seemed to make up comey's rules as comey went along. as to what he was free to disclose about different investigations and when he wasn't free to disclose things pretty would tell lawmakers he had special authorization from the department of justice to confirm that the fbi is investigating alleged contacts between the trump campaign and the kremlin. but if asked about unmasking or asked about leaks and other issues come he would say i'm not authorized by doj to say anything on those matters. way back on july 5, he told us nobody at doj knows what i'm about to say, and then he launched the extraordinary moment where he sought to impeach hillary clinton rather than proceed with an indictment. >> bret: the administration points to the new deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein rod rosenstein, a memo that's attached to the letter that president trump put out. saying "i cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary clinton's emails and i do not understand his refusal to accept the judgment he was

he appointed james comey.ve you spoken with president obama or anyone from the obama white house about this. >> not today. jake, i just learned the news, i was getting on a plane from chicago to california and learned of the news when i got on the plane, so i haven't spoken to anyone about it, though i'm sure -- i'm sure their reaction is very much like everybody else's reaction, which is that this was a stunning development. you know, my concerns about the president, this administration, policies come and go, but our institutions have to remain strong. our democratic institutions and with the action they took today they put a cloud of suspicion around the justice department, around the fbi. how are you going to appoint someone now who is going to be trusted to lead an investigation of the president who appointed him? and i mean, there are so many issues that flow the this and i think the special prosecutor call is going to grow. i think they greatly miscalculated on this one. >> and jeffrey tuben, president c

i think the only thing that they like less than comey is the world without comey. the democrats have been sharply critical of him for what he did around the election and for his decision to reopen the clinton e-mail investigation 11 days before the election. so they've now positioned themselves as the defenders of comey because i think they realize that comey was their best bet to try and get some type of independent result out of the russia investigation. we have heard as well that the white house is surprised by the blowback to this. but, you know, i don't know how they couldn't anticipate that. you know, someone like firing the fbi director really resurrects the idea of the saturday night massacre, and that kind of thing, you know, is pretty troubling to some people. >> all right. michael schmidt, thank you so much for joining me. i'm joined now by senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. senator, your reaction to the dismissal of james comey? >> well, let's put it in a little context. remember, sally yates was acting attorney general, and one of the things sh

you haven't heard from jim comey.ot saying that the reporting is wrong, but it is just reporting. may too premature to even call it evidence at this point. >> that's why i say it is evidence, not proof. second, the request for pledge for a loyalty. >> again, something we don't know for sure yet. >> again, there has been very credible reporting of it, and it's been corroborated. when we talk about these memos, hopefully we will see these memos. >> why haven't you yet? >> because we're just learning of them and also they may be evidence in a criminal investigation. we need to be respectful of the special prosecutor now. i think we have a continuing oversight responsibility. rosenstein should come to tell the american people everything he said in that meeting yesterday and there is virtually nothing he told us that he couldn't tell the american people. nothing classified, nothing that couldn't be made public. and second i want to see jim comey testify before the judiciary committee. while i think he is a man of principal

his twitter feed from when he praised comey to when he criticized comey. and he's clearly sour on him if you look at his twitter feed. he could have fired him in january, but he didn't. now it's getting close to home. what they could have done. and to dana's point, they didn't expect this kind of fallout, they could have said, okay, we feel we need to fire comey, but we think there should be an independent prosecutor. that would have saved them a lot of this grief, if they had called for an independent prosecutor at this time. >> the problem with conflicts of interest, it never occurred to him that what vladimir putin did to hillary clinton and the democrats, he would be happy to do to him. he's got to care about the presidency. he doesn't care about the presidency enough to -- >> surprisingly, the intelligence chairman richard burr and other republicans john mccain are very upset about this, but in this sort of up is down, left is right world that we're in right now, you have lindsay graham, who's been a very staunch critic of the president, he says he th

how much longer did james comey have in thejob? how much longer did james comey have in the job? obama so really he was just getting into that. it was a very busy one for him. he has really been the centre of these allegations, three congressional committees, the fbi, investigating the trump administration possible ties to russia collusion in the 2016 election. earlier the president in the later to comey director said he was informed of three separate occasions that he was not investigated with any links to russia at comey director has come underfire from russia at comey director has come under fire from the democrats saying he stole the election from hillary clinton. days before the election he sent a letter to congress saying he was a reopening the investigation into hillary clinton's e—mails because of those e—mails of huma abedin found on her husband laptop. republicans are very angry

you have new reports about what he thought of comey and what comey thought of the president. >> and we've heard whuf jeff said played out in those rooms. comey felt the president was almost beyond normal, almost crazy. >> using the word crazy? >> that's ort of his word or sort of what was communicated. he said repeatly to his aides there's something wrong with him, there's something wrong with comey. and he got very angry about comey talking about russiach he did not dissuade people from thing about it. and he was mildly nauseous at the prospects of his role in the election, that was an affront to the president. he took it that way. he was very upset about it throughout the weekend. and by the time this week began, this was already in process. to your point, you know, they learned also -- i missed one step. ish, there was this issue about what comey had testified. >> oh, yeah, he'd gotten something wrong. >> not something small wrong. and there was this very long lag in cleaning it up. that gave the west wing officials an opening. they saw that was there an opportunity to go ahead with it

seemed to make up comey's rules as comey went along. was free to disclose about different investigations and when he wasn't free to disclose things pretty would tell lawmakers he had special authorization from the department of justice to confirm that the fbi is investigating alleged contacts between the trump campaign and the kremlin. but if asked about unmasking or asked about leaks and other issues come he would say i'm not authorized by doj to say anything on those matters. way back on july 5, he told us nobody at doj knows what i'm about to say, and then he launched the extraordinary moment where he sought to impeach hillary clinton rather than proceed with an indictment. >> bret: the administration points to the new deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein rod rosenstein, a memo that's attached to the letter that president trump put out. saying "i cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary clinton's emails and i do not understand his refusal to accept the judgment he was mistaken. as a

sources say president trump asked comey to give him a personal loyalty pledge and that comey was taken aback and refused. the white house says there was no request so who is right and would such a request be wrong? and not perfectly accurate. the president now says he moves so fast that his press team simply can't keep up saying it's not possible for them to explain his moves with perfect accuracy. he suggests ending the daily press briefings. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> backing news. once again the white house now scrambling to respond to a twitter outburst from president trump. this morning president warned that fired fbi director james connelly, quote, better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations. white house press secretary sean spicer later insist that had this is not a threat. spicer won't say if the president records white house conversations, neither will the president. at issue, word from a source that the president asked comey to pledge his loyalty at at white house dinner back in january. the source says comey was taken aback by the requ

>> i was going fire comey.re is no good time do it by the way. >> because in your let erd you said i accepted their recommendation. >> i was going to fire regardless of recommendation. >> from the white house perspective though, that completely undermines what white house officials have been saying over the past two days. >> i want to start out on a positive. and the positive is that one of the reasons donald trump is so different from everybody else is something that we should applaud. he actually answers questions. and he answers them in the way that, you know, to the dismay of many of his staffers who are out there on a limb saying something completely opposite seems to be true. what he said is the real deal. he was going to fire james koechl. he was going to do it. and it did leave his spokesperson kellyanne conway forced to go on tv and clean up the bad communication strategy which by the way was not the shop's fault because they didn't know about it and the have not of the united states who all said, oh,

all the democratic outrage over comey's firing seems like a massive flip from their nonstop comey bashing almost a year ago. >> when i heard about it, i found it hard to believe that comey, who i thought had some degree of integrity, would do this. what comey, i respectfully disagree. what he did was appalling. prosecutors know it. >> i think he made a mistake on this and he clearly has a double standard when it comes to donald trump. in these jobs, if you are not in it for a while, you can't take the heat, and i think he just couldn't take the heat from the republicans prayed >> i am so disappointed in comey. he has left the country down. for partisan purposes and that's why i'm calling him j. edgar hoover. >> do you believe jim comey should resign, senator reid? >> of course, yes. >> i am not challenging mr. comey's motivation but i think it was unwarranted, it was a mistake and i think republican and democratic former justice department officials have come out and questioned the move he made. >> eboni: i can't hold it in. chuck schumer and nancy pelosi have got to be the two worst exam

under james comey? well, i've had questions nd concerns about some things hat he's said and i always wondered why nothing came of the e-mails, the situation with the one was ever no prosecuted for that. mean, there was confidential, classified information that were in some of the e-mails and approved to ren't have that, had it. kind of shake me some that nothing ever seemed to that.n from host: thanks for the call this morning. rose up next, denver, colorado. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, call. you for taking my am calling to say that i am orry to see that f.b.i. director james comey has been and the timing of it and the season of it. a parallel to it with the video clip you have been showing where the president director or eted former director now, james comey, with a kiss on the cheek handshake, hand pat on his back. that to president where judasa judas, kissed the lord jesus on the and had the government of him harisees there to take nder arrest and lead to his crucifixion. host: rose,

comey. host: they talked about needing a fresh start at the fbi in the wake of james comey's handling of the clinton investigation last year. was they were time last year that you recall before his firing? guest: i like many people thought he mishandled the intervention into the hillary emails 11 days before the election. that was an appropriate, but it never occurred to me that a sitting president, barack obama, would fire him over that. and donald trump seems to be very pleased with the way the investigation turned out. many people believed comey's intervention and the presidency the mr. trump. host: did you get a sense there is a lack of confidence in this country in the fbi? that the trusted and broken? host: not guest: not really. i think of it as political football. i think people who are critical of mr. comey handling of the hillary clinton emails that saw him as asserting appropriate independence in the handling of the russian investigation. you can flip that reaction to likinger par

why fire comey and why now? the white house saying the department of justice, the deputy attorney general recommending comey's departure. tonight, our team has learned it was the president himself who set this in motion. comey at home tonight as we learned what president trump said to the attorney general and to the deputy attorney general during their visit to the white house. what he asked them for and the time line leading to comey's firing. late word that president trump fired national security mike flynn has now been subpoena for doumtss regarding russia. abc's jonathan karl leading us off. >> reporter: less than 24 hours after the firing james comey, the man leading the investigation into russian meddling, president trump welcomed russia's ambassador and foreign minister to the white house. the russians releasing these pictures of the men laughing together in the oval office. later, the president asked why fire comey? >> mr. president, why did you fire director comey? >> why did you fire director comey? >>

which was more about trump than it was about comey. >> that abrupt letter never made to it comey before he learned of his own termination from tv monitors at the fbi office in l.a. that's where he learned about his own firing. our coverage begins this morning with jessica schneider here in new york. let's start with the trump letter on james comey. let's read it. while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, i nerve the less encourage the judgment of thedom doj that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. the president himself mentions the russian investigation. >> that's the interesting thing. he disconnect in the explanations in these three separate letters. we have that memo from rod rosenstein. two and a half page letter. it really goes into the details of how fbi director comey in the justice department's view mishandled this investigation into hillary clinton's e-mail server. then, of course, there's the additional letter from attorney general jeff sessions to president trump talking about his recommendation tha

would hillary clinton have fired james comey? >> you know, hillary clinton wasn't elected president of the united states, donald trump was. i think this is a classic example of how the trump administration is trying to get us to debate, you know, what would hillary have done. let's go back to 2016 and relitigate the campaign and not keep the focus on the choice that donald trump made here. >> we're going to do that, but i'm not part of the trump campaign. this is me asking you. would hillary clinton have fired james comey? >> i honestly have no clue. you know, we were running a campaign, we were focused on winning votes, and this discussion never came up and never -- we never frankly had the opportunity because she wasn't elected to even make these sorts of considerations. you know what, frankly, it doesn't matter. what's concerning here today is that the same day that subpoenas were coming out in the fbi probe into russia, all of a sudden donald trump decides to fire james comey. and not just that, he decides to make the excuse

said at the hearing in marchand then this letter today to james comey firing him saying comey informed him on three separate occasions he's not under investigation. what do you make of that? >> i think that first of all that was an extremely curious way to fire someone, by leaving the impression that comey had cleared him and his white house and his campaign of any wrong doing, any relationship that was inappropriate with the russian government because i do not think there have been any conclusions that can be reached with finality with regard to that subject. there are subpoenas that are being issued right now is to those related to general flynn and his activities and others being investigated by the fbi so what i think is that any comments made up until now are still extremely preliminary. there's a house and senate investigation but i think for this purpose, most importantly an fbi investigation and the person being investigated just fired the person conducting the investigation and as a result in order to ensure that our democracy gets the answer to whether or not there was a comp

president trump threatened comey with tapes, now comey is threatening with notes, stateme. sources tell us a memo that was penned in february, that the president first asked everyone to leave the room and then the president asked director comey to drop the investigation against flip. this was the day after flynn himself had resigned. if true, this is a sign he had a presidential interference with the investigation whether members of his campaign team colluded with russian officials. and it comes a day after the news that president trump revealed classified information to the russian ambassador. >> according to sources speaking to myself and my colleague jake tapper, james comey the former fbi director wanted to document a specific conversation he had with the president in february are he alleged the presidnt asked him to end the probe into michael flip, and according to a source i spoke with, he wanted to document the good and the bad, not only about that conversation but other conversations he had with the president. and this is a direct quote from this source, he said you

it was very polarized into the pro comey camp and the anti-comey camp. the people that were very concerned about what the succession will be -- we have just confirmed in the last hour that the acting fbi director, will be somebody called andrew mccabe. andrew mccabe is someone who has a lot of baggage and he will bring it to the job. remember back in 2015, andrew mccabe's wife, jill mccabe ran for a state senate seat in virginia and in the process got $700,000 from virginia democrat democrats. including the governor, terry mcauliffe. long-standing ties to hillary clinton. what bothered the foot soldiers that i know in the bureau is that they felt it was clearly a conflict or at least had the appearance of a conflict. because mccabe was providing resources to the email investigation but not directing it. the fbi concluded it was not a conflict and it was okay because mccabe had a more directing role in the investigation after his wife had lost her state senate race. they said to me, this shows that there was -- the culture was kind of broken. the leadersh

says recommended firing comey. justice department spokeswoman denies comey asked rosenstein for more resources. amid all of this, president trump welcomed two top officials to the white house today, foreign minister sergey and ambassador to the u.s. sergey kisliak. there are questions raised of possible collusion. we are covering much more of that this hour with our guests within including bernie sanders, and adam schiff. and correspondents and specialists are also standing by. let's begin with our white house correspondent athena jones. athena, white house officials where you are seem to be stugeling right now to explain comey's firing. >> they certainly are, wolf. as you mentioned, just last week press secretary sean spicer said the president had confidence in director comey. it is last month that president himself said the same thing in an interview. now the white house is saying that the president has been losing confidence in comey for some time. and that he even has been considering firing him since the day h

he likes comey, hates comey, likes comey again. it's crazy talk and nonsense.his russian thing is a joke, how can i tell? it's been going on ten months and not one item of actual evidence of wrongdoing has leaked out. it's baloney, everyone knows it is, and donald trump was well within his rights to fire a guy who worked at his pleasure and stopped pleasing him. liz: you know, jessica, before hillary's campaign manager criticized comey's firing he criticized comey's last second investigation into hillary clinton, and then he praised comey for letting hillary off the hook. i can't keep track of the flip-flopping. jessica, get your reaction to this sound bite. >> the fbi did a comprehensive and deep investigation into this, and at the conclusion of that, fbi director comey came out and said to the world that there was no case here, that they did not have evidence of wrongdoing on hillary's part. liz: i can't keep track of it, can you. >> yeah, i can keep track of it and curious whether kurt has whiplash from the amount of times donald trump has hated -- listen, r

fired comey. one, comey's refusal to provide the president with any sort of assurance of personal loyalty, and, two, the fact that the fbi's investigation into possible trump team collusion with russia in the 2016 election, that's still not an active investigation but it's actually accelerating. federal prosecutors reese represent thely issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former national security advisers michael flynn. now, the white house officially disagrees with this theory of what happened, but mounting evidence suggests that comey was fired because of the president's irritation with the fbi's russia investigation. now the white house officially points to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein fresh on the job writing a memo expressing concern about the way comey had handled the hillary clinton e-mail investigation last year faulting comey for being unfair to clinton for among other things holding a press conference in which comey, quote, released derogatory information about the sub

sorts close to comey told me fbi director was fired for two reasons, one, comey's refusal to providesident trump personal loyalty and two because the fbi russia probe is not only disappearing as president trump would like it to, it is accelerating this coming as james comey was seeking more resources for the russia probe. the wall street journal's sources say beginning three weeks ago director comey began receiving daily instead of weekly updates showing potential collusion. unquote. if the firing thought it would go away his logic seems to have boomerang boomeranged. the first he -- new statement completely contradict others made a few hours ago. first the white house says first the president lost confidence in director comey. after watching his testimony the president was strongly inclined to move him on monday met with the attorney general and deputy attorney general and they discussed reasons for removing him and recommendations were sent to the president. that very clearly suggest that's this was the president's call. and that is the complete opposite of the story the white hous

why was director comey fired? >> like sean spicer just sean spicer just said in the clip we watched. this is not about donald trump. this is the deputy attorney general in his recommendation to fire. what we see is a nomination by the president that happened in january. it took until april 25th confirmed by the defendant appeared and 94-6 though. he was the one that wrote a memo to the attorney general recommending the spirit in fact it was not only would the day for the clinton investigation, but it was a press conference. most recently he testified before the oversight committee on may 3rd and he said he'd do it again. he would give another press conference and that was the point they had to make that decision. nicole: chris, what are your thoughts? >> i agree with david referencing the memo. it is just a new chapter for the fbi. the president probably felt it was time to move on. many people may agree that director comey asserted a statue in this political lotion while the decisions he was doing, folks wanted h

why not just fire comey? why have these memos put out and then explain that he did it because of the memos but then said he was going to do it either way. i'm confused to even why we got the memos. >> i think he wanted to get the feed back from the deputy attorney general who the deputy of the fbi reports to. it further solidified the decision that he made. the only person that can fire comey was the president. he made that decision. it was clearly the right one, as evidenced by all of the comments, both by house and senate democrats, republicans and many people within the fbi. i think instead of getting so lost in the process that this happened at 12:01 or 12:02, did he fire him because he wore a red tie or a blue tie. he fired him because he was not fit to do the job. it's that simple. this shouldn't be a complicated process. the president knew that director comey was not up to the task. he decided that he wasn't the right person in the job. he wanted somebody that could bring credibility back to the fbi. t

i listened to what the president said about comey's assurances in his letter he sent to comey.nse to me at all. even if, and i don't believe it was said in the way the president has relayed it, but even if comey made some reference if he was under investigation, it was an improper request eto can him. while that may be the case at the time, that doesn't mean the next day something doesn't come up that puts someone close to him under the microscope. >> here's the moment you discussed there. asking director comey if he was under investigation. >> i actually asked him, yes. i said, if it's possible, will you let me know? am i under investigation? and he said, you are not under investigation. >> every single person who watched that interview, that part, they were struck by that, laura. it may not be illegal, i don't know, you're the legal expert. but was it ethical? >> i don't think that it was. it was an inappropriate question for him to ask, and inappropriate question if comey actually answered it. that's a big "if." the issue is the timing of it. we don't have the actual timing

so comey got fired. donald trump lied in his statement as to the firing of jim comey saying comey told him three times that donald trump was not under investigation. the fact is donald trump's collusion with russia, donald trump's team and their collusion with russia actually is part of an investigation that jim comey had told the deputy attorney general he was going to expand. after that we find that donald trump calls the deputy attorney general and the attorney general into his office and says draft me a memo, i want to fire him. yesterday donald trump and others said comey was not fired because of russia. we find out again today as we read the papers this morning, all lies. they were all lying. everybody in the white house lying through their teeth. the fact that the attorney general of the united states had to remove himself from the russia investigation because of his conflicts and yet he was the one that went in to make the final call with donald trump? donald trump had talked to all the sick ka f

that paper trail from director comey includes a memo written by james comey on february 14th immediately after he met one on one with the president in the oval office. that memo reportedly says that president trump told director comey to shut down the fbi's investigation into the national security adviser mike flynn. mike flynn had resigned the day before that meeting because of his undisclosed contacts with russian officials. now two people who say they have read comey's memo say the memo quotes the president directly from that conversation saying about the flynn investigation, quote, i hope you can let this go. so there is a lot to this story. the white house is denying this conversation took place. james comey would probably be a pretty good witness if it came down to a he said/he said disagreement about whether or not this conversation happened. particularly if he contemporaneously documented the contents of that conversation when it happened and he can prove it. but it's possible the white house could also prove it in terms of their side of the story. if they are not erasing that pr

director james comey.he president dismissing him by letter saying that comey has lost the confidence of those who work for him. the decision rattling washington today. you are looking at a movement now on the senate floor. there is majority leader mitch mcconnell, the republican from kentucky. we will see if he offers comment on this. if so, it might be the first we've heard from him either written or in the spoken word. democrats are demanding a special prosecutor continue the f.b.i.'s investigation into possible ties between operatives of the trump team and russian nationals. there has been no evidence that has been made public about collusion between the trump team in this past election. >> shannon: the democrats gathered on the senate floor. a notice was sent out to be there to hear mitch mcconnell. you have to wonder whether that means democrats are lining up on the senate floor. a lot of times you know, bill, covering this it's empty, no one is there. but it looks like today there will be a lot more

. >> does the comey firing cast a shadow? [all talking at once] hill reports democrats are threatening to slow to senate to a crawl and response to president trump's firing of fbi director james comey. dick durbin objected to the senate gop's routine request to allow 13 committee hearings to take place today. so, senate hearing scheduled after 11:30 this morning were either postponed or canceled. senator jerry moran of kansas spoke on the senate floor about it. ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president, all 1 after you whether we are republicans or democrats, we ought to want the united states senate to function. we ought to want the united states senate to be able to accomplish its work. this is a -- it's a challenge all the time, but learning what transpired this morning on the senate floor in my view reaches another low for the united states senate. it is hard, i suppose to explain, but it takes unanimous consent for committees to meet while t

trump penned to comey firing him which was more about trump than comey and talked about the russian investigation not the hillary clinton e-mail scandal. >> that abrupt letter never even made to it comey before he learned of his own termination from tv monitors at the fbi office in los angeles. our coverage begins this morning with jeff zeleny at the white house. >> reporter: the white house will be waking up today to the bomb shell that president trump delivered by firing fbi director james comey late tuesday night. it is something that the white house under estimated the fallout of. the top officials worked throughout the night to reshape the narrative that got away from them in the firing of the fbi director. now the letter, the very brief letter that the president sent to the fbi director thanked director comey for his service but also had some very unusual language. let's take a look at that. it said this. while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i'm not under investigation, i never the less encourage the judgment of the department of justice

comey was a well-liked manager.n agents who disagreed with some of the decisions he made in the clinton case, regarded him as professional and well intentioned, and a strong leader. this is probably most public and strong f.b.i. director the bureau has had since j. edgar hoover. so there's clearly a sense of loss at the f.b.i. today. >> woodruff: and i quickly want to press you on that, because at the white house today they were saying, no, that jim comey had lost the confidence of much of the employees at the f.b.i., at the bureau. >> yeah, they didn't really elaborate on that. look, i know there are people at the f.b.i. who disagreed with the decisions that jim comey made. there are 17,000 f.b.i. agents. are there some who had lost confidence in the f.b.i. director? i'm sure that's the case. but all the reporting that i've done and the reporting that my colleague adam goldman does, who covers the f.b.i. for "the new york times," is that this was a real-- this was a real jolt, and a real down moment for the f.b.i.

comey. that's very important.should in a timely fashion respond to that nomination. >> senator mike rounds, thank you. >> thank you. >> shepard: next up, chris van holland from maryland. he's calling for a special prosecutor to take over for the russian investigation. senator holland said "firing fbi director comey has a foul stench in an attempt to stop the russian investigation." he added "while i long had concerns about james comey, it's shocking that the white how old would enter fire in an investigation by firing him." thanks for being here, mr. van hollen. a short time against, sarah huckabee sanders said this investigation will continue, the leadership change means nothing. your thoughts. >> well, as you know, the timing of this does stink. so the burden is now on the president and the justice department to help restore faith and confidence in this investigation and the entire process. the way to do that is to appoint a special prosecutor, somebody that cannot be fired by the president as sally yates was, a

comey's associates said mr. comey had told them about this at the time and mr. comey was very concerned about it. this was not something they learned about after the fact. even another friend contacted me today to talk about other examples that mr. comey was really concerned about the way that this loyalty question sort of overshadowed his time working for mr. trump and he really felt that mr. trump was never really able to get past that. >> president trump criticized director comey during his interview with lester holt. let's take a look. >> he's a showboat. he's a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that, i know that. everybody knows that. you take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in ver cull turmoil. less than a year ago. it hasn't recovered. >> yesterday, the deputy press secretary karen huckabee sanders told reporters the fbi was widely supportive of the president's move to dismiss comey. let's take a look at that. >> i can speak from my own personal experience. i we heard from countless members of the fbi that are greatf and thankful fo

in order to fire comey.aybe he just does not like comey. that is the cut of the cut of impetuous decision-making trump is known for. but it's really aims like this is a concerted effort to remove comey knowing it would create a political scandal. there must be a good reason for that. amy: are going to take a break. when we come back, who could he choose? names are being floated like a former mayor of new york rudy giuliani, governor of new jersey chris christie. glenn greenwald is with us. we will be back in a moment. ♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. amy: nbc is reporting this morning house oversight ranking member of elijah cummings has called for emergency hearings with attorney general jeff sessions, deputy ag run roses &, and fbi director comey -- rod rosenstein, and fbi director comey. can you say with the significance of that meeting might be and also the speculation by some that this is really the beginning of

the three of them are among the men who had very negative feelings about comey and talked about comey to the candidate and now the president. >> there are some "time" magazine reporting that has come out. they sat down with president trump for dinner in what is a story filled with, as you know, some juicy tidbits. your colleagues paint a picture watching news coverage of the firing. can you talk a little bit about where the president's head might be at. what is his mindset today? >> my sense is that he's really bothered by the continued focus on russia. he feels like this is an unfair story. an unfair probe. he says repeatedly in public that it is a hoax. and he's bothered that this is a cloud hanging over his administration as we move into the second 100 days. he's bothered that every time comey goes up on capitol hill, the focus is always russia and the russia investigation and trump can't seem to escape that. that's been building inside of him. he's been stewing over it. he watches tv. he actually has had dvr recordings of these russia hearings. "time" magazine has where trump is i

mad at comey.this has been festering in the president for a long time that this russian cloud is over the administration. again, the friend said he thought he would have a positive conversation with the president this weekend. in his words the president was white hot. mad at the media coverage. mad at comey and friend didn't get it. he kept telling the president, i watched sunday shows and they were reasonably favorable but the president wouldn't hear it. >> fascinating details. thank you for that reporting. more reaction to the president's decision, senator richard blumenthal is calling for an independent investigator. senator, you were on cnn this morning calling the president's firing a looming constitutional crisis. the president was watching because he had some things to say on his twitter machine as senator bloomenthal was speaking. senator blumenthal joins us now. do you want to respond to the president's tweets? >> just to say this issue is not about me. it is about the integrity of our jus

archipela >> besides comey. >> besides comey. >> what about inside the white house?but, you know, we've had so far fired national security advisor in mike flynn, he fired sally yates, acting attorney general. >> a.g. >> now you have comey firing. three pretty high profile dismissals in 110 days. kind of unusual for a new white house. >> does the staff seem very much on edge? >> yes. >> different than before? >> in the building today, i talked to several people who work in the west wing. it seemed like it was just, let's try to get through the day. let's try to stay above water. i think they're all just playing it hour by hour and waiting for the other shoe to drop or more details to come out like we are. >> thank you, josh. >> thank you. >> hope you come back. coming up, with director comey out, the russia probe is a mess. all kinds of conflicts. will we see a special prosecutor? and how does that happen? comey is the fourth high profile person president trump has fired. there is a pattern. i'll explain it ahead. the new guy? what new guy? i hired some help. he reall

director comey. the president over the last several months last confidence and director comey, the doj lost confidence in director comey, and bipartisan members of congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in director comey. most are portly, the rank and file of the fbi had lost confidence in their director. accordingly, the president accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove james comey from his position appeared before the news broke, the president spoke to several members of congress to inform them of his decision. those members are senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, speaker of the house paul ryan, senate daily by senator chuck grassley, senate minority leader chuck schumer, senator feinstein, senator lind, house majority leader kevin mccarthy, house minority leader nancy pelosi, income rissman bob goodlatte. later in the evening, he also spoke to bob corker, chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations. in addition to all of the big news happeni

comey." it's one of those days we all will remember for a very long time. you cannot overste, fst of all, the seriousness of what he has done, the challenge it poses to our constitutional system and the challenge it poses for the republican party. are they going to allow a lifelong democrat destroy the par stay from top to bottom, or are they going to stand up to this president and actually going to do what our founding fathers wanted him to do and present a system of checks and balances, an outrageous act yesterday, but we have a lot to get to. >> we'll start at the beginning. the white house issued a statement saying president trump acted on the recommendation of attorney general jeff sessions and his deputy rod rosen stein. in a letter rosen stein hammered comey's conduct during the 2016 presidential election and investigation around hillary clinton's e-mail server. rosen stein called it a, quote, textbook example of what federal agents and prosecutors are taught not to do. as jeffrey too

comey to lay off mr. flynn.oes exactly what russia was trying to achieve in undermining the credibility and institutions of our leaders, so that's what's really bad about this, and why it -- one way or another needs to end, and i hope it ends with the president starting to act like a president. >> yeah. doug, before i move into specifics, i want your general response to this breaking news. >> yeah. i disagree. i don't -- i see it totally differently. i mean, the jim comey firing is portrayed like the fbi or 12 men operating out of a garage, he's fired, and that ends the investigation. what's not been said and what's not discussed is his successor, andrew, a democrat, who investigated hillary clinton, found her innocent, and his wife, jill, received $700,000 when she ran for office in virginia from the clinton machine, $500,000 of it from terry mccallough. nobody talks about that. >> what does that have to do with the investigation? >> all day long they say he fired comey, obstructing justice into the russian col

i think we will get comey's perspective. rosenstein is still a hit or miss because he's still a federal employee. >> he's going to have some stink on him. that's just the way it is. the letter on its face, this two and a half page memo, some of the people named in it, the deputy a.g. that worked under bush 41 says it is a sham. alberto gonzalez was cited as a krit sick and said the timing raises a lot of bad questions. so he's got some things to answer for in this. but isn't it what sa liz chris talking about here, that if it wasn't about russia, why did he include that paragraph with something that is almost unconfirmable. no one who i have talked to who knows james comey said he would have said anything like that around the president. but why is it in the letter? >> there this glaring disconnect where you have the deputy attorney general saying this is about comey's behavior in the clinton investigation and then the president himself raising the spector of the russia investigation. and everyone that we have talked to not o

comey: yes. sen. graham: and it is due to happen unless congress changes it? mr. comey: i've been told that. sen. graham: do you agree with me that isil losing caliphate, these people go out throughout the world and become terrorist agents and the threat of terrorism to the homeland is going to get greater over time, not smaller? mr. comey: yes. it will diminish in that their power to put out their media to the troubled people in the country will decrease, but the hardened killers flowing out of the caliphate will be a big problem. sen. graham: so from a funding point of view, terrorism is not going to get better, it's probably going to get worse. mr. comey: i think that's fair to say. sen. graham: did you ever talk to sally yates about her concerns with general flynn being compromised? mr. comey: i did. i don't know whether i can talk in this forum. but the answer is yes. had concernsshe about general flynn and she expressed those concerns to you? mr. comey: correct. sen. graham: ok. we'll talk

comey. >> let me ask you about your termination letter to mr. comey. you write, i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. why did you put that in there? >> because he told me that. >> he told you you weren't under investigation with regard to the russia investigation? >> i've heard that from others. >> was it in a phone call, did you meet face to face? >> i had a dinner with him. he wanted to stay dinner because he wanted to stay on. we had a very nice dinner early on. >> he asked for it? >> that dinner was arranged. i think he asked for the dinner. he wanted to stay on as the fbi head, and i said i'll consider, we'll see what happens, but we had a very nice dinner. and at that time he told me "you are not under investigation," which i knew, anyway. when you're under investigation, you give all sorts of documents and feverything. i knew i wasn't under investigation, and i heard it at some committee level that i wasn't. then during a