we want people to know that the fbi agents and the fbi agents executive board took a vote and it was unanimous by that board that we would back mike rodgers for this position. he's someone as i said has agent experience and we believe he can be completely apolitical and swear allegiance to that constitution to support it. >> thomas o'connor, thank you so much for being with us. thank you for your service, and i think it's very interesting, we can read between the lines of what you are willing to say and not willing to say. >> and not answer, exactly. thank you. >> appreciate it, sir. >> thank you very much. >>> all kinds of reports this weekend, that a big white house shakeup could be on the way. what are republicans demanding now from the oval office. >> plus north korea fires off a missile and a warning. the u.s. veteran may not provoke it because it claims those missiles can reach the u.s. mainland. >>> this morning and only here you'll hear from the parents of the penn state fraternity pledge who died after a night of hazing. >> they fed him lethal doses of alcohol, and they kille

>> so what i can comment on that is that director comey enjoyed a widespread support by the fbi agentsho understood the agents and understood the centrality of the agent to the organization. >> thomas, you know that is not what the president said and not what his deputy press secretary said. i hate to interrupt but i want to remind people of what we heard from the white house. let's play that. >> you take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil. less than a year ago. it hasn't recovered from that. >> i've heard from a large number of individuals that work at the fbi that said that they are very happy with the president's decision. >> thankful and grateful she added that many of the people chef spoken with that the fbi were with the pre's sdegs. your assessment of what you heard there. >> well, i am the president of the fbi agents association and in that capacity, i have contact with agents across the country. we have five regional representatives that sit on the board of the -- the executive board of the fbi association and those regional reps, they are in touch with th

pittsburgh office that also went to shanksville. >> reporter: for thomas o'connor, president of the fbi agents association, the addition of these names, members of his team responding to the pentagon, is nearly ten years in the making. >> director comey was instrumental in recognizing that these agents were line of duty deaths. that is why we are standing here at the national law enforcement officers memorial. >> reporter: the issue, fbi agents like steven carr, robert roth, and wesley yu died years after the attacks. cancer caused by fumes from the debris. bureaucracy kept those deaths from being classified as happening in the line of duty. >> about three years ago when director comey came in we had been trying to get some traction on this recognition of these agents, line of duty deaths. director comey came in, picked up on it. over 50 names went up on wall this year. six of those being the names of the fbi agents. without the leadership from director comey, that wouldn't have happened. >> reporter: o'connor said this is one example of the former fbi director's work behind the scenes a contr

cnn contributor and retired fbi special agent steve moore is joining us from los angeles. steve, i want to play something the president said about comey during his nbc interview this week. >> look, he's a showboat, 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 virtual turmoil, less than a year ago. it hasn't recovered from that. >> steve, is that what you're hearing about comey's time as director? >> no. i think a lot of agents are going to be surprised to hear they were in turmoil. if there was an issue in the fbi, it was a belief that under the previous administration a certain case was not going to get prosecuted. they weren't going to be able to get a grand jury going and that did cause some consternation in the bowureau. and again, the only consternation there was in the bower roe, according to my friends at the time, is they felt that comey was not being listened to. he wasn't able to persuade the administration at that point. >> to persuade them to do what? >> to either

the fbi director found out. >> he found out from seeing it on television while he was talking to fbi agents? >> that's when the news broke about what had happened. the question that we all would ask now is how does he even get home? under the law, the fbi director is supposed to travel on a special plane that has special communications capabilities in order to be able to speak to the president and talk to other top officials. he flew out to los angeles on that plane, does he come back on that plane? does he have to fly commercial? we don't know, those are questions that are being asked, what happens now, does he get a chance to clean out his office, his desk? we don't know. we know that andrew mccabe is now the director of the fbi and he's going to be running this investigation into trump and russia. >> and jeff sessions, once again, he has recused himself from this russia investigation, and again, why was he brought in to oversee or approve the firing of the buy running the fbi? >> reporter: my guess is what they're going to say is that this decision to fire james comey was outside the pur

how about the idea of an fbi agent leading the fbi, promoting within the ranks. there's so many good agents, men and women out there, capable of leading the agency. this is up to the president. he has an duty and obligation to pick somebody beyond reproach outside of the political lane. i think he will do that. i hope he will do that. i'm ready to move on and pick a new fbi agent. i'm ready to get to the bottom of what russia did. no evidence that the president colluded with the russians at all. nobody on the campaign that i know of has colluded with the russians. we don't know all of the evidence yet. we need to continue forward and protect these investigations. >> while we're staying on the fbi director, eight people interviewed yesterday at the justice department. one of them is a colleague of yours, senator john cornyn. two were women, could be the first woman to head the fbi. former fbi agent and a former member of congress. let me ask you this -- in this political environment, do you think it's the right time to have the first-ever fbi director who had a pol

it offended every fbi agent i have ever talked to and every former agent. that is the big -- i think that's the big dilemma here, why did the director think he had the authority to recommend prosecution? never happened in the history of the fbi to my knowledge. i think that was his undoing, frankly. >> melissa: that was one of the most staggering things that came out of that hearing when director comey said he would not do anything differently. when he said that he felt like he had to go out and make the decision because the justice department lacked the authority after that meeting on the tarmac. so he overstepped the bounds of what his authority was with that. that was one of the justifications in that memo firing him. do you buy that? does that make sense? >> well, i think once the president loses confidence in anybody, it's his absolute right to fire. just as if you were running any organization. you lose confidence in one of your key players, you're gonna fire that person. however, james comey is not the fbi. he's one part of the fbi. in terms of the in

washington last night from los angeles where he watched the dismissal on television while addressing fbi agents. he hasn't indicated if he will appear before the senate intelligence committee in a closed-door session next week. >>> the acting fbi director will be before the panel. >>> would be controversy without a protest. these demonstrators did not sa for firing comey. they demand a special prosecutor be appointed to look into russia's interference as presidential election. the liberal group moveon.org helped organize this protest. they say that by firing comey, the president has created a constitutional crisis. >>> how do you feel about the firing? our bruce lesh and has our -- >> reporter: do you support what the president did? >> trump isn't a politician. the guy was growing up. he is gone. that's what happens in business. >> it almost looks like a cover- up. it's very nixonian. >> what was your reaction when you heard the president fired the fbi director? >> what this means is not a cover-up. it's still an investigation. trump should have just fired him earlier. >> i think th covering up

>> this is not a question of mood swings among fbi agents. nvolved in a huge international investigation involving an attack on our country by hostile foreign powers. they are gathering evidence. they are gathering evidence and they'll follow the trail wherever it leads, including up to the door of 1600 pennsylvania avenue. >> so, tim, the president says he could end up picking the next fbi director as soon as the end of this week. we know eight people were interviewed yesterday, including the acting director, andrew mcgabe. does the justice department's decision to interview more people than announced yesterday, does that give you any suggestion as to how this process is going? >> the universe of people who are, a, acceptable to president trump, b, confirmable by the senate, and, c, willing and able to do this job is very small. probably fewer than the fingers on my left hand. >> which means that everybody -- meaning everybody that's being interviewed is not, you think, appropriate for the job? >> i think very few people are willing and able

so what is your response to these rank and file fbi agents who disagree with your contention they lost faith in director comey? >> look, we've heard from countless members of the fbi

the fbi agents, the folks that do the jobs. their supervisors, gs-15s, job won't be frightened by g the someone tweeting 140 words in a veiled threat. they will follow the fbi's motto, fidelity, bravery, integrity. fidelity isn't to a president, a politician. it is to the constitution and protecting the american people. >> phil, i assume you agree that this goes on -- you made the point the other night that in watergate it was a high level official to the fbi who ended up being deep throat was of what was going on. >> this is simple, anderson. when you get out of college or join an organization you join an accounting firm, a bank, become a teacher. at the fbi you chase a terrorist, chase somebody from the chinese embassy trying to steal american defense secrets, chase political corruption or someone interfering with an american election. imagine the motivation of an individual told to find out if there are american citizens who violated the principles of american democracy that you can vote for a president? they don't care what

while fbi agents were some scene, the group's president kelly rogers talked to reporters. rogers told reporters he believed the fbi was here regarding the group's work for republican nominee cuccinelli for the 2013 race. a civil was brought on the camp

he is is a former fbi agent.r next director and we feel is important for us to have a voice in this selection process and that's why i'm here today. it's not normal for us to come out this publicly on things. but we feel it's important that we have that voice because the next director we want to have that person have the principles of understanding the centrality of the fbi agent and knowing what fbi agents do on a daily basis and how their work is so important. we feel that this gentleman, mike rogers, is someone who fits those principles that we've set forward. >> and this morning on nbc's meet the press senator lindsey graham insisted the next head of the fbi needs to be apolitical. >> i think it's now time to pick somebody that comes from within the ranks or is such a reputation that has no political background at all that can go into the job on day one. you know whor, who does the fib director work for? to me it's like appointing the judge. the president -- >> another favorite and candidate who would likely

locktime observers of the fbi, former fbi agents f new act director. fbi who was the former deputy to james comey, they all say that the trump russia investigations at the fbi will continue. they can't be stopped, nothing can stop or slow down those investigators, nothing can intimate them out of doing their work. and that sounds awesome as a pep talk because, of course, we don't know that for sure. we've never been in this position before. we don't know what's going to happen to those investigations. late tonight, the news crossed that there are four candidates the administration is now considering to be the new director of the fbi replacing james comey. one of them is the andrew mccabe, one is alice fisher. she's very accomplished lawyer, there is some controversy from her time in the george bush administration from her connections to the prison at guantanamo and interallegations at guantanamo. another candidate is judge michael garcia. he's an appeals judge in new york state and a former federal prosecutors and ins commissioner from the george w. bus

that of former representative mike rogers of michigan, endorsed by a group of former and current fbi agents. he is a former special agent. another, bill evanina who's been a counter-espionage chief at the cia as well. president trump spent saturday delivering his first commencement address before tens of thousands at liberty university encouraging students to shake up conventional wisdom and embrace being outside the mainstream. >> embrace that label. being an outsider is fine. embrace the label. because it's the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference. >> reporter: that is, obviously, a sentiment that he has not only championed as a candidate, but also as the commander in chief. and something he was asked ab, chris, but fox news' judge jeanine pirro in an exclusive interview as well as the alleged request by then-director comey for his loyalty. >> did you ask that question? >> no. no, i didn't want.

he was an fbi agent. sometimes when -- it is a good thing to keep in mind when these associations come out and endorse someone, it actually hurts the person. so it will be interesting to see what happens here, if it actually helps him. but there are still many more candidates that are just as qualified as mike rogers. and so far, i could tell you in talking to some of the folks over at the fbi, they've been pretty happy with some of the people that the department of justice has been interviewing, fred. >> and then you mentioned that an endorsement just might distract from that person actually get egg tting the job. why is that? because president trump wants to be able to make the decision without anyone's influence? >> yeah, exactly. we know that president trump likes to do these big announcements and he likes to seem independent, like he's working with his team and he doesn't like any sort of outside influence. i think generally speaking, these associations who come out and endorse someone, it's so rare

i trust the fbi because we are think thate, if you these fbi agents, especially with the fbi having some problems now and people questioning credibility, which i do not. i was a staunch supporter of comey. i think he is a man of integrity. did he do some questionable things? yes, i guess you could argue both sides of that. but i will see -- i will say this. let the fbi do their job. there is no trump or congress that will buy off the fbi. i will tell you why. it will come out through leaks. if you think these fbi agents are going to risk the hard work that they are doing and let this all get shoved under the carpet, no, it will come out in volumes if there is anything going on. i want to make one other point that has been curious. something that maybe people can chew around with. there has been all kinds of leaks, there have been comments in the papers about all of trump's associates including roger stone and others. and there has been little pieces that you can to on and say -- why did he say this or why did men fort have all of this money. i have yet to hear any leaks about from himsel

what we need is an fbi agent of good standing, independent to head that agency. and to put a politician as head of the fbi, that's going to be an added disaster. >> you worry that a candidate will consider the way in which james comey was fired and maybe less apt to take the job because of either the perception that it may be political or the potential treatment of not being a neutral force but instead a political decision? >> oh, absolutely. i think the fbi has become politicized with this firing of comey. anybody coming in heading the russian investigation has got to wonder am i going to be the next one fired? if i state what i believe are the facts? a lot of times in bur rock rgov officials prefer to stay out of the lime light and they do not want to be in a political maelstrom in washington and they'll take other jobs and i think that's unfortunate. >> attorney general jeff sessions said he had recused himself. he had recused himself from all things in the investigation as it relates to russia but now here he is a part of the panel interviewing candidates. thi

people who have been agents themselves with a background in the fbi. only two former agents have been director in the last four decades. will the president consider current or former agents for the position? >> i would say that he's not ruling anything out at thi int. but,gain, as of today, the department of justice is handling the first step in this process. >> should the attorney general have any role in the selection of successor? and given the fact that in his 100 day interview, the president himself said that he had confidence in director comey at this podium the american people were told he had confidence in director comey. can people take at face value what the president says on personnel issues like this where two weeks later he's out. >> absolutely you can take full confidence in the words of the president. in terms of whether or not attorney general sessions should have a role. look, the fbi's doing a whole lot more than the russian investigation. i know everybody in this room and probably most of the media around the world would like to think

i find it very hard to believe a bunch of fbi agents called up the white house to thank them for happening. there was a report out there some fbi acts changed their facebook photos to this photo of comey that emerged him in his yard the other day. >> if you were a close associate of his, tell me what the reaction is that you have been hearing. >> you know, first of all the characterizations from the white house are utter nonsense. the fact of the matter is the support for jim comey was widespread. it was deep. it wasn't sort of or kind of or qualified. it was absolute in the sense that they knew he would stand up for him. they knew that he would do the right things. even in those instances where there were questions about decision-making. for instance, after the e-mail, in the wake of the e-mail investigation. he went out to folks and explained the rationale behind the decision-making. it wasn't one person making that decision. it was a number of people involved, lawyers, investigators, analysts. when you would explain that, people would accept that. in terms of the support, in terms of th

an fbi agent marries her isis target.u behind the scenes of this very disturbing story coming up next. plus, president trump since two of his top lieutenants to press briefings to defend his new budget deal, as some grassroots conservatives argue they are not happy. they feel like the g.o.p. has given up way too much in these early stages. mollie hemingway and austan goolsbee here to debate the real winners and losers in all of this. straight ahead. >> they wanted a shutdown. we know that. they were desperate to make this administration look like they couldn't function, like they couldn't govern. ♪ due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. but no matter what path i take, i go for my best. so if there's something better than warfarin, i'll go for that too. eliquis. eliquis reduced the risk of stroke better than warfarin, plus had less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis had both. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a st

and fbi agent mike rogers to replace outed fbi director james comey. the association president said rogers exemplifies the principals possessed by the next director for a full list of all eight candidates interviewed today g go to nbcbayarea.com. >> thank you very much. >>> president trump considering firing his press secretary and hiring a woman with bay area ties. "the new york times" is reporting mr. trump made drop sean spicer and replace him with kimberly gill foil. many six west wing officials told the times the president is not happy with several top aides but especially with spicer. the pop shake-up comes amid criticisms over the shifting accounts of the reasoning behind the president's decision to fire fbi director james comey. the cybersecurity researchers who discovered and stopped a worldwide malware attack are being praised by british government security officials. two of those researchers work for a south bay company. nbc bay area joining us with more on the company and efforts to install a kill switch that halted the spread of the ransom

and what's amazing about your country is that the fbi agents took an oath of office. they're going to do their jobs. and the fbi counter intelligence division, i have tremendous faith in them. this is what they train for. they i'm execute and accomplish their mission. >> thank you so much for joining me this morning. i want to turn back to the panel. steve, can the white house keep this tight and continue to try to say this is all about hillary clinton and her e-mails? last night to anderson cooper kellyanne conway said this is about how james comey conducted himself since president trump won the election. can they continue to say it was about clinton because at the same time donald trump is saying and james comey told me three times i wasn't being investigated. i wasn't a target. >> i thought mcconnell, what he did say was interesting because he's using the white house's line. to far there's no space between what the white house is saying essentially and what mcconnell is saying. what you heard him saying was look, the demeanors said there were grounds for dismissal o

fbi. two former agents of the fbi join me on whether the fbi has a credibility issue next. >>> on the hillay, fbi director james comey gave his longest and most impassioned address to congress notifying them about before the presidential election about e-mail he had not even seen. >> i could see two doors, both labels actions. the other labeled speak and the other conceal. i stared at speak and conceal. speak would be really bad an elections in 11 days, lordy, that would be really bad. concealing would be catastrophic, not just to the fbi and well beyond. as to really bad and catastrophic, i said to my team we have to walk into the world of really bad. i have to tell congress we're restarting this not in a frivolous way, in a hugely significant way. this was terrible. it makes me mildly nauseous to think we mightave had some impact othe election. honestly it wouldn't change the decision. everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to october 28th with me and stare at this and tell me what would due? would you speak or conceal? i could be wrong but we honestly made a decision between t

now sara huckabee gets up and says she's getting calls from fbi agents. there's a level of honesty here and questionable honesty that needs to be addressed. who are these countless fbi agents who are calling up the white house to say you did a great job? >> does it make sense that countless fbi agents would be randomly be calling the white house and they would get referred to sara huckabee? >> no. >> if we can say, we have a lot of these folks who live around here some who are not with the fbi. anecdotal ne the last ten month, phil noted, he put forth two points. they're not mutually exclusive. that doesn't mean you keep him. with the bipartisan consensus to get rid of him, this isn't an illegitimate question, this is one of timing. i would add to it method process and so forth. but it's still substantively the right decision. >> i just asked the question about whether is sara huckabee sanders the one that it would be directed to? >> here's the big thing. fbi is a big organization. no question after comey's performance last july there were some that weren

if an fbi agent was present, then the prosecutor would not have to write that himself because the fbi agent would write what they call a 301, an fbi memo of the conversation. everything i just said is common knowledge. everyone knows it, that is to say, everyone working around prosecutions, around investigations knows it, everyone working in government knows it. donald trump's ignorance of everything about government, his ignorance about the fbi, his ignorance about the law. his ignorance about james comey himself as a person, has now led donald trump to the greatest danger of his life. the only danger that he has ever faced that is greater than the bankruptcy of atlantic city casinos, present donald trump now sits at the threshold of impeachment. john mccain said tonight, that the trump scandals have reached a watergate size and scale. watergate got president nixon impeached on the verge of impeachment he resigned. he resigned as he faced impeachment in the house of representatives for exactly, exactly what james comey's memo says donald trump did, obstruction of justice. the nixon t

he is a fmer fbi agent.ts, to work cases. he then became a congressman and was in charge of the house intelligence committee. and in that position, he had access to counter intelligence information, counterterrorism information. with his background as a criminal investigator and those two pieces that also fall into that, we think that he would support the agents. he's someone we've worked with over the years. he helped us with several pieces of legislation, helping us guide through that process. one of them being the sam hicks bill, which was designed -- if an fbi agent is killed in the line of duty, up until this bill was passed, his or her family had to pay for their last move back to their home state, which is really ridiculous. and now if an agent is killed in the line of duty -- actually, any federal agent is killed in the line of duty, their families are moved back to their location where they want to be, to have their support system. just by doing that type of think, mike rogers understands the agent

>>reporter: more than half a dozen fbi agents out of d.c.ding in downtown annapolis today. we went up to the third floor to the strategic campaign group and while they're not relesion any more information why they came, they told reporters it all goes back to a civil suit filed by ken cuccinelli. the suit alleged the campaign group and a controversial pack dubed donors who donated more than $200 million to get cuccinelli reelected. fox5 reached out to the group several times but they did not return our calls. the police are looking for students who hung a nooz at a lit fixture. detectives believe the suspects were able to hang the nudes by first gaining access to the neuz. it was taken down by a custodian been. the rain thankfully has tapered off for now. a lot of people are wondier dering what we're going to see going into the afternoon. we're getting a break right now, but it's in between two rounds of rain. and if this wasn't enough rain for you we've got more slated to come in afternoon tomorrow afternoon and evening. i'm thinking it wil

fbi. this agent said it's like the train has already left the station and that the fbi, russia investigation, will grind on and not be slide down, shep. >> shepard: catherine, what are the next steps for the fbi? >> okay. so it's really highly fluid right now. as we reported last night, the acting direct or the is a guy called andrew mccabe. he will meet later today with president trump to address morale issues. andrew mccabe is a place holder. he's keeping the seat warm because he's got a lot of baggage, critics say. during 2015, his wife, dr. jill mccabe, took nearly $700,000 from democrats in virginia for a state senate race including a close aide to hillary clinton or confidant to hillary clinton, the virginia governor, terry mccullough. it wasn't called a conflict but republicans on the hill showed it was bad judgment by the fbi leadership. so the bottom line, the justist department is searching for an interim fbi director. we could have a new person in that position by the end of the week. this again is only temp. they will be the place holder until president trump settles on a nominee

but that's exactly who bill sorteberg thought the agent was when hilyard and fbi agent craig overby showedeberg believed had been hired by none other than sorteberg's friend, cody johnston. >> the time is 2030 hours, and this is agent hilyard. >> now why would bill sorteberg think cody johnston would want to kill him? in a series of interviews over the next couple days, detectives learned the answer. there's an old saying a good friend will help you move. but a best friend will help you move a body. investigators thought bill sorteberg fell somewhere in between. >> aw, this is nuts! >> remember, investigators had been looking for an explanation. for how nicole's ford expedition ended up 60 miles from cody johnston's house the morning of valentine's day 2013. a time cody claimed he was at work. bill told investigators cody called him around 8 am. saying nicole had run off with another man. >> it was basically a game, y'know. >> and bill said the 'game' came with a request, meet on the road, in his pick-up. >> bill drives out to the highway and sees cody drivin' nicole's ford expedition and

he was talking to fbi agents in l.a. and there's tv sets and he sees he's fired from television. >> that's what we're told that he's in the l.a. field office and agents were there and he was talking to them about recent testimony, it was important to have face to face time and he looks up and apparently sees the news on television and that's from sources we've been speaking with is the first time he found out he was fired from the fbi by trump and he left because he had an event in l.a. to speak with. and his initial reaction was to make a joke and make light of the situation because everyone in the room was so shocked. there was just silence and when they realized what was going on. then the now fired fbi director tried to lighten the mood because there was such shock in the room. >> wow. how do you finish that speech? that's incredible. back now with our panel. on capitol hill i understand it he made several calls unlike to the drenirector himself? >> exactly. he called the chairman of the subcommittee. on the democrati

despite the fact that you saw fbi agents coming out and saying they were frustrated with the outcome,vocalized about their concerns. i do think that's where it's going to stay. when you look at the fbi in general, they had at these limited resources, they are focused about potential cyber attacks, protecting us from potential terrorist attacks. they are dealing with bigger issues right now in terms of ensuring that our country is kept safe. a >> martha: in terms of commenting ongoing investigations, i just wanted to play a little bit because there's been a lot of criticism of that of president trump and rightfully so and that will be determined. president obama commented also on ongoing investigations and make judgments on them while they were under investigation. both with the irs and with hillary clinton, here are examples of both of those whom i want to get your thoughts on that. >> it's not even mass corruption, i don't think it poses a national security problem, she made a mistake. she acknowledged it. i think the way it's been ginned up is in part because of politics. >> martha:

officials but he and those other senior fbi officials deliberately did not share the memo with the fbi agents were actually working day-to-day on the trump/russia investigation. and that makes sense. if the president is trying to pressure the fbi on that inquiry, it makes sense that the fbi director might try to shield the agents doing that work from that pressure. by not letting them know that that pressure was being exerted by the president directly in the oval office on the agency's director. so, according to "the times" tonight, this pressure from the president that has been denied by the white house but is asserted by "the new york times," reportedly with contemporaneously documentation from comey. if that pressure happened, that pressure was not conveyed to the people who are doing the work of the investigation. now we also know that despite that pressure, despite that reported february 14th meeting where the president allegedly told the director to kibosh the flynn investigation, we also know from other independent sources that the investigation into flynn wasn't stopped by that meetin

the fbi has been around since 1908. the agentslks that did these jobs, their supervise, their gs 15st, gs 14s, gs 13s, the folks doing this job are not going to be frightened by somebody tweeting 140 words in a veiled threat. they are going to live by the fidelity, integrity, and the fidelity is not the president. it's to the constitution. >> it was a high level official at the fbi who ended up being deepthroat because of what he saw going on. >> this is simple. think about when you get out of college you join an accounting firm, join a bank, you become a teacher. at the fbi you chase a terrorist, chase somebody who is trying to steal defense secrets or political corruption or someone interfering with an american election. can you imagine the motivation of an individual who has to been told you have got to find out if there are american citizens who violated the principles of american democracy that you can vote for a president? they will hunt for anyone who did wrong in this case. >> nice to see you begun. >>> attorney general je

now sara huckabee gets up and says she's getting calls from countless fbi agents.here's a level of honesty here and questionable honesty that needs to be addressed. who are these countless fbi agents who are calling up the white house to say comey did a great job? >> does it make sense that countless fbi agents would be randomly be calling the white house and they would get referred to sara huckabee? >> no. >> if we can say, we have a lot of these folks who live around here some who are not with the fbi. anecdotally in the last ten month, phil noted, he put forth two points. they're not mutually exclusive. that doesn't mean you keep him. with the bipartisan consensus to be rid of him, the real question becomes, this isn't an illegitimate question, this is one of timing. i would add to it method process and so forth. but it's still substantively the right decision. >> i just asked the question about whether is sara huckabee sanders the one that it would be directed to? >> here's the big thing. fbi is a big organization. no question after comey's performance last jul

i have talked to many she said countless fbi agents who express concerns about comey. the news of today i think is the president telling leicester holds that he made the decision long ago and that he in fact asked the fbi director comey whether he was under investigation. once at a dinner where comey was making a case and two times on the phonecall. that is just interesting. it contradicts first of all the white house's initial story which is a rollout that clearly was bungled but it also gets to questions about whether he should have been asking that in the first place. kennedy: absolutely and if the fbi director should have engaged them in those conversations because that's what acting fbi director mccabe was saying today although he couldn't comment on the particulars of the conversations not being privy to them he could say that it was not standard procedure for an fbi director to comment on an investigation was someone who was at the center of that investigation. now you have two parties on capitol hill with very different talking points but you are hearing more ru

fbi. two former agents of the fbi join me on whether the fbi has a credibility issue next.ave asthma... ...one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo is specifically designed to open up airways to improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. breo is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. once your asthma is well controlled, your doctor will decide if you can stop breo and prescribe a different asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. do not take breo

fbi agents are trained in close-quarter battle how to take down an assailant and all those kind of things. the fbi director, their job is battle on the hill, in the oval office. and i think out of the seven fbi directors, full-time, appointed by congress fbi directors -- i served under four of them -- only one of them, louis freeh, was a former fbi agent. i just don't think that needs to be part of the calculus for saying this guy or woman's going to be good for the job or not. >> there was a fascinating interview done with fbi director james comey not this week, not last week, in 2014, but it reared last night on "60 minutes," and it is worth taking a listen to this part. >> you say that the president wanted independence from his fbi director, but the justice department answers to the president. >> it does, but it has to maintain a sense of independence from the political forces. i don't mean that as a per jurortive term, but the political forces in the executive branch, and that's why the director is given a tenure term, so it is guaranteed that you'll span presidential administrations

fbi agents were seen carrying that out there. went through a number of items in the garage as well as in the house, but what they took off with were vehicles. bikes and atvs. it was a sight no one thought twhoe wake up to. state and local police and the fbi. one woman tells nbc 10 off-cameras she saw them approach with guns and rifles approaching the house just before dawn. they weren't sewer why the agents were here. the fbi says only part of an active investigation and had a court order to be here. along with all the searching and seizing, police arrested two, this man and woman. residents say as many as ten people lived in the house. some children were taken away, they say by county officials. to see all of this police activity and the police tape and -- >> fbi, if something happened. >> reporter: before they left the fed searched cars, the house and this barn taking atvs and motorcycles. all over the property you can see signs labeled. the garage, for example, was labeled, room s, showing the effort here. the agents going roo

and fbi counter-intelligence agents based in washington, d.c. uing leads in performance and foreign communication intercepts. if you think of the fbi investigation, it's not like a thing that happens on a list serve or all in fbi hq, you have people in at least three different places working on three different parts of it. there after the financial times added this. the fbi creating a special unit in washington, not at the washington field office, washington fbi headquarters to oversee this investigation overall. instead of it all being spread out among pittsburgh office, san francisco office, other field offices, they would centralize the main part of this investigation in d.c. 20 dedicated agents all centralized at fbi headquarters. that does not happen with every investigation and does not happen with any major investigation. that's a change they made about this investigation that was due to take effect this month. is that going end to up being important here? we know now as of today, fired fbi director james comey requested more resources for

a response basically, a meeting to respond to the warning that flynn was being interrogate bid fbi agents? is there an fbi record of what trump said that could confirm any thakt he gives to investigators be they from the doj or the congress. now we have several doj and intel officials on "the point" to discuss this in a moment. begin a guest who brings some very special perspective, former federal prosecutor matthew axelrod served as counsel to sally yates and she's stenlter of this storey. in your view, what is the most important thing we learned about president trump's termination of jim comey this week? >> well, thanks, ari, i think the most important thing we've learned is that what president trump did this week is inconsistent with our democratic values and the rule of law enforcement it's a bedrock principle in law enforcement that there be a separation between politics and law enforcement at the federal level. that means a separation between the white house and the department of justice. that's important in every criminal investigation. it's all the more important in investigations