grassley: so that means you cannot give me the email? dir. comey: i'm not confirming there was an email. the subject is classified. in an appropriate form, i would be happy to brief you but i can't do it in an open hearing. sen. grassley: i assume other members of the committee will have access of everything they wanted? i want to talk about going dark, director comey. a few years ago you testified before the committee about going dark and the inability of law enforcement to access encrypted data despite the existence of a lawfully issued court order. you continued to raise the issue in your public speeches, most recently at boston college. my question -- you mentioned in your testimony briefly, but can you provide the committee with a more detailed update on the status of going dark problem and how it has affected the fbi's ability to access encrypted data? has there been any progress collaborating with the technology sector to overcome any problems? at the hearing in 2015 you did nothing legislat -- legislation was necessary at that time. d

clinton. " you can't review 650,000 email and eight days. you just can't do it." hillary clinton is guilty." changing thoughts about mr. comey? guest: he reacted the of his own prism of reelection chances. he thought it was great when comey came down hard on clinton when in the end he exonerated her saying there was no new evidence on the laptop in new york. that he was saying the fbi was reading the system. -- rigging the system. there is no clear pattern of thought here except what helps personally. i think there is reason to believe moving mr. comey out-of-the-way give some reason to believe he can either stall or potentially shut down the rush of investigation. -- russian investigation. if you were truly innocent he should be banging on the table demanding a special counsel to immediately clear his name, and he should be revealing his tax returns which would tell us a lot about he has borrowed money from russian banks in russian oligarchs. host: madison, illinois. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a problem with the fact he wasmey informed t

we can see thousands of emails from the clinton email domain including many, many from the verizon clintonlackberry domain. we need a search warrant. and the department of justice agreed. i agreed and authorized them to seek a search warrant and i faced a choice. i've lived my entire career by the tradition if you can possibly avoid it, you avoid any action in the run-up to an election that may have an iment pact. i sat there that morning and i couldn't see a door labeled no action here. i could see two doors. they were both actions. one was labeled speak, the other was labeled concealed. i am not trying to talk you into this but i want you to know my thinking. having repeatedly told this congress we're done and no case there, no case there, to restart in a hugely significant way potentially finding the emails that would deflect on her intent from the beginning and not speak about it would require an act of concealment if my view. i stared at speak with conceal. speak would be bad. an election in 11 days. that would be really bad. concealing in my view would be catastrophic not just to the

take a look. >> in a group of 30,000 emails returned to the state department in 2014, 110 emails and 52 email chains had been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. eight of those chains contained information that was top-secret at the time they were sent. 36 of those chains contained secret information at the time. and eight contained confidential information at the time. separate from those, about 2,000 additional emails were unclassified to make them confidential. none of these emails should have been on any unclassified system. but what's especially concerning his all of these emails warehoused on unclassified, personal circles. not even supported by agencies or departments of the united states government. or a service like gmail. >> sean: what you saw it right was james comey laying out the legal case against hillary clinton and then inexcusably, after 30 minutes of a stinging indictment, he let her off the hook. and comey completely ignored all the laws that hillary clinton broke which you can see on the side of

they say it's much more about the clinton emails. it goes to the issue of the fbi director coloring outside the lines. he is the preeminent investigator but in that moment in july when he had that statement about the clinton emails and he recommended against criminal charges, he put on this prosecutor's hat which was completely inappropriate, which is what we saw in the letters released by the white house today. they also emphasized to me that throughout the clinton email case, there was a constant tension between the director and some of the agents involved because he personally insisted that they find evidence of criminal intent for the mishandling of classified information. while that always makes the prosecutor's case easier to make in court, it's not required under the statute. again, they felt that he was coloring outside the lines and not adhering to the law in the way he might, if another person was being pursued by the fbi. >> such a great point. something that is not part of the requisite for proof. again, an example of the

-- who doesn't email. even james comey described her conduct in that closing argument when we thought he was going to indict her, at "extremely careless -- that's gross negligence, can anyone tell me what the difference is? up to five foreign actors had hacked into hungry server. he did nothing. by the way, that likely put operatives in the field and their lives in danger. he of the foundation. the pay to play scheme. the clintons were literally lining their pockets with millions and millions of dollars while hillary was serving as secretary of state. you might remember, she signed off herself and giving the russians 20% of america's uranium. that horrible uranium one deal. she had a sign of personally on that. many of the people that were it involved donated millions and millions of dollars to the clinton foundation. moscow was doubling bill clinton's speaking fees. most recently, comey stood by while your fourth amended privacy rights were being trampled on with the obama administration, unmasking americ

thousands of new emails. they found classified information on anthony weiner. somehow her emails are being forwarded to anthony weiner, including classified information by her assistant, huma abedin. >> she forwarded hundreds of thousands of emails. >> bret: they had to come out with a letter that essentially said it wasn't a hundreds of thousands. they walked it back. they sent a letter to the committee, the subcommittee in which he testified to. but that was just the most recent thing. yet these letters point to actions well before that. >> the letters really point to a longer, systemic problem with the leadership of the fbi director. we talked about this, bret, as recently as march, the fbi director kept saying in these public events he was going to that the administration was talk with him. he had another seven years or eight years, whatever the number is. this telegraphed to people who worked within law enforcement that the fbi director felt some sense of uncertainty about what his future would look like

>> i'm not confirming there was an email, sir. the subject is classified and in , an appropriate forum i'd be happy to brief you on it, but i cannot do it in an open hearing. >> i assume other members of the committee could have access to data briefing if they want it? i want to talk about going dark, director comey. a few years ago, you testified before the committee about the going dark problem any inability of law enforcement to access encrypted data despite the existence of a lawfully issued court order. you continue to raise this issue in your public speeches most recently at boston college. you. my question, you mentioned in the beginning of your testimony briefly, but can you provide the committee with a more detailed update on the status of going dark problem and how has it affected the fbi's ability to access encrypted data my has there been any project -- progress collaborating with the technology sector to overcome any problems? at our hearing in 2015 you said you did not think legislation was necessary at that time. is

they say it's much more about the clinton emails. it goes to the issue of the fbi director coloring outside theay lines. he is the preeminent investigator but in that momentt in july when he had that statement about the clinton emails and he recommended against criminal charges, he put on this prosecutor's hat which was completely inappropriate, which is what we saw in the letters released by the white house today. they also emphasized to me that throughout the clinton email case, there was a constant tension between the director and some of the agents involved because he personally insisted that they find evidence of mishandling of classified information. while that always makes the prosecutor's case easier to make in court, it's not required under the statute. again, they felt that he was coloring outside the lines and not adhering to the law in the way he might, if another person was being pursued by the fbi. >> such a great point. something that is not part of the requisite for proof. t again, an example of them overstepping. mor

he has been under a lot of scrutiny back and forth with the clinton's, hillary clinton's emails. the left will blame comey for trump's win. your thoughts. >> i have a sense this is probably based on his testimony where apparently he made a statement that was not accurate, whether it was that intentional or a slip of the tongue, who knows. it basically came out that he claimed thousands of emails huma abedin had forwarded to, that's not correct. it was a dozen or six or whatever. he had eight very, very difficult job. i personally think he should have been much more robust in investigating the clinton emails and he should have at least convened a grand jury to let voters decide. i also think from my experience there was an investigation of the clinton foundation but there was a lot of resistance from the top. it was a good idea for him to resign but it's a very difficult

he said comey had real guts re-invoking the hillary clinton email scandal. it will be interesting to see if trump can explain that now and give a different answer. >> bret: president trump now, then candidate trump. take a listen. >> is it too late to ask him to step down? >> no, it's not too late, but i have confidence in him prayed we'll see what happens. it's going to be interesting. >> that is why i am asking for >> i want to give everybody a good, fair chance. it took guts for director comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had trying to protect her from criminal prosecution for you know that. it took a lot of guts. i really disagreed with him. i was not his fan but what he did, he brought back his reputation. he brought it back. >> bret: charles. >> well, now he lost it again. what is so striking is how on both sides, we have heard situational ethics. this is situational sensibilities. when what comey was doing was hurting trump come he was a bad guy. then when he did what he did come he was a good guy. the democrats

emails and 52 email chains have been determined by the agency to contain classified information at theime they were sent overseas. eight of those chains contained information that was top-secret, at the time they were sent. 36 of those chains can turn to contain secret information, at the time. and eight contained confirmation at the time. that's the lowest level of classification. separate from those, about 2,000 additional levels were up classified to make them confidential. those emails had not been classified at the time that they were sent. >> sean: the fbi director is basically saying that the clinton broke the law, what law? what is that, the unauthorized removal of a classified documents immaterial. let's watch comey say this. >> the fbi also discovered several thousand emails that were not among the group of 30,000 emails returned by secretary clinton to the stateth in 2014. we found of those emails in a variety of ways, some have been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on servers or devices that had been connected to the private email domain. >> sean: what is

there's emails, too?is just a treasure trove of things-- not treasure, regular trove-- of things that portia said about everybody? well, i'm not interested because no deets, no matter how juicy, are worth betraying a coworker's trust. - [sighs] you're right, pumpkin. i'm not gonna open the red door. i'm gonna be just like you. - yeah, like me. - okay, bye. [tense music] ♪ how do you become america's best-selling brand? you make it detect what they don't. stop, stop, stop! sorry. you make it sense what's coming. watch, watch, watch! mom. relax! i'm relaxed. you make it for 16-year olds... whoa-whoa-whoa!!! and the parents who worry about them. you saw him, right? going further to help make drivers, better drivers. don't freak out on me. that's ford. and that's how you become america's best-selling brand. oh, it's going good.going? yeah, it's going great. this is my jam. yeah? what is that? what? what is that? the moment you realize the gardening gene skipped a generation. at lowe's, our grow together plant

we learned more. >> it's started with an email sent to the verify account last monday. the email was sent, but the name was not disclosed and asked us to verify an article posted online. when you click on the link, you get an article with the headline, are your children playing the blue whale challenge? they warned over this suicide game over hundreds of teen deaths. challenge has believed to result in several does but we can't verify if or how many may have been hurt because of this game. we know the challenge was important enough for national police and friends to issue alerts to teens and parents. it was posted on their verify twitter account translating in part -- don't allow yourself to be influenced. the game is not worth risking your life. in a tweet from media outlets in town talked about awareness of the challenge and we checked in to see if the challenge was a trend regionally. someone who works in the office of communication sent us an email and said as of now we are not aware of any suicide cases linked to the blue whale suicide game in the district. additio

james comey doubling down forcefully defending his decision to reopen the clinton email investigatione fbi director admitting lack of trust in former attorney general loretta lynch played a huge role. chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge was there for the most impassioned defense yet. >> the fbi director defended his decision to reopen the email probe 11 days after americans went to the polls. >> mildly nauseous to think we might have had impact on the election. >> reporter: the senate judiciary committee, and classified, to find out anthony weiner's computer, is now estranged wife. >> you took an enormous gamble, to invalidate her candidacy. >> anyone who disagrees, on october 28th, there is a third door available in late last year before the election to confirm the existence of an ongoing investigation about the trump campaign. >> mishandling classified information. >> how does not violate the statute? >> you can talk about the document paid by russian hackers. and candidate clinton. >> the person who wrote the email, if not why not. >> he took on the burden of speaki

did the who wrote the email. if not, why not. >> i have to give you the same answer. i can't talk about that in an unclassified setting. >> associates of comey say he made the best decision he could with the information he had. but sock, clinton campaign officials point to that july press conference where he also criticized the handling of classified information as contributing to her loss. julianna goldman, thank you. >> yesterday the fox news channel retracted a story that said a democratic national committee staffer may have leaked sensitive emails before he was murdered last year. well, there's no evidence of this but chip reid reports that several conservative commentators are still peddling this sen taition-- sensational conspiracy theory. >> i know for sure it is the russians. >> reporter: most of official washington believes that russia was behind the hacking of democratic national committee emails. but some supporters of president trump have been pus a alternate theory that seth rich, a dnc employee stole the emails and gave them to wikileaks and for doing so

they came in and said we can see thousands of emails from the clinton emailed domain including many from the verizon clinton domain, blackberry domain. they said we think we have to get a search warrant to get this and the department of justice agreed, we had to get a search warrant. i agreed. i also authorized a search warrant and i have lived my career by the tradition that if you can avoid it, you avoid any action in the run-up to election orther it is a dog catcher the president. i set there that morning and i could not see a door labeled no action here. i could see two doors and they were both actions, one was labeled speak, the other was labeled conceal. here is how i thought about it, i want you to know my thinking. have you repeatedly told this congress we are done and there's nothing there, there is no case there, there is no case there. to restart in a hugely significant way potentially finding emails that would reflect on her intent from the beginning and not speak about it would require an active -- act of concealment in my view. i stared at speak and conceal. speak would be

- your email. "they're not fooling anyone.h, that must've been my autocorrect. i meant to say "greg and katie are totally boring." [all murmuring] - okay, that makes sense. - now i get it. 'cause greg told all of us that he has no genitals. - i heard that. - i can prove this to you very eas-- - chuck locked the door to the roof. - what? wait, my mom has a key. keep talking to him, i'll find her. - this is humiliating. how am i gonna explain this? - what if i tell everyone that i made the statue because i'm in love with you? i made it with wax from those little round cheeses. - why didn't you just get rid of him like i asked you to? - i don't know-- because he's not trash. what if you get the "nightly news" desk, and you need him again? - not gonna happen, carol. that ship has sailed. - oh, well, if it's too late - what are you talking about? - maybe that's why i couldn't throw him away, because i don't want to believe that dreams have expiration dates. i'm a 60-year-old intern, chuck. i want a big career. i wanna be on camera

campaign that she wouldn't let the investigation into her private email server get too far.the washington post" reported today that the document was areliable, possibly a fake product of russian intelligence, and could have been part of what sources tell cbs news was kescow's efforts to plant fake news into the blood stream of the election to discredit clinton. but before it was discredited, the document reached the highest levels of law enforcement. f.b.i. director james comey halieved that if it got out it would discredit the investigation. so he made the unusual decision to announce himself last july that clinton would not face charges. >> our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. >> reporter: and comey decided not to consult with lynch or anyone at the department of justice before his press conference. shortly after, the f.b.i. concluded the intelligence was unreliable. >> how and when did you first learn of this document? >> reporter: republican senator charles grassley asked comey about the document earlier this s nth. >> what steps did th

if an american contacts that terrorist, sentiment email at his email, that is collected. he's not a target, but because he or she communicated with a terrorist, that is collected as part of that level collection. that's what incidental collection means. if the fbi is doing that's be 21 collection, those two medications from a terrorist and to the terrorist's and are databased. if we open an investigation on that person who happened to be the communicant and research our systems, we will hit on that speed 21 collection and then must getting agent will know there is an american who was in touch with that terrorist and yemen. that agent has been trained and has access to that information, they'll be able to know it. that's how our systems are designed. >> i should say, the same review was conducted in 2014 does point out the value of the program. i certainly think and most of us do here, see the incredible value of seven oh two and need for reauthorization there. with regard to a different topic completely, it's worth noting that cpb experiences significantly higher failure

controversial with both democrats and republicans leading the investigation of hillary clinton's emails and the russian election tampering probe. major garrett is at the white house for us now with the breaking news. major. >> reporter: scott, the letter now-former f.b.i. director james comey was characteristically blunt. it reads in part, "you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately." accompanying letters released by the white house come from senior justice department officials who say comey had to be fired because of actions and the lack of action he took with regards to hillary clinton in 2016 and the investigation into her email server. those senior justice department officials say not only was comey wrong not to pursue charges. he was wrong to have a press conference announcing that fact, and that he had failed to acknowledge both of those errors and both of those breaches with protocol, and that forced the president to accept their advice that comey be terminated. one letter from the new deputy attorney general rod rosenstein says in part, "the f.b.i.'

during the following week, they reviewed 40,000 emails. i understated how many they reviewed, and found 3,000 of them were work-related. and came from blackberry backups and a bunch of other things. 12 of them were classified, but we had seen them all before. so they finished that work, briefed me on it and said, it does not change our view. then i sent the second letter. >> did any of those classified emails create national security damage? >> that is a hard one to answer by definition. the classification is based on the potential national security damage. >> with respect to our earlier conversation, tons of stuff is classified that is on the front page of "the new york times." >> i'm not aware that any of these emails are any emails in the investigation got into the hands of people able to exploit them to damage our national security. >> so let me offer you this hypothetical. they come to you and say the metadata shows that we have potential information here that could be relevant, could cause us to reopen the information. it would seem

>> his then spouse, whom appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the secretary of state. >> did former congressman weiner read the classified materials? >> i don't -- i don't think so. we haven't been able to interview him because he has a pending criminal problems of other sorts. my understanding is his role would be to print them out as a matter of convenience. >> if we did read them, we have committed a crime? >> potentially. >> when his spouse have committed a crime? >> again, potentially. it would depend upon a number of things. >> is there an investigation with respect to the two of them? >> there was, we have completed it. >> what did you conclude neither of them committed a crime? >> because with respect to his spouse, we didn't have any indication that she had a sense that what she was doing was in violation of the law. >> the central problem we have with the email investigation was proving that people knew, the secretary and others, knew they were doing -- they were communicating about classif

he said comey had real guts re-invoking the hillary clinton email scandal.teresting to see if trump can explain that now and give a different answer. >> bret: president trump now, then candidate trump. take a listen. >> is it too late to ask him to step down? >> no, it's not too late, but i have confidence in him prayed we'll see what happens. it's going to be interesting. >> that is why i am asking for >> i want to good, fair chance. it took guts for director comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had trying to protect her from criminal prosecution for you know that. it took a lot of guts. i really disagreed with him. i was not his fan but what he did, he brought back his reputation. he brought it back. >> bret: charles. >> well, now he lost it again. what is so striking is how on both sides, we have heard situational ethics. this is situational sensibilities. when what comey was doing was hurting trump come he was a bad guy. then when he did what he did come he was a good guy. the democrats are even more critical. the rea

replacement could are you open investigation into hillary clinton's emails. testified that clinton was careless with her emails but no laws were intentionally broken but the acting director now testifying that comey's decision hurt morale at the bureau. meanwhile the trump administration is with trade deal with china. in part the deal calls for china to open borders to u.s. beef. in the markets, jc penny will report quarterly profits later this morning. the stock tumbling more than 7% yesterday as investors braced for more disappointing news from the retail sector, as for markets overall, the dow trying to eke out a gain, dow futures down 40 points this morning. s&p down 6, nasdaq down 11. nicole: increasing concerns of pilot who fights f-18 fighters jets, lea gabrielle has the story. >> reports show pilots who fly all models of f-18, most fierce fighting aircraft before they even make it to combat. i spoke with current pilots who are concerned about a problem that's like being intoxicated while flying, they wouldn't go on camera for fear of damaging their ca

these emails? >> we don't know. we actually have a statement from the fbi saying, the contacted the d.c. police, the d.c. police say contacts the fbi. now which is that? if this was just a murder investigation, first of all, why would the fbi be involved? the only reason they would be involved, so viewers understand, is this has some degree of national exposure meaning, because maybe it is related to the dnc. and we don't know that. we don't know that. it could've been a botched robbery but my point is this. i've been investigating murders for a while and you have to look at every possibility. you can just look at one thing and say, that has to be at. >> have you seen a lot of robberies, which is how they've been looking at this, or the person has their wallet and there watch after they've been shot and killed in the back? >> i haven't. that's not to say that that cannot happen. but here's the thing, and this is so important. there have been a $125,000 reward out for information for training to the death of seth ric

the fbi on capitol hill today provided new context to his decisions about how we handled the clinton email and russia investigations pre-election. his testimony also led to new questions about former attorney general loretta lynch. and her role. and he pushed back on some presidential speculation. the controversial spending bill that had republicans rising up for what was in and not in the bill has now passed the house and heads of the u.s. senate. the biggest news today, new progress toward a health care reform bill that republicans seem to be rallying around tonight and a vote that may be coming as soon as tomorrow. we will show you what's changed in the last several hours. mike emanuel starts us off. >> good evening. after weeks of struggling to come up with enough support, republicans were say there's no real momentum. house majority leader kevin mccarthy says they're getting very close and some predict a vote could come as soon as tomorrow. >> i support the bill with this amendment that's going to be included as part of the rules package when we consider this tomorrow. >> upton is off

moving -- email spitting. they using hardware means of fudging encryption? guest: i will take those in order. on the legacy system, this has been a debate that's been going on. if we are talking about the private sector, so different from the government, so our government officials have quite a lot of leverage over our federal government agencies in they are nothat using legacy systems that are not secure enough for their functions, like protecting our private citizens's data. that's what we saw in the first part of the executive order by president trump, tackling that issue of federal agencies . in the area of private sectors and american companies, the government has leverage. the government can leverage our regulatory agencies like the fcc to use their authorities to put up on the private companies and responsibility for how their systems are using and how secure they are. in terms of legacy systems, there's an ongoing debate that comes down to cost options, whether companies find it worth the money to basi

clinton and email and trump in russia.political and the way we don't want a leader of america's premier law enforcement agency to behave, end quote. is that true? >> i agree totally. i thought it was highly inappropriate he did what he did in july by taking that prosecutorial decision into his own hands and announcing once they did not -- they were not going to move with an indictment trashing hillary clinton. it was a grave mistake for him to get into the final stages of the campaign. tarnishing the f.b.i. by getting involved on what we know is a minor issue. he could have skated past the election without revealing they were looking into huma abiden's papers. i think it was wrong. i will tell you this. i used a term last night with martha maccallum that he was a hot dog. you referred to the incident in the bush administration. john ashcroft is gravely ill. so ill that he removes himself as the attorney general and deputizes mr. comey to be the acting attorney general. nobody calls up the white house and says the attorney

that appeared to be pertinent to the investigation into hillary clinton's email server. although the fbi cannot assess whether this material may be significant and i cannot predict how long it will take us to complete additional work, i believe is important to update your committees about our efforts in. he is a democratic strategist and former advisor to the dnc and he joins us tonight. i was at hillary voter as you know. but i thought i said so at the time on tv that was one of the most unfair things i've ever seen in public life. accuse someone of misviewing not specifically prevent that person from responding. that's exactly what he did to hillary clinton. with that in mind, why in the world would you support him continuing his fbi director? >> i'm not going to sit here and defend james comey or his actions. i don't know how you can sit there and defend the timing of this announcement. the fact that it's happening two days before james comey testifies to the senate intelligence committee, the fact that it happened six days after sean spicer was asked what the preside

they were just sending it over regular emails. this is a red herring. they were trying to take her down. for him to say that he has to release this information for the integrity of the fbi like he is some type of moral compass is baloney. especially since there was an investigation under the trumpet ministration of which he mentioned nothing. i'm not saying it was all of why hillary clinton lost the election but the email scandal did cause people to have an issue of trust with her. it made them believe that she was using information unsafely. this is something that was a problem within the state department for many years and this didn't just happen to hillary clinton. colin powell admitted he had used email. you don't hear anything from condoleezza rice. everybody has crickets. it was because people didn't understand the ramifications. she at least tried to get a private server to help secure the information. they just wanted a way to communicate outside the state department when they are traveling and all of that and being able to have that "unit and w

, -- in the emails, the republicans were happy about it. the man achieved their goal and they dumped him. this is disheartening. that's my comment. guest: it is not credible on the part of the white house to say they are firing mr. comey because he mishandled the clinton female investigation, when in fact they praise the way was handle -- they praised the way was handle. if there was any dissatisfaction about the email investigation, it was that mr. comey chose not to indict hillary clinton. the election is over and to say that you are firing and attorney intoal more than 100 days your new administration for actions he took during the campaign, if the president would come in and have immediately fired mr. comey, people's jaws would've dropped come up with a would've been explainable. this is really not explainable. host: the 2018 election has only begun. you really process -- recently profiled a group that is laying the groundwork for impeachment of president trump. what impact does the comey firing have on those progressive groups and the

had been forwarded and classified emails had not been forwarded. martha. >> martha: thank you very much. let's go back to karl rove, who is standing by. carl, you had interaction with james, when you were in the bush and administration. take us back to that debate that was pretty heated involving attorney general john ashlock and how it sort of affected the way you viewed the current -- no former fbi director. >> lets at the background. there was a critical national security information collection program that needed to be periodically revised and revisited, renewed and attorney general had to sign the renewal period and attorney general ashcroft was ill and in the hospital unbeknownst to the white house. he was so ill that the had been passed to comey as acting attorney general. cosmo the hospital and says we need to reauthorize the program, send andy and alberto gonzales over to you. he says come on over. when they show up, there is comey who says ashcroft is so ill that he's not going to be able to sign this renewal and if you force him to re-si

that appeared to be pertinent to the investigation into hillary clinton's email server.lthough the fbi cannot assessto whether this material may be significant and i cannot predict how long it will take us toto complete additional work, i believe is important to update your committees about ourit efforts." he is a democratic strategist and former advisor to the dnc. and he joins us tonight. i was not a hillary voter, as you know. but i thought and i said so at the time on tv that was one of the most unfair things i've ever seen in public life. accuse someone of misviewing not specifically prevent that person from responding. that's exactly what he did to hillary clinton. with that in mind, why in the world would you support him continuing as fbi director? >> i'm not going to sit here and defend james comey or his actions.s. i don't know how you can sit there and defend the timing of this announcement. the fact that it's happening two days before james comeyne testifies to the senate intelligence committee, the fact that it happened six days after sean spicer was asked if

the email and there was classified materials in the emails.r legal experts they do not believe huma abedin was not indicted. the intent want there to move confidential and top secret stuff to another laptop. when they asked her to, bring everything to the state department, she did not bring that laptop. she didn't realize it was on laptop. you personally forwarded thousands of times. ainsley: someone last night saying of all the people that doesn't need classified information -- it was lindsey graham. brian: al franken was all over the russian angle. what about russians. did they want donald trump? no, they hated hillary clinton. they were for that was whole thing. what about donald trump's linkages to russian investment. basically said we have none. ainsley: how can you blame james comey? so many things. there was, she lied at the u.n., that press conference saying she only had one device. then she said she didn't have secret server. she did. then you have huma abedin sharing classified information. loretta lynch on the airplane. steve: ultim

he is saying it's not about the hillary clinton email scandal. that the trump administration saw the writing on the wall. investigating the russian scandal. this comes days after director homie asked the deputy attorney general for more resources. >> eric: that has been refuted by the doj. >> and they are going to. this just smells bad. on the same day the grand jury started issuing subpoenas. the white house can say this has nothing to do with the russia probe. you can believe them if you want. for me, it reeks of abuse of power, seems downright nixonian. >> [laughs] is that a personal insult? >> eric: once my attorney general and deputy attorney general's that i don't have confidence anymore, he made the decision. >> eboni: i can accept that. i can accept that language from the white house. let's break down the timeline. when exactly was there a loss of confidence? that is the $40,000 question. was it in july when comey politicized the fbi in that ridiculous and unnecessary statement perhaps in an effort to save loretta lynch. was it in october

is anybody criticizing his characterization how comey hand told emails?tingly, in this two and a half page memo rod rosenstein cited several people. he talked about how they also criticized james comey's handling of this investigation. we do know in just the past few hours it was donald ire, deputy attorney general under president h.w. bush, he called this reasoning a sham. he said it was a complete sham that they are using this investigation of the clinton e-mail server as their cover to fire director comey. so at least one person cited as being behind this decision in this memo from rod rosenstein, saying no this is all just a cover. obviously something else behind this firing. >> it's also cloak and dagger. we have this video of the president's body man delivering the letter to fbi in the manila envelope. >> knowing comey was out of town. >> comey was not there. he's watching the news later on television. in the fbi offices in california. >> what's so interesting the man you're seeing there keith schiller he has been a long time confidant, body man, se

comey was trying to get to the bottom of what took place with those emails.illary clinton has a lot of authority to be doing what she did with those emails, but she also did what she did based on predecessors, other people in the same position as hillary did the same thing. hillary andnd about she got caught. caught't really a either, it was just the normal practice from predecessors before hillary. it was just something used against her, but hillary had the authority to classify or d classify whatever. lassify whatever. we are not being harmed by hillary but our country is being harmed by what is going on in this presidency. to get off the i am a democrat, i am a republican , they need to look at what is going on here. we are in trouble. mr. comey was trying his best to stay out of the politics and i believe that he was wrongfully terminated. host: kathy in utah. as a reminder of the history, a july press conference where then director comey recommended no charges for hillary clinton's use of a personal email server. in october he sent a letter to congress a

police have any access to these forensics, these emails?actually have a statement from the fbi saying they contacted d.c. police, the d.c. police say contact the fbi. which is a? if this was a murder investigation, why would the fbi be involved? the only reason the fbi would be involved is that this has some degree of national exposure. meaning, maybe it is related to the w dnc. and we don't know that. c it could have been a botched robbery. but my point is this, i have beenti investigating murders foa while and you have to look at every possibility. you can't just look at one thing and say that has to be it. >> have you ever seen a lot of robberies where the person has their wallet and there watch after they've been shot and killed in the back? >> i haven't. that's not to say that that couldt not happen. here's the thing, and this is so important. there has been a $125,000 reward for information pertaining to the death of seth rich. not one person has come forward. here's one other thing that's got to be startling and i'm just going to say

get to that shocking news, donald trump ousting james comey just hours after his testimony on the email scandal. >> democrats quick to call it a cover-up and team trump firing back. reaction pouring in all night. >> reporter: it caught washington offguard. the president's bombshell firing james comey for usurping the attorney of loretta lynch in the clinton email investigation, the decision after the investigation of deputy attorney general who says in a letter, quote, i cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation into secretary clinton's emails and i do not understand his refusal to accept the judgment that he was mistaken. in a letter to comey donald trump told the director his decision was necessary to, quote, restore the trust and confidence of the public, democrats reaction, outrage questioning the timing of the de special prosecutor to be appointed on the russia probe, chuck schumer calling it a mistake. >> earlier this afternoon donald trump called me and informed me he was firing director comey. i told the president, mister president, with all du

the emails that were clipped from john podesta's email account proved they were collaborating with theillary campaign. there is not a much of an argument to make, you think, that the press was on trump side? >> a conservative is going to say the mainstream media was against donald trump, president trump. the liberals, progressive, democrats will say they are against hillary clinton. the fact is there have been independent studies that were done, and both candidates got very bad press. candidate trump got terrible press. hillary clinton got very bad press. one thing that was potentially different so on the emails was particularly, 300 days from a research team. 600 consecutive days of coverage that far, far outweighed any coverage of any other trump story. >> tucker: where was that coverage? was that in "the new york times," "washington post" -- oh, it was in. i ran one of those news organizations at the time. nope, that's not true. "the new york times" did not run 600 days -- >> gallup had an analysis that said the only thing that the voters heard was they hurt hillary clinton's name w

the emails are a really small part of this. i would say forget the emails, contact and collusion with russia, that is a puzzle piece. the shallowremember state voters that just skim information such as radio and social media. they are not looking for the truth. they only want to magnify their own belief. thank you for taking my call. an important point. it magnifies the intrusion in our electoral system is fundamentally different because of the electronic means that were used. nation has tried to influence the outcome of another nation for as long as nations have then around. the united states has indeed done that as well. of theseavailability technical means and the capability to spoof or deceive the readers come as her caller calls shallow readers, on the real source of the information, making it appear as it is coming from -- as if it is coming from some domestic source -- that is a threat to our domestic system. we need to not only understand it but think about how we can make our systems more secure so less what is coming

we have seen the letters which are essentially an indictment of the handling of hillary clinton's emails. they said they no longer had faith in comey's ability to lead the department, they took this recommendation and he drafted this letter. but there's questions about the timing of this, why this is all happening now, it's information that president trump has celebrated in the past, but it's serge not new information. >> the letter that the president sent to former fbi director comby. can you explain what it cede said? >> reporter: i want to read you the portion that i think is particularly confusing in president trump's letter to comey, in this he's dismissing him. he said that while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, i nevertheless concur with the department of justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. it's not clear what instances the president may be referring to. they have made clear publicly that the fbi is investigating potential collusion between president trump's campaign in the 2016 president

then, he was asked about some specific information by senator chuck grassley. >> the email reportedlyrovided assurances that attorney general lynch would protect secretary clinton by making sure the fbi investigation didn't go too far. how and when did you first learned of this document? also, who sent it and who received it? >> that's not a question i can answer in this forum, mr. chairman, because it would call for a classified response. >> to the fbi interview the person who wrote the email? if not, why not? >> i would have to give the same answer. i can talk about that in an unclassified setting. >> bret: that obviously raised some eyebrows. we are back with the panel. a mollie. >> jim kobe is very good at these self-righteous answers. it was really interesting how many questions he didn't answer and he had lots of answers for what happened with a clinton email situation. he didn't have a lot of answers about the russia investigation. i thought lindsey graham had a very deft line of questioning when he asked them, do you still stand by the statement that the trump campaign wasn't