know, each side has their own angle and perhaps room for followup here. what the committee's investigation did though isn't really the most importance is everyone is saying what the special counsel is doing and how that investigation wraps up that really matters. >> all right. we'll touch base with you in a little bit. >> president trump wraps up his attacks against john tester. >> and the latest surrounding paul ryan's firing of the house chaplain. those stories and a check on your weather when we come back. here's the story of green mountain coffee roasters sumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. let's go to sumatra. where's sumatra? good question. this is win. and that's win's goat, adi. the coffee here is amazing. because the volcanic soil is amazing. making the coffee erupt with flavor. so we give farmers like win more plants. to grow more delicious coffee. that erupts with even more flavor. which helps provide for win's family. and adi the goat's family t

. >> james clapper probably leaked >> the press was working on it, the dossier. you have the cover-up, briefed the president-elect. >> it gives it weight and that's what happened. my guess is that clapper is one who orchestrated. he said to comey, you talk about it. after that, cnn talks about it, printed, and then buzzfeed prints the whole thing. >> sean: this same dossier used to acquire the fisa warrant against the trump campaign associates. they lied to the fisa judges. remember they never disclosed to paid for this. make no mistake. this was campaign opposition research bought and paid for by clinton, her campaign, funneled through the law firm, put together by a foreign agent based on russian and russian government lies and used as evidence to get a warrant during a political campaign against an opposition party all the while comey and his cohorts, they never disclosed the true nature of this document, and they lied to the fisa court judge. that is a crime which brings us to our next top story. the democrats laughable lawsuit against the trump campaign, wik