and james clapper testifying that there was no evidence of collusion but now, clapper is claiming that russia scandal is worse than wate watergate. >> i lived through watergate, i have to say though that i think compare the two that watergate pales really in my view compared to what we're confronting now. lou: there is no explanation for james clapper, none left. the left itself have lost their minds as we await tomorrow's highly anticipated testimony from fired fbi director james comey. but there is a surprise in testimony today released by combel that -- comey that will have many of leftist and dems supporting statements that president trump was not and is not under investigation by the fbi. president's attorney, released this statement saying, the president is pleased that mr. comey has finally publicly confirmed his private report that president trump was not under investigation in any russian probe. president feels total ven tote vindicated, he is eager to continue moving forward with his agenda. presidents' day could not have gone much better, the dems much worse. well, the house

i would like to ask you senator, about clapper. clapper, didn't he -- didn't we know he actually lied to congress about whether or not they were spying on american citizens? and did anything happen to him? why is he not indicted or whatever? what about lois lerner? why have charges not been brought up against against -- against her for using the iraq's politics -- for using the irs as politics. sen. lee: it is my understanding that and pretty well-established that james clapper gave some testimony that was not true. senatestimony before the intel committee ended up being clarified by james clapper later, where he said it was not accurate. this is how the american people chose to discover some of the details behind the nsa's former practice of bulk telephone metadata collection under protection to 15 of the patriot of the patriot act. this led to the usa freedom act. i was a sponsor of that bill, along with my cosponsor senator hatley from vermont. he is a liberal democrat, i have never been described that way, but we agreed that we

thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> very tough words from general clapper there. if you are just joining us now, let's quickly lay out the top story tonight. the riveting testimony, did he make the case for the obstruction of justice? and we'll get reaction from the intelligence community, and first, dana bash with all the key moments. >> reporter: do you solemnly swear to tell the truth. >> reporter: the former fbi director under oath and unvarnished, called the president who fired him, a liar. >> the administration then chose to defame me by saying that the organization was in disarray. that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leaders. those were lies, plain and simple. >> using the l word more than once. >> i was honestly concerned he may lie about the nature of our meeting and thought it would be really important to document. >> with a flair for the dramatic that he is known for, james comey tried to describe the fateful february 14th moment with the president, when the president kicked everybody out, and had a conversation with c

he said he was not aware -- clapper did not say that.ewed him myself, chris. >> look, there has been numerous congressional members that have -- >> chris, let me get the fact out there. he said i wasn't monitoring the fbi investigation. i don't know what he had. that's what clapper said, not there is none and i know everything there is to know. he didn't say that. but your side of the aisle uses that and deceptively so. >> chris, you're the son of a great lawyer, mario qcuomo. and there is a rule in law that you have to have evidence. >> that exists when you have someone in custody. we're talking about the president of the united states and open questions that go to the fundamental basis of our democracy. chris, if you change the names here and chris ruddy was considering whether or not we need to know whether the russians helps hillary clinton, i guarantee you there would be in passty in your investigation. >> i thought it was totally a violation of fbi protocol last june. i thought his interference in the election with reopening the in

that you they don't like what they are hearing from jim clapper. there is an underlying criminality here. the russians broke into the dna and hacked john podesta's e-mails. so we know there is an underlying crime involving russian nationals at the very least. i think what former director clapper is saying is because this involves a foreign govlt intervening in our elections, that's what enhances the severity here and the potential our own government or at least the trump campaign or associates there of might have been involved in any way is what makes this really haunting. >> take your partisan hats off for a moment if you can. we want your expertise with the justice department and your expertise as well, congressman as someone who has worked in washington. the fact that jeff sessions and the president have had such heated contentious confrontat n confrontations that sessions offered to resign and the president is infuriated because he stepped aside from the russia investigation, does that concern you about what's going on inside the white house ri

clapper has been critical of trump. clapper went and said very soon after donald trump made the claim that trump tower was wiretapped and ordered by obama. that had not happened. he was the leading first voice out there to do that. that seems like more than what he said before. he has been a trump critic. at some point, though, coats, comey, sessions, clapper, there are others. donald trump clearly is a bull in a china shop. that's why people voted for him at some level because they wanted him to be that guy. the question to me is does he know he is a bull in a china shop or does he not? is there intent here? does he know when he talks to james comey and meet with him privately and asks if he is under investigation. does he know he is breaking protocol? when he talks to dan coats and say he is not under investigation and does he know he is breaking protocol there? you know, i don't know. presumably someone has told him these are sort of the boundaries which you operate. whether he listened to that or not is the question

james clapper makes me laugh. idea that the dni, the director of national intelligence is on cnn talking and she says -- can i quote thi this? they are looking for evidence of russian trump collusion. he says i wouldn't go so far to say that but with respect to the issue of collusion, as i have said before, i have testified and i saw no evidence. i saw no direct evidence of political collusion between the campaign in the trunk campaign and the russians. como's follow-up question? now clarify that point. this point has been clarified for seven doggone months. >> sean: this just happened last week, we showed our audience. these were all hillary's excuses in the last week alone. there's one thing missing on that list. how about blaming herself? >> she did miss the opportunity to throw in tim kane's name which i think really should get some prominence in that list. >> sean: he was not good enough debate. >> and then the nonsensical answer on his on the collusion. then he sucks the truth out of that moment as well. i d

obama official susan rice, james clapper and samantha power have all been slapped with subpoenas on the unmasking and we learn that two of the highest level leakers are james i'm and reality winner. then the comey testimony boom aranged on loretta lynch and the hillary clinton campaign. here is what the former f.b.i. director said. >> the attorney general directed me not to call it an investigation, but to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me. jesse: testimony shows there was no undue influence by the trump people on the f.b.i. investigation but there was undue influence by the obama people on the obama administration. everything we have been told about this entire story has turned out to be false or the opposite of how it was sold. in the president's first reaction to the hearing he offered to testify himself. >> yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction. it was just an excuse. but we were very, very happy and frankly, james comey confirmed a lot of what i said. jesse: this is why the left-wing media has been reduced to beheadings and swearing at the president. it's

on top of that, we also have the former director of national intelligence clapper and several prominent democrats admitting -- we played this before -- c no smoking gun that they have seen. no evidence whatsoever. in spite of thousands of hours of black helicopter tinfoil hata conspiracy coverage of russian collusion. the democrats and security intelligence agencies tell you directly. >> have you seen anything that suggests any collusion between the russians and the term campaign? the russians and the trump campaign. >> there's an awful lot of smoke there, let's put it that way. people that might have said they were involved, to what extent they were involved. to what extent the president might have known about these people. there's nothing there from that standpoint, that we have seen, directly linking our president any of that. >> the last time we spoke, i asked if you'd actually seen evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and the russians and you said to me "not at this time." had anything changed since we spoke last? >> no, it hasn't. >> just to be clear, there has been no

what happens when jim clapper says oh, you know what?ays the community -- that's pretty strong language coming from the president. >> greg: he started that trend. >> juan: he's the president, greg. >> jesse: jim clapper also said there was no evidence of any collusion between trump and the russians and now he says it's water watergate. so get your story straight. it doesn't have anything to do about the testimony he gave about collusion. i think president obama obviously a little upset because his library is going to be empty. in chicago. after president trump has proved to dismantle his legacy. no obamacare, no paris, the only thing left is the iran deal. no one wants to visit that wing. and then you have biden out there saying we need to be more engaged. he was the one that pulled out of iraq and let syria unravel and didn't protect our allies. >> dana: are you worried about biden running, jesse? >> kimberly: he practiced that all night. straight ahead, full-grown fulp derangement syndrome and not just on the set. details after this br

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clapper was atop the intelligence community. separately, we wanted to put out a statement from dhs about what state election officials can do about this. again, encourage them to come to us at some point in the discussion, jim and i decided to make it a joint statement. that's what happened. >> there have been public reports in the last week or two that the russian infrastructure has been more widespread and may have affected dozens of states. what can you tell us about what was known at the time and what you know now in terms of the length and breadth of russian probing of our election infrastructure, how widespread was it, and did it go beyond penetration of voter databases, manipulation of data in any way? >> it was definitely in the fall a growing list of states where we saw scanning and probing around voter registration databases, which concerned us greatly. as i think i stated in one of my public statements, probably the october 1 statement, in at least one to two instances, the effort was successful at an intrusion. there

anderson cooper got clapper on the show to test why he thinks that.lier this week you said that watergate hails compared to what we are confronting now. i wonder what you saw today and heard today did it disabuse you of that notion at all? >> no, it reinforced it. so to understand the context of my comment, what the big difference in my mind between watergate which i lived through and this is the backdrop of the russian interference in our political process. as opposed to a burglary, a break in. to me, that's a hugely different and i thought jim comey's testimony was rif vetting, compelling and to me reinforced the comparison at least in my mind. >> in what way does it reinforce the seriousness of what the u.s. is confronting right now. and what the president appeared to be trying to get him to do i thought was very disturbing. >> have you ever seen a president acting in this way, talking in this way sberks aint with the fbi or other intelligence officials this way. >> no, i have not. not my experience of 50 plus years. >> how much concern do you have

>> i wonder if clapper is sniffing glue. how could he say that?atergate involved the president of the united states, the top aides inside the white house, the chief of staff, policy director, a whole staff of people, and also the attorney general of the united states plus all the campaign people. it was a huge issue. it involved official government employees. what we're talking about here is allegations, unproven so far a lot of smoke, they say, but no smoking gun. no credible evidence at all that the campaign had not coordination but communication with an ambassador. this is absurd. i don't know where he would come up with this. i tell you where clapper will have some challenges as will comey. if you've seen the lawsuit filed this week reported in circa, there is now an explosive allegation, dennis montgomery, a former u.s. intelligence contractor, stole over 600 million documents of intelligence from the c.i.a. and n.s.a. gave them back but it proved in the obama administration there was widespread surveillance and illegal spying on american cit

and jim clapper then sat atop the intelligence community as the dni. separately, we wanted taput out a statement from dhs about what state election officials can do about this and, again, encourage them to come to us. at some point in the discussion, jim and i decided to just make it a joint statement and that's what happened. >> there have been public reports in the last week or two that the russian probing of our elections infrastructure was far more wide spread than publicly acknowledged and may have affected dozens of states. what can you tell us about what was known at the time and what you know now in terms of the length and breadth of russian probing of our infrastructure and how wide spread was it and beyau beyond penetration of voter databases? >> it was definitely in the fall a growing list of states where we saw scanning and probing around voter registration databases which concerned us greatly. as i think i stated in one of my public statements, probably the october 1st statement. in at least one or two instances the effort was successful a

>> i know general clapper.ory career of the director of national intelligence, for him to make an assessment that this is a national security level is on a higher order of magnitude and making the watergate pales s comparison, that's a big concern. >> it is an educated assessment. th i na guy who's running the national intelligence service >> yeah, it is a heavy declaration. i wonder how anything is really going to breakthrough over these next couple of days of the combination of the comey's system and then what president trump may do and that's what jeremy, i want to ask you if you for saw -- can you foresee any wild cards that could possibly come up over the next 24 hours. this nomination of christopher wray, a smart republican operative told me it is almost as if president trump is becoming predictable. he's just distracting everyone with a pick that people don't know much about on a huge news day that otherwise, would be sucked up by talk of this upcoming testimony. can you see any potential wild cards over

. >> bret: i want to play sound bite from former director of national intelligence, james clapper. >>i have to say i think you compare the two, that watergate pales really in my view compared to what we are confronting now. >> this moves us into the same realm as nixon's obstruction, may be worse. this is the equivalent of the nixon tapes. and we are headed into very, very choppy waters. >> bret: i spent, i don't know, two hours watching cable coverage. it was all over the board and more towards that that it was anything else. >> whenever anyone makes a comparison to watergate, it's usually a desperate plea for attention. the only similarity you have are highly placed intelligence officials leaking to the press. we don't have a crime yet. it is far past time for the intelligence officials who've been playing this game and putting out innuendos to give us substance. put up or shut up. >> bret: when you read this half way through, we don't get a sense of collusion. we have not had any leaks of specific collusion. as of yet. but we are starting to get that the focus is on possible obstru

national intelligence james clapper but he goes on to say proves that moscow is still making attempts to influence american politics he was appearing in a new documentary that just aired over the last few hours the c.n.n. that. courtroom. i think it's in your d.n.a. . or in the soviet era or no. you've watched this more fully because i said in the last few months at a time through some of it great movie and say you know nice sound effects dramatic music sound bites probably keeps you watching but was the smoking gun walk having nothing much anticipation eva. this latest special report from c.n.n. because it was billed as the first comprehensive telling on russia's attack on the twenty sixteen race with jarring lessons for the american leader and the public about more attacks still to come so it really seemed like c.n.n. was going to lift the lid on a little these unsubstantiated reports and unverified claims it's made in the past over russia related stories but there's going to be a lot of disappointed viewers some afraid because the same old tune we packaged in a new way a lot of our

russia still to come and we do indeed get this right at the very end where the presenter asks james clapper is russia still attempting to hijack the u.s. now in this is what he said. were true i. think it's in their d.n.a. . you're doing this over here or no. all right well now all this coming in a bit of a difficult time for c.n.n. in the last twenty four hours because of course the video yes the covert video. it's not been a very good week for c.n.n. i was taught is one day before the airing of this special report which i'm sure they're very excited about three c.n.n. staff members resigned after the network was forced to retract and as the related story and the day just went from bad to worse really because after that a producer for c.n.n. was quote saying the network that russia coverage was more about boosting ratings than stating solid facts so perhaps the view was we'll be watching this latest special report with fresh eyes over hatfill critical eye especially after this one we did reach out to see and then. because a lot of people got their thoughts about this kind of journalism wit

i know director clapper served more than 50 years in government. he's very well respected in the government community. that said, what the heck are we talking about here? in watergate we had a president resign. we know what happened was a criminal act beginning with the break-in of democratic offices. we know there was a cover up. we know there is wrongdoing up and down the administration of richard nixon. what do we know in this case? we don't know what happened during the election, whether there is any collusion. the other thing we know for a fact in one circumstance is general flynn made an ethical violation that led him to be fired. we don't understand what the cover up is here. we have a president who is nowhere close to resigning. that would be ridiculous. or being impeached. and we want to compare that to watergate? going into this environment, he is undercutting his credibility by comparing this to watergate. how do you look with someone with that kind of history and say i believe him. >> especially when another one of his most quotable mom

clapper, general clapper, admiral clapper say yesterday in australia that this is far worse than watergateo far is it? >> well, this has got more moving parts than watergate or any other potential investigation that i am aware of in modern times. there's not a week that goes by there's not a new story about contacts, russian intervention that really we have to get to the bottom of it. the good news is that at least in the senate intelligence committee we're doing this in a bipartisan way because the worst thing that could happen would be if this committee splits and we ended up with a democratic narrative and a republican narrative. i don't believe that's going to happen. i think we are going follow the facts wherever they lead. >> senator, i just heard you say that you intend to press them pretty hard today. what your strategy, what is it you want to know? >> what i want to know, and i understand that -- i have a great deal of respect for dan coates. he used to be a colleague of mine on the intelligence committee. and admiral rodgers has served close to 40 years both in the military and a

available at walmart. >>> james clapper has served in the intelligence community for the republican andemocratic presidential candidates alike. and serving for the first presidents bush, he is a 50-year veteran of public service in the united states air force. with all of what that entails, including staying away from politically charged conversations. however that may change. this was said about the trump/russia story. >> i think you compare the two that watergate pales, really in my view, and compared to what we're confronting now. >> well, that watergate comparison made headlines tonight, reacting to james comey's testimony. and only here on cnn he took criticism of the president a little further. i spoke to him earlier this evening. >> earlier this week you said that watergate pales to what

jim clapper and i made the statement on october 7th, and i'm glad we did, frankly. i think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it should've frankly, because the same day the press was focused on the release of the "access hollywood" video. that's what made our news below the followed news that day. >> i want to ask you about that as well. couple things. there were certain allegations by one of the campaigns, the trump campaign that the process was rigged. >> yes. >> but the allegation wasn't being rigged by a foreign power. why wasn't it more important to tell the american people the length and breadth of what the russians were doing to interfere in an election than any risk that it might be seen as putting your hand on the scale? didn't the public have a compelling need to know, notwithstanding the claims made by a campaign about a different kind of rigging, and the need to rebut the idea that this was being presented to the public deliberately to influence the outcome? yes, yes, and yes, which is why we did tell the american public everyth

james clapper appeared at the press club and accused russia of interfering in last year's election. >> the russians are not our friends. they and putin specifically, despite his disingenuous denials, are opposed to our democracy and values. >> clapper went on to say russia trying to interfere in our elections date iing baa k to th '60s, but nothing rivals last year's actions. our coverage in washington continues tomorrow. i'll be headed down to join lauren mayk and the coverage. look for live reports the rest of this evening and then more from the thags's capital tomorrow at 4:00. >>> the delaware memorial bridge reopened just been the past 90 minutes after a fire snarled traffic for several hours. they want inspected the area under the bridge. construction material caught fire as crews were welding. traffic was shut down between new jersey and delaware. cars were detoured all the way back to exit 4 of the turnpike. no one was injured in the fire, but it created major traffic headaches for drivers. >>> we have new details on a story we have been following since monday night. police no

we will be joined by ryan clapper and mary in our 9:00 hour this morning to talk about this further.s now 6:48. draymon green is only 27 but he already has a very impressive resume. mark ibanez sat down with him after he was named the defensive player of the year. they talked about the future of the team and keeping the team together. >> i want to win multiple championships. two is great but why not five? why not six? why not chase bigger things? you know the feeling of winning a championship so great. the fear of never experiencing that feeling again is scary. we will loose pieces in free agency for sure. i have the faith and trust in the front office that they will plug those pieces in just fine and -- we will keep this ball moving. i think that the more you play with each other the more familiar you are and that leads to getting better as well. >> there you go. you can watch mark's full one on one interview with green this sunday night. 11:30 during sports wrap. >>> they do play as a team. >> yeah. >> so many championship teams like they have one guy or they have two people who ar

that group included james clapper, john brennan, mike rogers from the nsa. at the end of the meeting, comey said, mr. president, i need to talk to you in private. the other folks were ushered out of the room and they spoke privately. did the president who was a neophyte to politics and protocol think it was okay because comey set the precedent for him to later, a few weeks later, say to comey i would like to talk to you privately for a minute after we get everybody else out of the oval office. similar meeting in the oval office to the one comey had with the president on january 6. the other two questions being asked, why did comey think it was necessary to take notes and why did he think the president could potentially lie to him when it was comey who said mr. president, i need to talk to privately and i need to tell you about the sensitive information in this unverified document. there is still a lot of unknowns out there as to why comey was feeling the way he was feeling i may be potential explanations for why the president thought that during the february

had apparently been recommended for firing by obama's defense secretary, ash carter and by james clapper, director of national intelligence. they reportedly thought he had done a bad job at the nsa and cyber command. nbc news said mike rogers was extremely unpopular among the nsa work force at the time. would he be fired? would trump promote him even though obama was maybe about to fire him? interesting question. in the end, when all was said and done, what happened is that mike rogers kept the nsa job into the new trump administration. he did not get fired from running the nsa. but he also didn't get promoted to be the director of national intelligence either. that job went to dan coats, former republican senator from the state of indiana. now, today, on the eve of the first public appearance by the fbi director, since that fbi director was fired by president trump, today, these two figures, controversial admiral who snuck out from his job without permission from the obama administration, which wanted to fire him at the time, and the former senator whether got the top intelligence job d

one of the items mentioned here in the article is james clapper last summer had a long history of russiaamerican election, now, obviously not the nature of what we saw last year. what was that history and should that have alerted everybody sooner? >> certainly there was a long history of the russian government interfering in u.s. affairs, trying to successfully hack into sensitive systems. i think what it seems to me and from my own reporting too, people were surprised by is the idea that the russian government would turn these e-mails around and put them out there as a part of a campaign to start a trickle of information or to then start disinformation. >> that fact to me is also surprising, because those intelligence officials like jim clapper know well the russian government and other governments use these tactics. they were aware they were using them in europe in some instances as well. it shouldn't have come as a surprise, it appears all these pieces were not put together in time. i think there the a lot of emphasis here to place on this very question of whether or not the obama adm

republican of the house that the president deserves a pass because he's kind of new at all this and why clapper says of the watergate pales in comparison of what he's seeing today. details on that later. with trave customer first guarantee... your only worry... will be navigating the local traffic. get help with hotels, free twenty-four-hour flight changes, and our price match guarantee. travelocity.® wander wisely.™ sarah destroy.dent. but when it comes to mortgages, she's less confident. fortunately, there's rocket mortgage by quicken loans. apply simply. understand fully. mortgage confidently. radio: scorching heat today folks[ barks ]ol out there! walter! stop suffering with hot ac. cool it yourself with a/c pro. just connect the hose, squeeze the trigger and check the gauge. with 2 times the cooling boosters enjoy the comfort of the #1 selling coldest air. nothing cools like a/c pro. i'm the one clocking in... when you're clocking out. sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. there. i can even warm these to help you fall asleep faster.

with us now, jill dougherty, steve hall, michael sheer, shawn turner, james clapper, and phil mudd. steve, as a former cia officer, what do you make of the cia's ability to identify that vladamir putin had a hand in this? because that seems like part of the obama administration is that they were -- wanted to make sure the cia was right and get buy-in from other intelligence agencies. >> well, according to "the washington post" reporting, this is somewhat of an intelligence coup to get this concrete information, which sort of put the nail into the coffin of what we had all pretty much sumized that vladamir putin was definitely involved in this. according to "the washington post," this piece of intelligence confirmed that. but then the fascinating thing about the whole piece in the post is that was sort of the easy part. the hard part is now we have that information, what is our policy going to be? you can go really hard and go cyber warfare or go conservatively with sanctions and that's eventually what the administration decided to do. >> michael, just hearing from the president in t

i talked to the nsa director recently, and former director of national intelligence james clapper. talked about concern that the institutions that are the bedrock of u.s. democracy are under threat. >> yes. >> do you share that concern? >> it is a disaster. we have spent decades building trust and relationships, and the benefit of that is lots of people around the world, americans, we have not had a world war in 70 years. the time between the first and second world war was 20 years. it's been 70 years since and we haven't. that's because of trade relations. that's because of the eu, i think, has helped in that. we have a lot of our jobs in this country depending on global trade. that comes from relationships as well as treaty. terrorism is something we have to fight together. only if your intelligence services and your governments work together can you do that. the benefits of international cooperation to america are as great as they are for any country in the world. >> when you look at the white house, the way its structured, every former chief of staff, whether republican or demo

i want to share a bit of what james clapper said comparing this situation to watergate. take a look. >> i think compare the two, that watergate pales really in my view compared to what we're confronting now. >> okay. if this guy, who would know, is saying this is significantly bigger than watergate, what position does that put the gop in? to michael's point, what kind of questions are they going to ask? if this issue is that big and pervasive, this is a complicated moment for republicans as much as it is president trump. >> the watergate burglary didn't affect the outcome of the election, number one. two, when we consider watergate, we know everything that happened in watergate with the perspective of history. we don't know what happened here yet. but certainly is foreign interference by an adversary of the united states in our election process, and in fact were they able to influence the election, what happened? we just don't know yet. but is russian interference of the election a bigger deal than the bungled burglary and the president lying about it to cover it up? i s

think that it's fair to say that nothing regarding this lawful status has changed since director clapper and attorney general holder wrote the congress in february 2012 to urge us to pass a straight, re-authorization of fisa and since the obama administration followed suit in september 2012. what has changed, however, is the intensity, scale and scope of the threats that face our nation. this is not the time to needlessly roll back and handicap our capabilities. i know a lot of people will use this hearing as an opportunity to talk about the committee's russian investigation. i'd like to remind everyone that 702 is one of our most effective tools against terrorism and foreign intelligence targets. i hope my colleagues and those closely watching this hearing realize that at the end of the day our constitutional obligation is to keep america and our citizens safe. the intel jens community needs 072 and it is this committee's obligation to assure that the i.c. has the authorities and the tools it needs to keep us safe at home and abroad. gentlemen, i look forward to your testimony and conti

and jim clapper then sat atop the intelligence community as the dni. separately, we wanted to put out a statement from dhs about what state election officials can do about this. and again encourage them to come to us. at some point in the discussion jim and i decided to just make it a joint statement and that's what happened. >> there have been public reports in the last week or two that the russian probing of our elections infrastructure was far more widespread than has been publicly acknowledged and may have been affected dozens of states. what can you tell us about what was known at the time and what you know now in terms of the length and breadth of russian probing, how widespread was it and did it go beyond penetration of voter databases or manipulation of data in any way? >> there was very definitely in the fall a growing list of state where is we saw scanning and probing around voter registration databases, which concerned us greatly. as i think i stated in one of my public statements, probably the october 1st statement, in at least one or two i

national intelligence james clapper he goes on to say therefore that proves that moscow is still making attempts to influence american politics he was appearing in a new documentary by c n n news channel during prime time in america last night. is there any reason to believe that russia is not right now today continuing to attempt to or to infiltrate u.s. political organizations individuals or are true or. do i think it's in their d.n.a. . or during the soviet era or no. i just think you're enjoying being the studio a bit early to explain whether there was actually a smoking gun that was found in this documentary there's so much anticipation over this latest special report from c.n.n. it was billed as the first comprehensive telling of on television of russia's attack on the two thousand and sixteen presidential race and also with jarring lessons for the american leaders and the public about more attacks still to come now who wouldn't want to watch this it seems like stephen was going to lift the lid on all of these unverified sources and then substantiated claims it's used in the past

thing i want to mention is with the news media the way it is now, it just jim me, like, you know, clapper and comey can get up there and say there was no russian collusion with trump and the media is beating it like a dead force. the horse is so dead it's like a skeleton and the media is beating the heck out of it. the people on the left, they are just having such a meltdown now that trump's our president that they're just, you know, grasping at straws which way they can to defame him and to make him look bad. when his predecessor, obama, was in and back then democrats were like, loretta lynch meeting with bill clinton on the tarmac, you know, with the benghazi cover-up, just before the second election of obama and they were blaming it on an obscure video instead of being honest and truthful. yet, nobody went out after them for obstruction of justice. host: ok. and max is calling in from germantown, maryland. max, we just have a few seconds left. can you tell us what's on your mind? caller: in a few seconds i just want to say, the gun violence, you know, hit home at me saturday, hit home

m >> in 201 2012 i mentioned an opening statement director of national intelligence jim clapper and attorney general a eric holder wrote a letter tode congressional leadership asking congress to pass straight brothers asian of fisa come september 2012 statement of administration policy. also urged the same. this would be to director coats and ag rosenstein. has the odni or the department of justice position changed at all since the time of the february 2012 letter? >> no. n we strongly support the 2012 letter and request. >> we agree. we agree 100%.and >> this is to admiral rogers anm to director mccabe. since congress last authorized this authority in 2012, again, have the been any instances involving a deliberate or intentional compliance violation? >> not that i'm aware of. >> director mccabe? >> no, sir. >> admiral rogers, this is to you. fisa 702 statutory authorities were to end or even be diminished, what would be the impact on our national security? >> i couldn't generate the same level of insight that the nation, friends and allies around the world count on with respect to counterte

at the time, director of national intelligence, james clapper, was surprised the russians didn't respond. no sort of reaction from them? >> it was very curious. >> reporter: the f.b.i.'s counter-intelligence investigation is trying to determine whether the russians were given assurances by people associated with president trump. >> well, the allegation is that there were perhaps an agreement, a wink. >> reporter: for his part, putin today called president trump a "straightforward and frank person." he said the hacking allegations are a plot to "create an atmosphere" that makes it "impossible to solve common problems." those problems include the two compounds in new york and maryland, which, of course, the russians want back. anthony, the trump administration and the russian government are now discussing the possibility of their return. >> mason: jeff pegues, thanks, jeff. former f.b.i. director james comey will testify in the senate investigation of russian meddling in the u.s. election and cbs news will bring that to you live next thursday morning. one of the president's campaign pledge