chuck grassley is a very crafty guy. obviously, he knows there's probably not much in here that would be considered a smoking gun and that bob mueller has a very different investigation going on. why not dominate the news for 2500 pages for a day or so, get a little bit of a wind, disrupt the democratic narrative and move on. and while we wait for bob mueller to land the 10,000 pound gorilla. >> if there is nothing significant, does this hurt bob mueller's chance to be protected with republicans? >> no, no, this is different. this is evidence that congressional republicans are continuing to work closely with the white house on what rudy giuliani who is so wonderful and open about this stuff announces a campaign anniversary on the day of this probe to basically blast it quote/unquote. bob mueller is running a different investigation, members of congress know that. and they know, most of all of them, has said that bob mueller needs to finish his job unimpaired. with the exception of devin nunes and others trying to shut it

and, chuck grassley has a blunt request for some of the supreme court's. get out. the big debate, his remarks have ignited. alright, i brought in new max protein ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. new ensure max protein. in two great flavors. new ensure max protein. mr. elliot, what's your wiwifi?ssword? wifi's ordinary. basic. do i look basic? nope! which is why i have xfinity xfi. it's super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey! let's basement. and thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. so sophie, i have an xfi password, and it's "daditude". simple. easy. awesome. xfinity. the future of awesome. >> kennedy: welcome back, possible truth between the doj and devin nunes under robert miller's documents. at least for now. this after the house until chair and committee member trey gowdy went over to the justice department yesterday for a briefing with top officials who warned that his demands would endanger li

i was part of that with chuck grassley a minute ago. and talking to other lawmakers here, i think candid and forthright is not something something that everyone would agree with. i think the sticking point here is what might be incomplete. what we may not know because in particular don junior answered so many times that he doesn't remember, that did he not know specific elements about this meeting leading up to the meeting, conversations that happened afterwards. i asked senator grassley about this, if he's satisfied that we have the whole picture. take a listen. >> you know that the public, if they read them will know everything that happened in that trump tower meeting in june of 2016? >> they'll only know what we've been told and that's all we know. >> are you satisfied that you know the whole story now? >> i'm satisfied that we got a lot of collaboration by different people that were there and they seemed to draw the same conclusions. >> reporter: similar kind of answer, hallie, but a different tone from dianne feinstein, the rankin

chuck grassley, john cornan and lindsey graham have requested invites.or graham said this earlier today. >> did the d.o.j. inappropriately use this dossier to get a warrant. if there was a surveillance of the campaign by the fbi i would like to know why. if the fbi ever does this in the future in terms of trying to investigate one of the nominees for president, they need to make sure they have got a lot of check and balances. >> should democrats be in this meeting. >> yeah, i think so. >> i'm joined by pennsylvania republican republican congressman ryan costello. good to see you. thanks for coming on. >> good to see you. thank you. >> i want to start with this meeting. do you think democrats or, you know, the gaining of eight, yourself -- would you like to attend? who should be allowed in. >> i don't know if i need to be there, but i do think it needs to be either the gang of eight or there needs to be some sort of balancing out of who is going to be there so the optics -- the optics of this don't look very good at the moment. to senator graham's point t

chairman chuck grassley coming out as some of the things that he told you.e basically told the senate judiciary committee something else. he told house investigators something opposite. what do you make of that? >> bret: you have gowdy and grassley both saying that comey was telling lawsuit makers that michael flynn did not lie. that was their assessment. now he says that that was not the case and that interview with me. so something doesn't match up. >> what he said to you -- i sent mr. richman a copy of a two-page unclassified memo. i asked him to get the substance out to the media. i don't care what i did a leak. i told him about an unclassified conversation with the president. that sounds like a leak to me. he went back and forth. it was interesting to watch that. i don't know. what is your take afterwards? were you convinced? >> bret: no. [laughter] no. >> there's your answer. >> you look composed at the time. i think -- >> bret: i tried to get as many as my questions as i could. >> many people say they work for us. we're paying them. they're lying and

your committee chairman, senator chuck grassley of the judiciary committee, he has some advice for any justices thinking about retiring. listen to what he said. >> are you prepping for supreme court vacancy this summer, senator grassley? >> i hope it's now or within two or three weeks because we've got to get this done before the election. my message to any one of the nine supreme court justices, if you're thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday. >> what did you think of that comment from senator grassley? do you think he was speaking directly to justice anthony kennedy? >> well, whoever he was speaking to, it just goes to the goal, the goal of chuck grassley and mitch mcconnell to pack the courts with the most idiotically oriented judgments who will have lifetime employment in both the supreme court and the other courts. a huge percentage, over 70% of all nominees in the trump administration are either members of the federalist society, which they acknowledge themselves as a conservative organization. either they're members of the federalist society or they have a staff of

and chuck grassley, the head of the judiciary committee in the senate was on a radio show pushing supremejustices. if you're thinking about retirement, you better decide on retirement soon, like yesterday he said. if anybody, namely anthony kennedy, is thinking about stepping down from the court, do they need to do so right now the way chuck grassley would like to do so they can get hearings for a successor out of the way before elections. >> stand by for us, david chalian. former vice president biden called it rock bottom. and s.e. cupp will also join me live to talk about her interview, an exclusive, with the house speaker. i landed. i saw my leg did not look right. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner that's... proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost

there is a little bit of back and forth between you and chuck grassley.ou suggested donald trump jr. needs to come back before the committee in a public setting to testify again about something he said behind closed doors when he said no foreign government have reached out to influence the campaign. he said no when you asked him that question. you suggest that could have been perjury or he could have been lying. at least he has to answer for it. chuck grassley said there could be an innocuous explanation. what's the upshot here? >> i respect the chairman. he recently gave a markup to my bipartisan bill with senator graham, senator tillis and booker. i'm grateful for his bipartisanship on that. for this matter, just reviewing these transcripts, which were publicly released by chairman grassley, there is obvious tension with a recent report by the "new york times" that donald trump jr. met with representatives of both -- of two gulf nations who were offering to assist his father win the general election in 2016. so there might be an innocuous explanation. w

is i ticking for the doj d fbi to hand over documents to the senate judiciary committee chair chuck grassley this highly suspicious case of michael flynn, a man who served this country for over 30 years, grassley wants to see the documents related to flynn's fbi interview, as james comey told congress, the fbi agency talked to flynn. they didn't think he lied. so why did robert mueller charge general flynn with lying in the first place? also tonight, president trump revealing new details about his potential june 12th summit little rock admen. "fox & friends" cohost, brian kilmeade, spoke with the president out on long island after his roundtable on ms-13 gang violence. take a look. >> june 12th, will you be in singapore? >> we'll see what happens. we are looking at it, talking about it, they are talking to us.ab we have certain conditions, we'll see what happens. there is a good chance. a great thing for north korea. if that happens, it would be a great thing for north korea. most importantly, the great thing for the world. we'll see what happens. >> sean: full interview tomorrow starting at

chuck grassley talking about the recent tweet that is getting prominence. on august 5, the white house is running this. combine this with the tweet we got in a lot of trouble for publishing in one of our reports >> laura. put it up so people can see it. a quote from grassley to rosenstein today in a letter and said as one example of the text from lisa paige and peter strozk they want all the texts. one example an official's name was redacted in reference to a text about the obama white house running an investigation. although it's unclear who this investigation they were referring. going back to my question in the angle, who knew about this? >> we have so many redactions we can't put pieces together. there is a lot of smoke. if you combine that with the tweet we published id just got bashed for in the press a month later. september 2. potus wants -- this is from paige to strong -- page to strozk. potus wants to know everything we are doing. this is after they closed up, exonerated hillary clinton. that is what we will get an i.g. report on. horowitz did an

some including chuck grassley are pushing for those changes to be included. at the scope of the prison issue, there are now 2.3 million inmates housed in u.s. prisons. approximately 460,000 of them for drug offenses. there are 102 federal prisons. more than 1700 state prisons. and more than 1800 juvenile facilities, and some 636,000 inmates are released from those facilities each year. are we releasing them in a position to thrive? joining me now garrett haake live on the hill. walk me through this. i know you spoke to democratic senators cory booker and camilla harris, and tell me what they've had to say. when i think about what van jones has said, he's going it's a first step. it's called the first step. something is better than nothing. and bipartisanship is what people in this country have voted for. >> reporter: yes. there's a couple of different things. the mix of people opposed to the bill for different reasons. i'll set aside one. there are some conservatives who don't like what this bill is trying to do at all who oppose it. on the other side, the fo

heading into a meeting early this morning with chuck grassley whose committee conducted these interviewsese participants with donald trump jr. made the case that this gives the public a sense of exactly what happened. >> the public's business ought to be public. what we've done so far in a lot of cases has been posed and the public has a right to know and the public can go through these 2,000 pages and make up their own mind and draw their own conclusions. they don't have to have it deciphered by members of congress. >> reporter: democrats are saying that the transcripts revealed that there was an effort by the trump campaign to get this incriminating information knowing it was coming from the russian government and then when they were caught they issued a misleading statement to conceal the true intent of that meeting and they say this requires further investigation and dianne feinstein released a statement saying that june 9, 2016, meeting is one piece of a much larger puzzle and confirms that the trump campaign was willing to accept russia's assistance. there are more questions than a

>> i would take to it robert good lat and chuck grassley as an independent council report.e starr, not drop in on them without warning. i would say this is coming and i'm going to ask you in the best interests of the country to encourage everyone to read it line by line and absorb its importance. that's how you get people to buy into the importance. go to the chairs. or go over and find the intel people and ask them to do it. then you will get people to give a second pause. i think grassley is one of the rarest of thing in washington, d.c., the honest, thorough -- on hatch, they have been around so long they don't care. >> charlie, what would your advice be to mueller? i look at the focus group i highlighted yesterday. i wanted to tell bob mueller you better watch this. us a if you have got the good you have got to sell it. >> you have to sell it. and you have to sell it by being fact based. make it as open, as transparent. deal with the situation, lay out exactly who did what in as clear a way as possible so it refutes the kind of conspiracy theories that hugh was peddelin

he is raising chairman chuck grassley as well as senator dianne feinstein.ocrats are also responding to this news. they suggest there -- this further suggest that the trump campaign tried to get in touch with russian intermediaries in order to somehow get political intelligence on former secretary clinton. this comes at a time in which bob mueller's investigation which is separate from the congressional investigation is still ongoing. don junior is saying i never spoke to my father about the meeting before it happened. are we learning anymore about the motivation for having the meeting and the first place? the trump political orbit is in full force this morning saying there is no evidence of collusion with any type of foreign government. thatd trump, jr. is saying as well as committee staff. they said there was no collusion and the president has said that consistently. meeting,s specific it's been a focus of bob mueller's investigation and has drawn criticism from democrats and certain republicans about the nature of that meeting. the president's son testifi

senator chuck grassley saying one of the text messages suggesting that the obama white house is running this. running what? referring to an unspecified investigation. plus the standoff with the doj over classified documents coming to a head. rod rosenstein with a deep space disaster appointing robert mueller. we have a law professor calling what rosenstein did unconstitutional. the american law for justice report 30,000 e-mails exist between the e-mail state department and clinton foundation proving collusion and mark penn is blasting the entire mueller investigation. he joins us live tonight. first, an important breaking news opening monologue. >> the president now is reacting to a flood of information coming out about how the deep state targeted and spied on his campaign. on twitter earlier today he wrote, look how things have turned around on the deep state. they go after phony collusion and made up scam and get caught in a spy scandal the likes of the country has never seen this before. what goes around comes around. the year of the boomerang. you have a criminal deep state coming o

the chuck grassley bill on that, in senate, it is remarkable to note criminal justice reform is a grassrootsom up thing. texas is tearing down prisons, california was building them. so you have someone like jeff sessions. a drug warrior against mandatory minimum reform, sadly as attorney general you have a trump white house signaled at least interest in prison reform, hopefully mandatory minimums will get looked at. charles: white house seems to look other way with respect to things like marijuana. we know that jeff sessions talks tough about it but overall, someone who is work on diversity, and understands this is an issue that crosses not just party lines but hits young folks, people of color, does this help you to recruit people, to the understand the white house a little bit better? >> it is important to realize people are serving sentences for first nonviolent offense that are longer than people who have raped children. we cannot stop with the prison reform, this should be a bipartisan issue, something that conservatives, liberals, democrats and republicans alike support. we have somebo

ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you, and visit myrbetriq.com to learn more. >> chuck grassleysages considering retirement. do it now. the republican chair of the judiciary committee says that if any justices are thinking of retiring in the near future, they should do so before this year's midterm election. >> we have got to get this done before the election, there is generally about 50 - 70 days between the time a president nominates somebody and we get a hearing in committee, then another two weeks before it gets to the floor. this has to be done before the november election. my message to any of the nine supreme court justices, if you're thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday. >> arthel: -- is a senior legal fellow at heritage foundation and as a justice department let's talk about his plea, just to avoid being in the middle of the nomination come november, or is there more behind it? >> he may have said he's talking about the nine justices but he's aimed at justice kennedy and justice kennedy may be thinking of resigning. what he's basically saying is if you wan

>> chuck grassley overseeing the release of 2500 pages and documents pertaining to that june 2016 meetingtrump campaign manager's including previous trump campaign chairman paul manafort as well as donald trump, jr. in their meeting with the russian attorney. investigators, donald trump, jr. toy committee staffers that there was no .ollusion he also referred to that meeting as a waste of time. senate committee democrats say this only reveals that trump campaign officials were frustrated and angry that the russian attorney did not provide political dirt on hillary clinton. they said it was a larger pattern of false statements. about the trump campaign's relationship with russia. a source close to the president's son who released a statement on his behalf in which donald trump, jr. says i appreciate -- and it's in great the public can now see that for more than five hours i answered every question asked and was candid and forthright. chairmann to thank the for their professionalism. is of this investigation separate from bob mueller's investigation of his own. the president just welcoming t

now we are at an impasse between senators john cornyn and chuck grassley who have competing justice reformhat's going to happen there. >> it depends on whether members of congress will listen to the american people. there are a lot of mixed reactions on this. both parties evaluated this. young people we reported on, this is one of the issues that matter to them. they are the largest voting bloc. you can be tough on crime. but you can be smart as well as fair. i think there is a narrative that people that advocated for criminal justice reform weren't criminals on the street. we want violent offenders mind bars. but there are people behind bars for gety offenses. the president is a businessman. i think we can talk about the offenses. it's not worth it. kennedy: it am not worth it. you are talking about a person who committed one act and she has already spent decades in prison. she is just going to die there? it seems like such a waste. it's interesting because jared kushner's dad was at a federal prison camp. but in fact it was what his dad went through that changed his perception of the who

we have a situation where agricultural states, pat toomey and ted cruz, joining -- joni ernst, chuck grassley, all meeting with president trump right now to talk about things like how the soybean or sorghum markets might be impacted as a result. when we have the situation the we have reported on, where trade to chinam the u.s. pact with sorghum are being turned around mid-route, there is growing concern over flyover country and in the united states about how that back over -- that trade could impact. iran, when you have a situation where they have increased exports by 350% in the past three years to europe, should the u.s. get out of this deal it would further signal to u.s. businesses and financial that doing business with iran is still not something that the administration or regulatory structure is banking on. vonnie: thanks to kevin cirilli for that debrief. can i point out that as we were speaking, wti crude has fallen three point 5%, as the trade picks up steam down to 6821 a barrel. here's courtney donohoe. time in: for the second two months, the leaders of china and north korea have m

text messages between anti-trump fbi officials have been released and top senate republican chuck grassleys criticizing on one t suggesting the obama white house is running this when referencing an unspecified investigation. that is what is happening now. over to you. gerri: the trump administration wants to trap flap slightly higher tariffs as a matter of national security. this morning, china saying it will firmly defend its rights and interests. with the impact on consumers and investors? the national taxpayers union and upper brenner people's united wealth management join us. maddy, i'll start with you. this is mostly aimed at a chevrolet. toyota, nissan, honda. mostly impacted, not necessarily products from china. how is this a matter of national security? >> got to question the trump administration will be asking. the trump administration is talked about suspending businesses. now we see the new announcement that tariffs would be narrowly executed on auto goods and that is something that raises a question of what is the intended effect here? as we move into the second quarter of this

chuck grassley told whistleblowers i don't want anyone to be confused. if you are a federal employee and want to disclose wrongdoing or cooperate with congressional inquiry you are legally allowed to do so. you should not have to fear retaliation. he also told them anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. sharp language from the senate judiciary chairman. >> appreciate your reporting tonight. our next guest knows about deep state, cohost of the five, juan williams has been living in the swamp for many decades before republican congressman jason chaffetz stucco towing the swamp but now enjoying life and use our. thanks for joining us. i want to talk first about this issue the pres. has done spygate. james clapper, former director of national intelligence has had his own problems with the truth over the years. this wasn't spine, it was surveillance, doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, trying to protect donald trump, trying to help him to make sure the russians didn't influence the campaign. if we are to believe that why didn't they do the same

chuck grassley demanding answers from deputy attorney general ron rosenstein and fbi director christopher ray, records of the intercepted calls between flynn and russian ambassador kislyak and the agent who took notes during the interview with michael flynn that led to his guilty plea for lying to federal agent. the issue came up during fbi director james comey's bookstore. >> did you tell lawmakers fbi agents to believe michael flynn was lying intentionally to investigators? >> no. i don't know what -- maybe somebody misunderstood something i said. i didn't say that. shannon: there is the possibility someone in donald trump's campaign was a secret fbi source. catherine herridge tells us what she is hearing tonight. >> reporter: a source close to the matter says there is a renewed interest by congressional investigators in the 300 page testimony from glenn simpson, the cofounder of fusion gps. the story behind the unverified trump dossier. the senate judiciary committee is ranking democrat st. diane feinstein unilaterally leased the transcript the details business relationship with former

and everyone from chairman chuck grassley, an ardent republican, on down in the senate, is to allow thatpleted. that is the conclusion of senator warner and senator burr and we have a lot of bipartisan support for allowing this investigation to be completed in the senate. >> do you disagree with the president, using his own words, that if there were spies in his campaign for political purposes, that would certainly be unprecedented and certainly alarming. >> no, that would be, but that is not what we heard. what we know is the how, and again, i'm fighting the nunes report. what actually began was an outside other country that got intelligence and, in fact, the russians, a foreign power, was getting involved in this. they themselves have said russia is getting bolder and that's why there is an investigation about russia enfolding the campaign. that's why that is the investigation that has credibility to move forward. >> if the confidential source would be moovlg over to the clinton campaign. >> could you repeat that? >> if a confidential source had been, you know, sent to talk to somebody

chuck grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee, but more importantly, iowa's senior republican with ag reporters was asked about epa waivers for large refineries. grassley said he may call on pruitt to resign over the issue. of course, ethanol big in iowa. >> don't mess with corn country. i think that's what the message is there. you can do some of the other things, but if you are -- this has always been an untouchable thing in iowa, and maybe mr. pruitt is now going to learn what a lot of presidential candidates have learned in primaries going into iowa, is don't mess around with ethanol. >> is there a straw that ultimately breaks pruitt's back? there is so much in this body. he hasn't supported anything so far. >> it depends how much the president will tolerate. new allegations keep coming out. it is the conservative movement, as you pointed out. it's a strong movement on the right who likes what he's doing. >> there is also kind of a disappearing cabinet and the president's challenges in replacing them. i think if gina haspel is successful in her confirmation, it removes one

chuck grassley on the floor went after the reaction of it. watch. >> so the claim that there was some secret plan to help one side or the other in the mueller probe is absolutely absurd. my only motivation was the same as the ranking members, transparency for the american people on this controversy. let the people read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions. >> bill: chuck schumer drew his conclusion calling it a whitewash and schumer says you're misinformed. this is in the interest of trance ensy? >> they will advance the ball further. i would like to say this as a citizen not as a journalist how grateful i am and proud i am of the senate intelligence committee for managing to work together in a bipartisan fashion to produce work product that is good and i'm grateful. >> bill: good deal. thank you, chris. we have some great guests coming up throughout the show. corey lewandowski is here later this hour. senator marco rubio steps by to pick up on the same topic we were just discussing. big show, back to windsor we go. >> sandra: it

. >> chuck grassley questioned the accuracy of the testimony by the cofounder behind the dossier. cofounder glenn simpson told senate investigators such as firms work on the trump dossier ended in september 2016. contrary to mr. simpson's denial in the staff interview, according to the fbi and others, fusion did continue dossier work for a new client after the election. that client was daniel jones. according to grassley, jones and his firm hired simpson to conte research so it could be shared with capitol hill, the fbi and the media after the election. grassley said their statements are covered by the federal statute that makes it a crime to lie to federal investigators. >> bret: a president trump and his mexican counterpart are once again going at each other over the border wall. and who is paying for it? this was the president last night in nashville. >> president trump: in the end, mexico is going to pay for the wall. i'm just telling you. all right? i don't want to cause any problems, but in the end, mexico is paying for the wall. >> bret: and this is the response from the me

chuck grassley, the senator from iowa came out today saying they wanted to redact the fact that andrew mccabe who donald trump fired paid $70,000 for a conference room table that they wanted to keep congress from knowing about. now it's information like that that american saved well, wait a second. maybe we do need to get more republicans put into congress so we can get some spending cuts put under control and get congress to rein in the spending that the justice department is doing. >> judge: when you talk about the politics of it, the spin and the turnaround with the liver liberal media, not really caring that there is a spy for human source, for someone who has paid an enormous amounts of money by the fbi. we know who the person is but we are not saying who he is. it's just incongruous. >> while it wasn't just the spying, they were obtaining without a warrant using a devious device in order to obtain phone records and other documents. it just underscores that the people in the highest ranks of the government, the fbi and the doj are devoid of principle. they are unscrupulous individ

senate judiciary chairman chuck grassley challenging doj over extensive reductions showing text messages between fbi officials peter t lisa page who had a bias against the president. suggesting former pres. obama's white house is, quote, running this but no idea what that text was referring to. the letter sent wednesday to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein called for reductions in these texts to be removed by june 6th, rosenstein will be one of the participants in the briefing. there are questions about the deputy attorney general's future, he has been at odds with the president, garrett tenney has details of rosenstein's status at the doj tonight. >> do you have confidence in rod rosenstein. >> adapter of using to say if he has confidence in deputy attorney general rod rosenstein donald trump again skirted questions about where the justice department's number 2 stands. >> no, we are not undercutting, we are cleaning everything up. what i want from rod, the fbi and everybody, we want transparency. >> for the past year rosenstein has been a frequent target of donald trump's frustrati

in any way is address sentencing reform and there are your counterparts in congress, senator chuck grassley, republican chair of the judiciary committee says no way this gets through the senate without addressing sentencing reform, john lewis, cory booker among others who signed a letter saying this does not go far enough and did not get the support, and the aclu echoed their sentiment. do they have a point? >> approximately 70% of house ' democrats agreed with the position that it was an important step forward in dealing with the mass incarceration problem in america. we have 180,000 people in the federal system who are currently without hope, without opportunity and without a meaningful pathway forward to transforming themselves and this piece of legislation will provide them with the education and the vocational training and the mental health counseling and the substance abuse treatment and the re-entry programming that will enable them to transform their lives and will dramatically reduce recidivism and will save taxpayer dollars. that's an important step in the right direction. should

reporting from michael isikoff and now on top of that, senator chris coop center a letter to senator chuck grassley saying he's deeply concerned that based on new information we learned this week, donald trump jr. provided false testimony to the senate judiciary committee saying he would renew his request to return. what he's talking about is testimony in which donald trump jr. was asked the following question in front of congress. did other foreign governments offer to provide assistance to the trump campaign? none that i know of. did other foreign nationals offer to provide asince answer the to the trump campaign? no. did you directly or indirectly seek foreign government or foreign nationals assistance for the trump campaign game. no. are you aware of anyone else seeking foreign government asince answer the. >> no. and we just keep hearing more and more. >> those questions track the federal election campaign act. what they're seeking to find out is whether there were contributions of any, including in-kind services, pamphlets, anything at all from a foreign government or foreign national and if

here's why a perjury trap is even more dangerous now is because you've heard from senator chuck grassley. he's come out and said james comey has not been telling the truth. why is this important to the mueller investigation? jim comey told a congressional committee one think about what the fbi investigators thought about michael flynn. they didn't believe michael flynn had been lying. and didn't think he should be charged for lying. he said some different things for his book tour. why that's important is, if there's no russia collusion, then it's an obstruction case about the firing of jim comey. can't use that if jim comey painted himself out to be a liar. >> comey has absolutely painted himself into a corner. but jim comey is not a politician yet. he probably will be at some point. by his own admission in love with his own voice and his own ideas. the president is a politician. at some point he's going to have to sit for something and talk about this. >> you don't have to talk. you can take the fifth. >> he feels innocent. he wants to prove it to robert mueller and the world by sitting

you can list any of 100 factors that made the difference but you could say mitch mcconnell and chuck grassley open that seat to which pres. obama appointed merrick garland and having that vacancy on the supreme court with its been point for a lot of conservative voters who had misgivings about donald trump, the court is too important, we can't risk it. if you were to have, chairman grassley is having a little mischief here say we need the appointments because we might lose the senate but really he is saying if we have a vacancy we can probably gain seats because republicans are not in a position to lose the senate, they a position to grow their majority because of what the map looks like and if they had a supreme court vacancy, if you don't think you could get the republican base out to replace justice kennedy they would march, they would march for sure. >> if it becomes an epic blue wave, that would be a nightmare getting a supreme court justice through. >> if the republicans are in the minority, what he would have to give away to try to get somebody confirmed the kind of nominee he would ha

the documents, 2500 pages in all, were released by committee chairman republican chuck grassley from this morning. he announced his intent to release the transcripts weeks ago. and this morning donald trump junior released a statement saying in part, the public can now see that for over five hours i answered every question asked and was candid and forthright with the committee. we're going to get into how he answered those questions. because from democrats, the committ committee's ranking member said in a statement that even with the testimony, quote, we still do not know the full story about the meeting saying several key witnesses had hampered the investigation by not fully cooperating. and i want to note, don junior did answer every question, but dozens of times, he said i don't remember, i don't recall. so let's get a refresher on just who was at the trump tower meeting ahead of the 2016 election. on the campaign side, let's start with donald trump's son, don junior. he helped bring the whole thing together according to e-mails he released on twitter. that included the infamous l

at the lunch break, chuck grassley asked him if he thought there were any improprieties with the investigation into hillary clinton's e-mails and he made a statement he thought they -- there were a myriad of improprieties during the investigation. i never saw that once in any kind of mainstream media news anywhere. i would also like to ask about what she thinks of the censoring of the news on the internet, where they remove the parts where you can correspond with other people and have disagreements and talk and things like that, the comments section. host: thanks for the call. guest: he's put his finger on something i've written about. what we leave out of the news, what we self-sensor, is as important as what we put in, he's right about that. the internet, i'm starting to speak out about this. i'm totally concerned when third parties, whether it is government, political figures or private corporations insert themselves in as fact checkers of what should be and shouldn't be. yes, there is a lot of misinformation and junk online and yet, i think we are better off in that environment than one th

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. >>> senate judiciary chairman chuck grassley sending a blunt message to any u.s.rt justice thinking about retirement. >> are you prepping for a supreme court vacancy this summer, chairman grassley? >> i hope it's now or within two or three weeks because we've got to get this done before the election, so my message to any one of the nine supreme court justices, if you're thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday. >> wow. a lot of focus has been on the court's swing vote justice anthony kennedy and whether he'll retire when the current term expires next month. a kennedy departure would give president trump the opportunity to craft a supreme court perhaps but with midterms six months away, the republicans fear they could lose their majority in november, making it more difficult to confirm a conservative justice. joining me is steve vladic, a cnn legal analyst, professor of law and constitutional law. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> okay, so if justice kennedy were to retire, what kind of battle would ensue in your view? >> oh, cat claaclysmic one. i

senator chuck grassley saying one of these text messages actually suggesting that the

back, the chuck grassley said if that is something that his colleagues ask him to do, he will take it unadvisement. trace? >> ellison barber live in washington. thank you. to help put some legal context throughout this, ron is here, defense attorney and formerly a prosecutor. he also worked at the department of justice. i want to start off where ellison left off there. it's important because donald trump goes in and says, look, we wanted the dirt on hillary clinton, right? the president later said yeah, if they are growing to give me dirt on hillary, i wanted it and so would have any other presidential candidate. what do you make of that? >> there's a misconception in the public about what is going on. it's not illegal to talk to russians. everything we read, it's not illegal to get opposition research on your opponent. whether you're a british intelligence officer or a russian adoption specialist and you have dirt, you can talk about it. it's legal. it's only illegal if you have an illegal agreement to affect the election. it's not illegal to get e-mails that somebody has that they w

chuck grassley, he wants to see staal communications between orr and the former british spy and dossier author christopher steele. remember, orr was in communication with steele, both before and after the election. it was orr's wife, nelly, she worked to for fugs gps. she put together the research that turned out to be lies. grassley wants to know if orr was given the fbi information that steele provided after fired by the fbi for lying about his contacting with the media. we do have an update on the nuclear showdown with little rocket man in north korea, ajunqueira. president trump is saying the june 12th summit, well, might not work out. take a look. >> president donald trump: there's certain conditions that we want, and i think we'll get those conditions. if we don't, we don't have the meeting. frankly, it has a chance to be a great, great meeting for north korea and a great meeting for the world. if it doesn't happen, maybe it will happen later, maybe it will happen at a different time. but we will see. but we are talking. the meeting is scheduled, as you know, june 12th in singapor

senator chuck grassley is demanding answers about comey's conflicting testimony over michael flynn's interview over the f.b.i. agents. he told congress he didn't think that michael flynn lied but that is what mueller charged flynn with. then remember, this information, that was something that rod rosenstein and others at the d.o.j., they fought to keep redacted in the name of national security when clearly it had nothing to do with national security. like they have been slowwalking, they are stonewalling and the d.o.j. is deploying one tactic after another to prevent congress finding out the truth about how corrupt the russia investigation has been from day one. and the abuse of the fisa laws have been and putting the fix in for hillary clinton. the house intel committee chairman devin nunes, then trey gowdy now say the d.o.j. is trying to discredit the investigation by using anonymous sources to attack a g.o.p. staffer who helped expose surveillance abuses. this is pathetic. if the government uses the power tools of intelligence and turns them on us, we don't have a country anymore.

. >> senate judiciary chair chuck grassley explaining why he released the transcripts of the testimonyut the trump tower meeting where donald trump jr. was promised dirt from the russians on hillary clinton. back to the panel to discuss. we just received another little blurb from this testimony and this is one of the first time that we heard directly from one of the interpreters and i want to read you this the exchange because it's very interesting. question, turning to the meeting on june 9th, did anyone state that the russian government state that they supported the donald trump campaign? answer, no. did anyone oppose hillary clinton's campaign? answer, no. did anyone at the meeting offer to aid hacked e-mails to aid the campai campaign? answer, no. on and on like that. steve hall, this is from someone and i'll mangle the name, anatoli, and said it wasn't overtly discussed in that meeting, surprising? >> no, not entirely surprising from somebody who was an interpreter. my assessment is that on the russian side it was one of two reasons and they're not mutually exclusive. there could

state minions who is feeling the heat tonight to play the senate judiciary committee chairman chuck grassleyhe wants to see all the communications between bruce ohr and the former british spy and dossier author christopher steele. remember, bruce ohr was in communication with steele both before and after the election. and it was ohr's wife, nellie, who worked for fusion gps, who put together the oppo research that are not to be lies. grassley wants to know if ohr was given the fbi information that steele provided after steele was fired by the fbi for lying about his contacts with the media. another big story we are following, we have an update on the nuclear showdown with the little rocket man in north korea, kim jong un. president trump is saying they do 12 summit, well, it might not work out. take a a look. >> theretr are certain conditios that we want, and i think we'll get those conditions, and if we don't, we don't have the meeting. frankly, it has a chance to be a great, great meeting for north korea. and great meeting for the world. if it doesn't happen, maybe it will happen later. ma

the chairman of the judiciary committee senator chuck grassley says the public can read through the documents and come to their own conclusions. committee democrats say they need more from mr. trump. >> dana: then i was watching you trying to figure out, trying to piece all of this together. do you know if his comments provided through hope hicks were incorporated into the final statement? because this is all done on air force one as the president's flying home from the first meeting in europe. >> right. that was sort of one of the big questions, one of the big concerns is there was an exchange where president trump, the initial statement that came out on july 8. there were questions about whether or not he had dictated it. "washington post" reported he dictated it on air force one heading back if are from germany. initially trump jr.'s response was he wasn't sure and as they asked him specifically -- his answer sort of changed and wavered a little bit. he said at first i don't know, i didn't speak to him about it and then he talked at one point talking about how he thought perhaps some of th