yates: doj isn't just another law firm. this wasn't just any legal issue. it was about the core founding principle of religious freedom and i could not, in good conscience, send doj lawyers into court to advance an argument that the travel ban was unrelated to religion when the evidence of intent reflected that that was not the case. there wasn't much time to examine the weighty constitutional law concepts that were implicated here, nor was there a lot of time to craft the directive that we ultimately issued to the department. but i did not make this decision just within the 72 hours from the time i learned of the ban until i issued a decision. that decision was the result of what others had taught me over my entire 27 years with the department of justice. i drew on the lessons of mentors who, while i was an ausa, had instilled in me a reverence for the privilege of representing the people of the united states and upholding the and the constitution, from the judges who rightly expected doj lawyers to be held to a higher standard than lawyers representing pr

that was part of doj petitioner's entire policy of harsh treatment. it was not just to impose maximum pressure. it was also, as we allege in paragraph 61, to keep the detainees from accessing the outside world. my friend argued that the doj petitioners cannot be on the hook for this substantive due process claim in this case, a claim that was not presented in iqbal. there was no conditions claim, just the protection claim, because the doj petitioners did not set all of the details other than restricted conditions. but their order itself in paragraph 61 requires keeping individuals in solitary confinement and isolation. that's a way within the prison system people are kept from accessing the outside world. it cannot be done in the general population unit. so an order that requires solitary confinement for individuals who are arrested in connection to the terrorism investigation but whom the attorney general and other doj petitioners know there is no nondiscriminatory reason to suspect of any ties to terrorism -- that states a substantive due process cl

look what the doj did. today as were speaking their announcing the new website that will show crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants which is just this, it will be an official project of the government to publish, to essentially create in the publics mind association of criminality with unauthorized immigration. that is the project that was sort of carried out over the course of several decades to law and order rhetoric to associate blackness with criminality. it's not an action that rudy giuliani was like his biggest campaign circuit and a sad accident that jeff sessions who said that, you know, who talked about police departments being hamstrung by these consent decrees as head of the doj. it's the worst impulses are precise and i'm identifying i have embodied in the highest reaches of government. the worldview of the federal government embodies this zero-sum idea. it embodies this broken windows id. the border wall to me is the most, this little manifestation of broken windows. >> host: how so? >> g

the doj came in and they undertook a comprehensive investigation of the department and they looked at e-mails and other stuff. but they just shine a flashlight at one place almost at random comments and whispered if they took the flashlight and went to some other place in milwaukee county what they find the same thing but i think they probably would. >> host: you say that ferguson was hidden in plain sight, can you give a specific example of something that really moves you while you are reporting there and that angered you or that i would need to write the book with explain what's going on and make it not hidden anymore. >> guest: had his experience where he went down there and i would be talking to people all day. what i found is that i could literally do this on air. on air in live tv program i could take my microphone to an african-american resident of ferguson is a, tell me about your expensive cop and story after story after story. you can tell when people are telling the truth about dramatic things and when they are not. this is people just telling me stories were shocking. the

and doj is really different than any of the other federal agencies. the department of justice is obviously part of an administration, but there obviously has to be an independence and a separation from that. and that's been a time honored concept through democratic and republican imageries at least going back to the post nixon world. i think the doj is the only agency that has a written memo that lays out what the rules are for compacts between the white house and the department of justice on specific cases. noll necessar not necessarily on policy, because the department of justice will be involved in policy decisions in specific cases, and the rules, according to eric holder's memo of 2009, that there are really only two people at the department of justice that the person can contact and that is the attorney general or the deputy attorney general. and there's only three people you're supposed to be contacting at the white house, and that is the president, but this has been a tradition of the department going back administrations. i think it's absolut

our funding began in 2006 from the doj. on june -- the doj funding several separate occasions over the past 10 years have helped us with various partner contributions. without it, we could not do the work that we do. the money the money and we ask you to be invested. that foundation is there and we will be able to stable the work we do. we are investigating all of the successes of the rape kit cases. 3,2267 completed unsolved cases, and that would never have have been solved or prosecuted without this effort. we have indicted 595 separate and unique defendants. week.0 will be next we convicted 264 defendants. our conviction rate is 92.6% and , on average, each defendant has received a sentence of longer than 10 years. the impact of sexual violence extends beyond the victims using the national institute of health studies we have calculated the harm caused by these rapists since the time they should have been prosecuted and put into prison. each case had an average costs associated with it -- murder, burglary, and breaking an

the doj 40 year policy? >> i'm sorry. >> sean: do you agree with mark live in?of justice policy and want to be uncovered tonight? >> he is partially right, here is why. the rule under the doj specific physically -- specifically says you cannot indict a president, that would happen after an impeachment, after he leaves office, but you can investigate a president for perjury, the articles of impeachment after ken starr investigated bill clinton. so the investigation can be done, you are not violating doj rules. >> sean: i don't know how they don't recuse themselves. we have to roll here, but thank you all for being with us. every night we are going to stay on it until we get to the truth, because the american people are not being served here. coming up, the u.s. shut down the syrian government jet near rocca, and today a russian armed fighter jet flew within 5 feet of an american aircraft. weighing in with the real russia threat. and then later tonight... >> do you really want to be swarming the state of a william shakespeare play to shut it down? it does not make

chris ray is someone who has ran the criminal division at the doj. someone who was unanimously confirmed by voice vote by the senate at at least at one point in time there was a lot of support for him as a nonpartisan professional figure and he comes out of clerk in the fourth circuit, a relatively conservative circuit but a respectful way to start your league career. coming out of yale law. at his teen your at doj where he handled corporate fraud, enron and other issues. this is a strong positive pick. i can't speak beyond the paper because we have to go through a confirmation process. >> and we're just getting new information in that senator diane feinstein, the top democrat on the committee was not given a heads up of the appointment of chris ray to lead the fbi. does that strike you as unusual? >> it's not the best way to build support. that is a white house that wants to do things differently. but some of the things that they do differently just seems counter productive for the trump agenda. in other words, you went out of your way to find someo

i know that he had consulted with career ethics officials, didn't know how to run a recusal at doj. but i don't know what mechanism they set up. >> the attorney general recused himself from the investigation. do you believe it was appropriate for him to be involved in the firing of the chief investigator of that case? of that russia interference? >> that's something i can't answer sitting here. it's a reasonable question. but that would depend on a lot of things i don't know like what did he know, what was he told, did he realize the president was doing it because of the russia investigation. i don't know the answer. >> you mentioned in your written testimony in here that the the asked you for a loyalty pledge. are you aware of him making the same request of any other members of the cabinet? >> i am not. >> do you know one way or another -- >> i don't know one way or another. never heard anything about it. >> and you mentioned that on -- you had the conversation where he hoped that you would let the flynn matter go on february 14th or thereabouts. it's my understanding that mr. sess

i know that he had consulted with career ethics officials, didn't know how to run a recusal at doj. but i don't know what mechanism they set up. >> the attorney general recused himself from the investigation. do you believe it was appropriate for him to be involved in the firing of the chief investigator of that case? of that russia interference? >> that's something i can't answer sitting here. it's a reasonable question. but that w of things i don't know like what did he know, what was he told, did he realize the president was doing it because of the russia investigation. i don't know the answer. >> you mentioned in your written testimony in here that the the asked you for a loyalty pledge. are you aware of him making the same request of any other members of the cabinet? >> i am not. >> do you know one way or another -- >> i don't know one way or another. never heard anything about it. >> and you mentioned that on -- you had the conversation where he hoped that you would let the flynn matter go on february 14th or thereabouts. it's my understanding that mr. sessions was recused fro

the doj regulations call for a presumption in the case of family. to give the personal opinion, and i don't know if you agree with me, james, but you have to give the personal opinion, the sibubject ticive pn to the doj employee. so if they think they have a conflict of interest, they have an obligation under the regulations, under the u.s. attorney's manual, to raise it with their superiors and run it up the flagpole. and if it is a conflict, it should be addressed. >> the president has pointed to a friendship between mueller and comey, and he used the word "bothersome." he's talking about it in fact today on fox. let's listen. >> he's very, very good friends with comey, which is very bothersome. but he's also -- we're going have to see. we're going have to see in terms -- look, there's opinion no obstruction, there's been no collusion, there has been leaking by comey. but there's been no collusion, no obstruction, and virtually everybody agrees to that. robert mueller is an honorable man, and hopefully he'll come up with an honorable solution. >>

and toso he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocol that step at the relationship when doj, fbi, and white house. he is knew to this in. we now know why the was a frustrated then the fib director told him three times there's no investigation of him yet the speculation was allowed to continue. so obviously we know now why he was frustrated. >> thank you. a couple weeks bag former directar brennan testified to the house intelligence committee he had briefed congressional leaders between august and september of last year on his mounting concerns about the russia tampering, interference with the election. what did you do about that? >> i'm not going comment about classified briefings. >> it wasn't a classified briefing inch the public session. >> i got a number of classified briefings. what we did in the fall -- we, the four leaders, on a bipartisan basis, send letters to the election administrators, tip cliff secretaries of state in the states, to give them head up to say you have to guard your election procedures from any potential election hacking. so, we were warned that ru

when we come back the great one mark clement has now uncovered a decade old doj document that explainsn fact something the media will never tell you, why a sitting president cannot be indicted for obstruction of justice. the great one is here to explain. and later an explosive new report regarding key documents in the obama spying scandal. you won't believe what these documents show. i hannity investigation, greg carter and much more on this busy news night. stay with us. are upgrading their watere filter to zerowater. start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids... pour it through brita's two-stage filter... dissolved solids remain! what if we filter it over and over? oh dear. thank goodness zerowater's five-stage filter gets to all zeroes the first time. so maybe it's time to upgrade. get more out of your water. get zerowater. ♪ dynamic performance, so you can own the road. track-tuned handling, so you can conquer corners. aggressive-styling, so you can break away from everyone else. experience the exhilaration of the bold lexus is. experience amazing. >> sean: this is a fox n

i'm pleased that the doj has reinvested in a strategy that targets violent crime. i understand you've formed a violent crime task force kurks elaborate on details, what agencies are playing what roles? and do you have the necessary resources that you need to carry out the mission, which is so very important. >> violent crime in 2015 violent crime increased by more than 3%, to put it in context is the largest one-year increase we've experienced since 1991. the number of murders in 2015 increased by 11%. the largest one-year increase since 1971. we considered this to be the an urgent problem for us. the attorney general task force, the task force is drawing expertise throughout the department to come up with strategies. and we have a number of proposals, some are in this budget that will help us to reinvigorate our fight against violent crime. i'm hopeful, a program that i was involved in back in when i first became u.s. attorney, we hope to reinvigorate that program, where we work together with our state and local partners, what are the violent crime problems in the

i'm pleased that the doj is reinvesting in the tragedy that targets violent crime. i understand you created a violent crime task force. what agencies are playing what roles and do you have the necessary resources that you need to carry out the mission which is so very important. >> yes. with regard to violent crime, in 2015 violent crime increased by more than 3%. to put that in context, that's the largest one year increase since 1991 nationwide. number of murders in 2015 increased by 11% which was the largest one year increase since 1971. we consider this to be an urgent problem. there was a task force in violent crime reduction in safety. that's drawing on expertise throughout the department to come up with strategies. we have a number of proposals. some are in the budget. it will help us to reinvigorate our fight against violent crime. i'm hopeful we will be able to resubstitute project safe neighborhoods. it was a program that i was involved in back in when i first became u.s. attorney. we hope to reinvigorate that program where we work together with the state a

nasa -- nsa reported that issue to doj, odni and ultimately the fisa court.ayed its consideration of the 2016 certifications on that basis until the government was able to correct the issue. nsa determined that a possible solution to the compliance problem was to stop conducting one specific type of upstream collection. so ultimately we decided that the most effective way to address the court's concerns was to stop collecting on this basis that's called the abouts portion of upstream collection. by abouts collection i'm referring to nsa's ability to collect communications where the foreign intelligence target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the communication that's made but is referenced within the communication itself. the fisa court agreed with our solution and approved the program as a whole on the basis of the nsa proposal. in short what i'm trying to say here is a compliance issue was identified and after a great deal of hard work, the department of justice and the intelligence community proposed to the fisa court an effective solution that to

so what are they going to be watching for at doj and how is he regarded going into tomorrow at doj? >> he has tremendous respect at the fbi. among most people there was concern about what he did last year. the hillary clinton press conference and the letter he sent was a big departure from doj rules. but there's no one that's worked with jim comey that doesn't think he's a man integrity. and when you see him detail the conversations with the president tomorrow, conversations the presidt has sa on the rerd didn't happen, it's a test of his integrity, urs haves the president's integrity and i don't know there's anyone that's going to believe the president's sidestory. >> is it clear to you the president never encountered a jim comey prior to public life? >> i found it so interesting in reading comey's written statement how the president kept returning to his own personal peril. please, mr. comey, tell the public that i'm okay, that it's not about me. a very self absorbed set of conversations. it's not i'm worried about russia, i know you are too. one key question is jim comey do you t

our success again with doj funding in 2006 to establish a cold case unit. the doj funding on three separate occasions over the last you 10 years has served as the foundation for all these partner contributions. without it our structure could not sustain the work we do. we parlay the money that you give us and we ask our partners to also become invested. they see that that foundation is there and they know that we will be able to sustain the work that we do. cuyahoga county alone we tested all the rape kits submitted by the police and we are investigating all those 6700 rape cases. we completed 3726, we have less than 3000 cases to finish. we solved 661 victims' cases. and that would never have been solved or prosecuted without this effort. we have indicted 595 separate unique defenders. convicted to 74 of them. we anticipate nearly 1000 will indicted. each defendant has received a sentence of longer than 10 years. the impact extends beyond the victim. we have calculated the economic harm caused by them since the beenthey should have i investigated. each typ

with respect to the doj subcommittee that one i'll have it take you back to get you the exact details of our participation in it. i would expect we're playing a key role. but i'll have to get back to you with those details. >> if the civil rights division, is that what where the funds lie to address this issue? or? i notice there wasn't any sort of specific language on this in the budget request. i was curious. whether there's any funds specifically dedicated to combat this. 00:458 >> we don't, we don't rely on funding from the civil rights division, but obviously we work the cases with the civil rights division and the doj. our fund something part of our overall criminal program. and how we divide those, those funds up within the criminal program. assistant director, the criminal program is responsible for keeping that moving forward. and it's in the base resources request. >> ok. i want to follow up on the question from chairman rodgers, around cybersecurity. we certainly hear about that a bunch. congress passed the cybersecurity act in 2015 and you know, a big focus of that was on

once we made that decision, we communicate with the doj to get that done. so i can assure you we will continue to push. but we recognize the continuing challenges your constituents are facing with the rising opioid epidem epidemic. and we see that as a massive gap. >> i appreciate your sincerity to attack crime where it is happening in this tragic opioid epic that has just ravaged our area. i was looking at your going dark testimony, and i was struck by the emphasis on talking about crimes and identities that lay behind our -- behind layers of anonymity relating to online pedophilemizech and when i was a state legislator in west virginia, and this was in the old days, we had a sex offender registry, like probably every other state but i led the effort to actually require sex offenders once convicted to turn over to the rej straer their online screen names, passwords, et cetera. or state database created a system where a parent empowered to try to go in and say here s user name or screen name that's communicating with my son or daughter, to identify whether

doj is on the front lines fighting the deadly, uncontrolled opioid epidemic, and it is still gaining strength. the doj hiring freeze risks the safety of correctional officers in our federal prisons, and curiously, the request for the federal bureau of investigation is less than congress provided for fiscal year 2017, even while the bureau conducts the crucial counterintelligence investigation into russian influence in our 2016 election process. while providing testimony before a newly scheduled senate intelligence committee hearing is important, and i understand that, the attorney general is still responsible for answering critical questions from this committee. he needs to provide his explanation of doj's budget, as well as the defense of his policies in an open, public hearing for not only us but for the american public. mr. rosenstein, i applaud your appointment of robert mueller as the special counsel to oversee the ongoing investigation into russian interference during the 2016 election and believe this will help to depoliticize that %-pn about both your and attorney general ses

that's a process that required him to clear it with the doj. and he said trump's testimony was part of that and in that dramatic testimony he intoned now we will close our mouths and do our work. he only opened his mouth before congress one more time after it was that hearing that contradicted president trump's baseless claims about obama wiretapping him. >> we do know congress wanted the testimony. with this new special council working the russia case, no one could say whether that testimony would be authorized. no one could say that until today. special council robert mueller has now cleared comey to testify publicly before the senate. it could come as early as next week. let's be clear. a lot of people talk about the russia issue. you can divide them into three groups, people doing the investigation and know a ton and rarely open their mouths and those following, reporters holding different pieces of the puzzle to regular citizens across this country tracking this unfolding mystery and sometimes developing their own theories like a real life

my colleagues in doj and fbi. as you know, intelligence collection under 702 has produced and continues to produce significant intelligence that is vital to protect the nation against international threats whether they be counterterrorism, weapons proliferation or cyber. at the same time it provides an incredibly strong protections for the privacy and civil liberties of our citizen. in permanent reauthorization of the fisa amendments act without further amendment is the intelligence community's top legislative priority. >> i want to begin today by giving a very recently classified example that impacts section 702. >> before rising to the ranks to become the second in command of the self-proclaimed ices, hygiene mom was a high school teacher . his transformation to a terrorist because the united states government to offer a $7 million reward for information leading to him. >> it also made him a leading focus of nsa's counterterrorism efforts. nsa along with its partners bent over two years looking for him. this was

but there is a clear divide between the white house and the doj, because the white house createdke sessions has more problems, and rod rosenstein is not loyal because he appointed bob mueller, who could take down the president. that is what i am hearing from my sources, and we know rod rosenstein will be the person -- rosensteinnow rod will be the person testifying on monday. i want to turn to some other issues. the senate continues the debate over health care. there has been some speculation of the senate republican leader is invoking rule 14, which bypasses the committee process, fast tracking the bill to the senate floor, but now politico is reporting that the timeline is shifting yet again. what can you tell us today? i think we are going to have to make a choice in how much when -- how much longer they will spend trashing the health care bill when it is in the way of other priorities were the president and her public and legislat -- of the president and republican legislature. reform, looking at tax and for structure, increasing the debt ceiling, all of those issues are under the radar

the doj hiring freeze is the safety with the congressional officers and federal prisons and curiouslye request for the federal bureau of investigation is less than congress provided for fiscal year 2017 even as they conduct the investigation into russian influence in our 2016 election process. >> providing testimony before a newly scheduled senate intelligence hearing is important, and i understand that, the attorney general is still responsible for answering critical questions from this committee. he needs to provide his explanation of doj's budget as well as a defense of his policies in an open, public hearing for not only us, but for the american public. mr. rosenstein, i applaud your appointment of robert mueller as special counsel to oversee the ongoing investigation into russian interference during the 2016 election and believe this will help to depoliticize that investigation. however, many questions remain about both your and attorney general sessions' role in this matter, your knowledge of resource requests made by director comey, your involvement in comey's firing and your p

wrote that letter that was relied on in part for the firing, where he discussed james comey flouting doj protocols. at least from the justice department perspective, we are not there yet. on friday, they say look, he has said many times if he needs to recuse, he will. but so far, nothing has changed. >> we will see if he's called as a witness. then presumably he would have no choice, right? >> that's a different ball game. >> very quickly, jeff zeleny, sean spicer will be having a briefing later this hour, but the white house not allowing cameras to roll on that, no audio. what's going on? why is this off camera? >> reporter: wolf, this is something that's becoming something of a pattern here at the white house. we saw it last week, we have seen it before, we are seeing it today as well. sean spicer will be having a briefing but the white house simply does not want the world and america to see the questions about the russia investigation. they are trying to change the subject, move on and focus on substance and policy. they believe by having the press briefing, essentially a private brie

but i do think there's a problem at doj in his signing off on james comey's firing.ndal for jeff sessions. is he going to answer that question or say i'm not going to talk about my conversations with the president, i'm not going to talk about my conversations with others at the white house and i think if we don't hear clean answer from him on that, on what he knew when he signed off on that firing, that's a pretty clear signal there's something there that he doesn't want us to find out about. >> all right. >> matt. >> matt thank you so much. let's go to dominic chu. what are you looking at today. >> watching ride sharing giant uber continuing to see a shakeup of the top ranks the internal inquiry handled by former attorney general eric holder looking into allegations of a hostile work environment and gender bias. a number of key executives have left the firm but uber has been working to add women to its highest ranks including the hires of former apple exec st. john as their chief brand officer and nestle executive will join the board of directors. travis kalanick is

given that he faulted the doj, does he fault the person who deeds the doj, jeff sessions. >> i thinke keith williams, our justice correspondence here talking more of the president's nominee announced on twitter by the president himself, his name is christopher wray, what can you tell about him? >> he was the younger people. he's 50-year-old and he has prosecute tutorial experience during the georg w. bushdministratio from 2003 to 2005. he was in charge of the criminal division and that's of course, basically what the fbi does. he's been sent to private practice in atlanta. he joins the u.s. attorney office there at one point in his career and then came to washington to the justice department and a number of senior capacities. now, he's back at the law firm of king & aspalding. 2015, he was among the former justice department official who comey signed a letter in support of the nomination of salley yates. that was during the obama administration. he's somebody that'll come to the job with experience at the washington level in the justice department and down at the street level as a u.

admiral, -- >> doj will be smarter on the amicus. please, will you take that piece? >> i'm not sure i am smarter on the amicus piece, i can say that with regard to the question of unmasking, this is primarily a question for the department. if there is a foreign person who has been communicating about a person in the decisions made, i think what's important for people to recognize is that's an internal issue. that unmasking is done internally within the cloak of confidentiality within the intelligence community. that's the goal of this collection is to understand -- >> mr. rosenstein, let me just tell you, i listen to somebody who should have known better talking about unmasking any political sense and that is not the case. what i'm looking for is the definition of how this is done and under what circumstances. >> i think, that's really a decision made by the intelligence community, not the department. they should respond to that. >> i can do that. in response to unmasking come of the criteria applies. first, we define in writing who has the authority to unmask a u.s.

given that he has faulted doj, does he fault the person that leads the doj, attorney general jeff sessionsthink i answered that question. >> a white house official says he was frustrated with session's decision to recuse himself in the russia probe, in part because the president doesn't think sessions did anything wrong, also because a lot of his agenda flows through the attorney general, a source close to the administration describes a quote huge level of frustration that goes beyond the recusal. source described it as monday morning quarterbacking by the president, displeased with hiring of rod rosenstein, complains the new version of the travel ban is watered down. >>> during a meeting with congressional leaders at the white house yesterday, president trump made a comment about son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner that's getting a lot of attention. take a listen. >> jared, jared has become more famous than me. little bit upset about that. >> back in january, president trump made the same comment about someone else in his administration. >> let's -- james, he has become more famou

given that he has faulted the doj, does he fault the who leads the doj, the attorney general jeff sessions>> i answered that question. >> thank you. despite what you have said today -- >> i said john. >> sorry, john. despite what you said about the dispute in the persian gulf, it's clear the president is taking sides in this. why? >> in what way? >> he said today on twitter, all references pointed to qatar. perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism. >> i commented on this. he is talking about terror financing. that's not what i said. he had a productive discussion and he was pleased that they joined with the other gulf nations in support of the terror financing center and he is pleased with the movements taken. he is concerned about terror and stomping out isis and all forms of terrorism. >> two questions. first, is the president comfortable with robert mueller as the special prosecutor and does he believe the president has the right to replace the special prosecutor if he or she exceeds mandates? >> i literally have not discussed that with the president. >>

that is an area considered when i was at doj in the late 90s. we will see if anything congress decides to do on that topic. the >> i want to say that i'm familiar with that reference to the federalist papers about energy in the executive. more energetic. i want to say again, mr. chairman, that i appreciate someone that is observed on the fcc over a long period of time the energy that you were bringing to the task. i very much appreciate what you said about the staff, people that work at the fcc. i am not going to use that phrase, make the fcc agreed again. i didn't say that, but i have a lot of confidence that under your leadership, really that the fcc will do a live that they are the american public. i am sure we might not always agree, but i really have confidence that at the end of the day, whenever that is that the american public will be well served for what you're trying to do. i thank you for that and i especially thank you for being here with us today. i asked the audience to join me in thanking the chairman. [applause] >> my pleasure, a