ben wittes did this online, on twitter. which is a weird thing. nobody knew what was wrong with him. nobody knew what this was about. you can see the time stamp there, he sent it at 3:18 p.m. on may 16th. hey, ben wittes, what's that about? then later, boom. literally the word boom. two hours and eight minutes after that initial tweet, we now now in retrospect what that tick, tick, ticking was about. he tweeted "boom" and a link to that story, "comey memo says trump asked him to end flynn investigation. it was a huge story when it broke and somehow ben wittes knew it was coming out because he tweeted "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick" once it came out and "boom" once it landed. two days after that, ben wittes started ticking again, at 2:44 in the afternoon, "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick" and sure enough, four hours later, "boom." and what he sent out, once again the "new york times" posting another huge story. this time it was comey unsettled by trump is said to have wanted him kept at a distance. that was may 18th. then the very next day, may 1

so ben wittes has been doing this over and over again. he's been doing this on scoops of the russian scandal. here he was on june 6th. please don't read anything into this but "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick" and two and a half hours later, we couldn't the boom. "comey told sessions don't leave me alone with trump." and may be part of the obstruction of justice into the president now. so tick, tick, tick. ben wittes with these tick, tick tick, ahead of the scoop, and boom, at once scoop calms out, he has become a very reliable provider of stress and anticipation when it comes to almost all of the new developments in this scandal that has enveloped this young presidency. every time a scandal, tick, tick, tick, tick and within hours, a matter of time it pays off. every time. tonight, though, ben wittes gave it up. said he's going to stop doing it. okay, folks, i'm officially retiring the tick tick tick thing. he said as to everyone he stressed out, apologies. he says he is retiring the tick, tick, tick. i should tell you, he did get in

. >> i think what is interesting is that the ben wittes point adds to a pretty good body of evidence of the repeated instances where comey has made it clear that he was very uncomfortable with the pressure that he felt coming from the white house, coming from the president with regards to this investigation. and that sets up a contradictory statement and we have comey saying this on the record, under oath. with the president, we don't have his side of the story yet. until we do, i think that's still the open question, is what was the president thinking in those instances. >> but hearing susan collins, you know, not necessarily defending and i think it was interesting listening to the republican senators yesterday, none of whom discredited anything that comey said or disputed it, that so far i haven't seen a republican senator totally turn on the president, which i think is a big piece to watch. >> i think a lot of it will depend on what they hear from other people who are not jim comey. there were many republican senators saying, nothing to see here, nothing in the way of obstruction

agreement i don't think we'll see theatrics from him, but i do think, and i spoke with his friend ben wittesnks jim comby is going to come in thinking about the maximum that he can say and reveal that obviously won't impacting this investigation and, remember, he is only human. he is described as a very earnest man. this is all happening after the fact that he's learned that the president the day after he was fired tore rush diplomats described him as a nutjob so it will be interesting to hear whether or not he will reveal more memos and obviously to get more of a sense from the personal side as a private citizen as opposed to somebody who is an official. >> and we'll, of course, have live coverage thursday morning. >> you bet. you bet, wolf! >> 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming up, important words left out of president trump's speech to nato leaders. a disturbing new report says the omission blind-sided top members of the president's national security team, but who did it? i was always "the girl with psoriasis." people don't stare anymore. i never joined in. that wasn't fair to any of us. i was co

i spoke yesterday with ben wittes, a friend of jim comey, writing and speaking about jim comey's statehe suggested that comey, you know, may not -- may go against any assertion of executive privilege and just speak, anyway. and i think jeremy made a really important point, you know, typically executive privilege is asserted, applies to people who currently work for the president and the president merely orders them not to testify. there's really no precedent for invoking it against people who no longer work for the president. in the hollywood version, trump would send the federal marshals into the hearing to order mr. comey not to speak. no legal expert i spoke to said anything like that is going to happen. jeremy made an important point, the president may have waived that privilege. he tweeted about these conversations, also spoke of them to our own lester holt. once you start talking about something, it's hard to exert a privilege saying that can't be discussed, nicolle. >> the president eroding his own legal optionalty by tweeting and talking so much? >> that's why when you saw the