president trump's 2016 campaign, when the fbi and the department of justice went to the foreign intelligence surveillance court or fisa court to approve a warrant to monitor then trump campaign advisor carter page, who was suspected of having illegal contacts with russian operatives. the four-page memo authorized by republican congressman nunes outlines alleged abuses, and deepened a severe partisan divide. democrat adam schiff says it presents a distorted picture of how the fbi behaved and jeopardizes the russia investigation. >> they ought to be sending the message to the white house, that were he to fire mueller, rosenstein, that would be considered obstruction of justice, and bring down the administration. >> house speaker paul ryan denies it's politically motivated. >> this memo is not an indictment of the fbi, of the department of justice, what it is, is the congress's legitimate function of oversight to make sure that the fisa process is being used correctly. >> whether the fbi director will go to the mat to present the memo's release remains an open question. former assistant director of the bureau. >>

the fbi and the usjustice department of misleading a foreign intelligence surveillance courtjudge misleading a foreign intelligence surveillance courtlance courtjudge in seeking the extension of a warrant with a secret in stopping operation against a man called carter page —— four page. he was working as don trump's foreign policy advisor until september 20 16. he is known to have visited moscow and met with russian government officials. he has said, for his part, that the visit was benign and it was undertaken in his own time. but the very fact that all of that was based on a dossier that was financed by hillary clinton ‘s election campaign gives you some idea of how political all this is. keeping an eye on it all, david, thank you very much. the row over equal pay at the bbc has intensified with the corporation's former china editor appearing before a british parliamentary hearing. carrie gracie, who resigned from her post in protest over the issue, has accused the bbc of having an illegal pay culture. the director general, lord hall, who also appeared, said it was wrong that she had been underpaid. 0ur media editor amol rajan rep

court to allow surveillance of a trump a campaign aide it says our findings raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain department of justice and f.b.i. interactions with the foreign intelligence surveillance court and represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the american people trump expressed strong feelings about the agency's conduct as described in the memo i think you know i think. what's going on in this country i think it's. going to. do whatever they're going to do. this great country when you look at that and you see that in so many other things were. much worse. but former f.b.i. director james comey who was fired last year by trump had this to say on twitter. that's it dishonest and misleading memo wrecks of the house intel committee destroyed trust with intelligence community damaged relationship with fees or court . it's unclear what trump plans to do now that the memos there's been speculation he might fire senior justice department officials no matter what it points to rocky relations or head between the white house and the f.b.i. . with us in the studio is nicholas castle's a political analyst at the john f. kennedy institute at

been investigated for a long time and all these warrants to get approval for the foreign intelligence surveillance court to monitor his activities. four other trump campaign officials, they have been charged with criminal wrongdoing. as far as i know, he hasn't been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, right? >> that is exactly right. the fbi had him on their radar as far back as 2012, 2013, in a case involving russian spies and they actually came to him and talked to him about the fact that they believe the russians were trying to cultivate him as an agent. so that would also be information that the fbi would have and would probably be used in an application to support the idea. in other words, they would tell this judge that, look, carter page, we talked to him in the past, and we told him that the russians were trying to cultivate him as an agent, and he has continued this contact with who we believe to be russian foreign spies. >> wolf, one more point if i could add just from the memo. as you know, it's been a steele dossier that's unverified, it is solacious, and cnn reported that portions of it h

gowdy says the memo exposes serious concerns about the foreign intelligence surveillance court ument full of holes and used and paid for by opposition research. that's very damaging. >> reporter: new tonight, new york democrat gerald nadler, one of four house lawmakers granted access to see the classified fisa court papers, delivered his own six page rebuttal and says republicans failed to explain that the dossier was not the only evidence used to authorize repeated spying. >> they saw lots of evidence on an ongoing basis not based on this dossier but based on new evidence as each renewal came about. >> reporter: this week democrats o t house intelligence econocommittee say they will demand republican colleagues vote to release a second memo. that would require president trump agreeing to declassify it. the white house says it would consider doing so but the when and how remains unknown. that leaves only the republican narrative available for the public to read. lester. >> kelly, thank you. >>> it was a busy saturday at doctors' offices with families across the country dealing with t

they're going to be talking to people at the foreign intelligence surveillance court. they're going to possibly be talking to the judges. they're going to be looking at the documents, documents that we weren't prifby too because they're classified. look how difficult it was to get to the bottom of just carter page. so i think this is what the attorney general wants to do. he wants to expand this investigation. take a hard look at this to ensure this does not happen again in the future >> hannity: sarah, great investigative work on both issues. david shone, we appreciate your involvement and contribution. our top two stories, more reaction, is he bastian, dan, and gerlado next, stay with us. >> hannity: joining us on two top store others, former deputy assistant to the president fox news national security strategist, sebastian, and nra contributor, dan bon geno, and geraldo, you're outmanned, so i'll start with you because of that reason? >> outgunned? (laughing) >> hannity: no, but the thing is, you agree with me, secure the perimeter, a full security assessment, every

various parts of it, and then in october, ryan, they go to the fisa court, to the foreign intelligence surveillance court this very invasive surveillance of carter page. so the timeline is the investigation is opened in july of 2016. seven weeks later or so, the investigative team actually comes into possession of this steele dossier. now, the reason why that's important is that the nunes memo, the republican memo released a few weeks ago, made the case that without the steele dossier, there would be no investigation of the trump campaign, that this entire witch hunt, this entire hoax, as the president likes to call it, would never have got off the ground without this dossier that was funded by opponents of the president, by his political enemies. it's also important that this memo makes clear and actually cites a portion of the application that went to the foreign intelligence surveillance court. and in it, they say that the person who was doing this, collecting this information, the dossier, was being paid by, quote, it says here, the fbi speculates that the identified u.s. person, this is the people p

the department of justice and the fbi were also candid and forthcoming with the foreign intelligence surveillance courtpher steele, about the fbi's previous relationship with him, about the political motivations of the people who funded his research, and the reason for the fbi having terminated christopher steele as a source. so if you put that against what the original nunes memo argued and articulated, you're left with a nunes memo that really rings hollow, that is rendered meaningless and without any valid claims. >> jill wine-banks, devin nunes used terms like collusion and made heavy accusations against the democrats who put out this memo today. what are your impressions of what nunes had to say? >> nonsense, would be the simple answer to it. the memo, which i have not had a chance to completely read, but from what i've heard and the one page that i have seen, is a very clear and lawyer-like rebuttal of specific facts. and let me just say that as a trial lawyer, timing matters. this is something that's coming three weeks too late. the country has already had three weeks to absorb what the republic

it is about mueller, the doj, and the foreign intelligence surveillance court.rancesca chambers of the daily mail covering the white house, eli covering covers national security, dell wilbur of the wall street journal. he covers of course the department of justice. eli, my first question, why not tell the fisa court all the details about the information presented to support the warrant on carter page, everything, every single thing? >> first of all, i don't know the answer to that. before we get too far ahead, it would be nice to see what the democrats, and for that matter the fbi, say has been omitted from this memo. is there other evidence that was presented that if we saw it we would say, okay, it's not accurate to say that the fbi was relying upon this opposition research dossier in order to gain a warrant to spy on carter page. >> two quick follow-ups. is it material, in your opinion, that the information came from steele that he was paid and working for the dnc and the hillary clinton campaign? is it a material fact out there disclosed to the fisa court? >

should be released and thirdly, the memo in essence questions what happened in the foreign intelligence surveillance court. it doesn't criticize the court, but it says the court should have been told about steele's background. i did ask the chief judge of the foreign intelligence surveillance court if they were going to have anything to say when the memo was released and i was told the court would have no comment. >> now, in reading mcgahn's letter, though, it doesn't say how they weighed in. it just said the president decided the declassification was appropriate. so we don't yet know, really, whether the dni agreed with the fbi and others and said it should not be declassified. >> well, yeah. >> or said it was of grave concern. >> we don't know whether they asked for redactions or whatever. but we do know they did communicate not only informally but there was this process where at least they were asked or at least they got on the phone and said don't do this. >> john mcloughlin, from your experience in the intelligence community, is it likely that once there was a grave -- a warning of grave concern from

these are basically a pitch to a judge on the foreign intelligence surveillance court. they can also be extremely thick. it is an arduous process to put them together. additionally, the people who put together these affidavits are career employees in the fbi and injustice. these are not political appointees. president donald trump tweeted, ,hortly after the memo came out that while he was concerned about political leadership at the bureau and in the department, he supported the rank and file. it was the rank and file who put this affidavit together after attorneys in the doj and agents in the fbi assembled these affidavits. than a political appointee has to sign off on them, either the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, or the head of the national security division. one of those people has to give their signature to the affidavit, then it goes to the court and then a federal judge decides whether or not that affidavit makes a strong enough argument to justify surveilling american citizens. host: we saw from the presidents tweet that the top leadership of the

about the memo and its central allegation, which was that the fbi misled the fisa court, the foreign intelligence surveillance act court to get a warrant to surveilled carter page without revealing the fact that this was political opposition research, the dossier. it was the house until chairman, devin nunes. >> i think the american people understand that the fbi should not go to secret courts using information that was paid for by the democrats to open up investigations to get warrants on people of the other political party. that's the type of stuff that happens in banana republics. >> chris: congressman swalwell, doesn't that concern you at all that they went to get this warrant and at least part of it, according to some reports, the lead item in the application was the rush of dossier, and as we all know, that was paid for the dnc and the clinton campaign? >> congressman swalwell: if there was a barrage of evidence that they presented to the courts, including disclosure that the dossier had a political motivation. it also included that george papadopoulos had been contacted about receiving russian dirt. he

salacious unverified material no surveillance weren't would have been sucked from the foreign intelligence surveillance court without the still dusty information so you present the court with a dot ca you pretty much don't believe because it'll help you get a warrant to spy on who you want now this is what deputy attorney general bruce or said about christopher steele the former british agent and his agenda steele was desperate that donald trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president so why would a judge issue a warrant based on a dasi a that was pretty non-credible oh that's because the f.b.i. never told him that according to the memo this was intentionally left out of the report now trump tweeted last year. terrible who just found out that i had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory nothing found this is mccarthyism surrender all those people that mocked trump's tweet and said oh federal agencies could never spy on people unless they have good reasons that couldn't have happened well it started to look like it did happen and trying to tweet is not so

and the department of justice went to the foreign intelligence surveillance court, or fisa court, torove a warrant to monitor then-trump campaign adviser carter page who was suspected of having illegal contacts with russian operatives. the four-page memo, authorized by republican congressman, devin nunes, outlines alleged surveillance abuses, and it has deepened a severe partisan divide. democrat adam schiff says it presents a distorted and unfair picture of how the f.b.i. behaved and jeopardizes the special counsel's russia investigation. >> they ought to be sending the message instead to the white house that were the president to fire bob mueller or rod rosenstein, that would be considered obstruction of justice, and it would bring downtown administration. >> reporter: house speaker paul ryan denies it's politically motivated. >> this memo is not indictment of the f.b.i., of the department of justice. what it is, is the congress' legitimate function of oversight to make sure that the fisa process is being used correctly. >> reporter: whether the f.b.i. director will go to the mat t

surveillance, carter page relied heavily on the dossier, both applications for the foreign intelligence surveillance courtlso contends mister steele lied, quote, it appears either mister steele lied to the fbi, or classified documents were reviewed by the committee, materially false statements. the president meeting with rod rosenstein yesterday, gave devon nunez some reason to feel vindicated and put lights on the motivations of democrats like adam schiff and nancy pelosi who said the president was going to fire rosenstein to create a bit of chaos. we will see how it plays out. >> the grassley memo was from 2017? >> reporter: that was last month that letter of referral but in it it addresses what happened back in march when the judiciary committee was meeting with players to arrive at the referral the day they sent for the doj on mister steele. heather: lots more to come on this. we have seen the memos and letters but the firestorm simmers down what comes next? according to fox news legal analyst greg jarrett who has been all over the story, those who swore to uphold the law could find themselves on the

court to get permission to wiretap page. that's what this memo is all about. fisa stands for foreign intelligence surveillance act. fisa courts are where investigators can ask a judge for legal permission to spy on a person on american soil if, after further review, they show probable cause the target is a foreign agent or may be. by some accounts the swrus department did just that. basically what they did, they went and applied to the fisa court. paperwork had been approved at the highest level, suggesting page was working with the russians. the court approved the surveillance and even extended it, but republicans then said they thought that this process had been tainted because in the original request, there were unseen hands of political operatives the court was not told about, according to the republicans. that's what the memo says. and the fbi relied on this private research on page that was substantially funded by democrats. then that information was turned into what actually made this happen. wolf? >> very interesting. very important information, indeed. tom foreman thank you very much for that report. the r

that there was additional intelligence beyond the trump dossier to justify quarter page in order to get a surveillance warrant from the national security court called the foreigntelligence surveillance court. this is really ultimately one of the highest to cross from a legal standpoint because you are allowing law enforcement to spy on an american citizen inside the united states. this is an extremely high bar. the republicans made the observation that without the dossier, the fbi and justice department would never have sought a surveillance warrant for the trump campaign. and then in the republicans deck memo they say very clearly that then deputy i fbi director andrew mccabe that we didn't have a dossier we wouldn't have gone the extra step to secure the surveillance warrant. i'm looking for this now. i've not seen that aspect of the republican memo challenge yet. maybe further the document i have not seen it yet. >> reason interesting point in the testimony because after this came out as part of the nunes memo, there was a lot of pushback from the democrats and others in committee about this testimony which had been part of the memo. there have been argumen

surveillance of carter page. both relied heavily on mr. steele's dossier claims and both applications were granted by the foreign intelligence court. in december 2017, the chairman, ranking member and subcommittee chairman graham were allowed to view a four fisa applications relies on the dossier to seek surveillance of mr. carter page as well as numerous other fbi documents related to mr. steele. now, the next paragraph, this is interesting. this is highly redacted here. i wonder what's in that. then the following braff, paragraph, follow along, similarly in june of 2017 the former fbi director comey testified publicly before the select committee on intelligence that he had briefed president-elect trump on the dossier's allegations in january, when he was president-elect, just before he was sworn into office january 2017, which mr. comey described to then president-elect trump as salacious and unverified. when asked at the march 2017 briefing why the fbi then relied on the dossier in the fisa applications absent meaningful cooperation in light of the highly political motive surrounding its creation, then director comey stated the f

but they will expand on that case tohe make sure that the foreign intelligence surveillance court wasn'teing abused over and over again. they need to look at that. >> sean: we already know it's abused. >>e we do. >> sean: they didn't tell the judgeud that hillary paid for i. they didn't tell them it was unverified, that that it was the same source, right? >> that's right. we have one case, sean. what we need to look out, and i think the inspector general iss going to do that, is how many other cases out there that we don't know about. cases that aren't public. that is what they are going to be looking at. they will be talking to people of the foreign intelligenceen surveillance court, possibly talking to the b judges, they wl be looking at the documents, documents that we aren't privy to because they are classified. look at how difficult it was to get to the bottom of just carter page. i think this is what the attorney general wants to do, he wants to expand this investigation, he wants to take a hard look at this to ensure that this does not happen in the future. >> sean: sara, great in

that came from the foreign intelligence surveillance court?d blast them, sean, they said that they stepped all over the fourth amendment. they were conducting warrantless searches. they knew that they knew that they were violated the rules and regulations the fbi cannot self-regulate. it can't watch itself. there needs to be changes. there were a lot of things that did change but a lot of things that haven't changed like we have seen. and i think that this calls for further investigation. i know that the house intelligence committee, the senate committee is also looking jewish area and others intelligence apparatus and whether or not that was weaponized against our own people. carter page is one example of many we need to get to the crimes that potentially are committed here. misrepresenting information to a court is bad enough but, it suggested in the grassley graham unredacted memo think had actually seen all four fisa warrant applications. grassley and lindsey graham saw them. saw them available in some capacity as devin nunes believe askin

of the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court. >> our memo gives more of the complete facts.> reporter: the ten-page heavily redacted memo is a direct rebuttal to house republicans' allegations of partisan bias. when the justice department asked a fisa court to authorize surveillance on a former trump campaign aide carter page. >> their trying to put the fbi on trial and indirectly put bob mueller on trial. >> reporter: democrats contend that the officials accurately told fisa court that christopher steele was hired by politically motivated u.s. persons. and his dossier was intended to discredit trump's campaign. the president pounced. fbi did not disclose who the clients were. the clinton campaign and the dnc. wow. he denounced the democrats' memo as a total political and legal bust, yet repeatedly told fox news this. >> with all is that being said, we have to come together as a nation. >> reporter: the president said that coming together idea a few different times in the context of moving past the russia investigation. and we've seen seeo much activi of late from the specia

your committee and he said no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the foreign intelligence surveillance courte steele dossier. you were there in the room. can you say that's false? that's not the accurate meaning of what mccabe testified. >> that quote is completely out of context and had the president not redacted so much, i think the record would have been made. >> it would require me discussing things that aren't in the republican memo and therefore i'm duty bound not to veal. >> you are adamant the context is wrong? the quote would be completely inaccurate interpretation. >> very clearly. they will see if there's financial links to the russians whether it's european banks or others. they say this is a democratic fishing expedition. your response. >> the ancient rules of investigations are two fold. it's often the cover up that will get you, not the underlying crime and the second one is follow the money. we're being thwarted on our efforts follow the money. we requested the bank records be subpoenaed and the republican majority has denied that. my question is what does the president have

the intelligence community because you are not supposed to talk openly of how this foreign intelligence surveillance court works and how they're trying to find out, quote "spies" and what they are doing. this memo released a lot of that sensitive information. >> absolutely, a lost in all of this. as a reporter who covers these issues before, this memo is fascinating to me because you get grandular details of how the process works. i understand government officials don't want that. this is a huge partisan football, it is being used for certain propaganda purposes. there is an element here of just opening up a process that the american public frankly rarely gets a glimpse into how these warrants are presented to the court and what the over sight is. if republicans truly cared of fisa reform, you may see some actual proposal put on the table, okay, how can we prevent any kind of american citizens being targeted based on phony evidence before the court. their ideas out there from the obama administration and you can have an advocate for someone that's targeted which exists of the court. i have not seen any of

court it wiretap carter page. fisa stands for the foreign intelligence surveillance act. and this is what is used when investigators want to spy on essentially somebody who is actually on u.s. soil. they go to the fisa court, they present information explaining why they believe this person is a suspected agent of a foreign government. and the fisa court would then give them permission if it is all approved properly to then go forward with this. the fisa court did that, and they approved an extension three different times. and analysts say that is probably because there was something coming outsomething ct of this that gave them reason to keep approving this. but somes a republicans are say that there was a secret political hand at work that the court was not told about, that the original information on carter page, some of it at least, came from an investigation in a was partially funded by democrats out there. and those democrats were feeding it inthat was partially funded by democrats out there. and those democrats were feeding it in. why don't any just say we have other

that the systems, whether it's the ig, foreign intelligence surveillance court, or the mueller investigation really should not be played out. but it's not a boat sides the same in this instance. this is senator johnson and nunes. that's just all it is every time. >> senator johnson of course jump frg conspiracy theory to conspiracy theory when he was forced to admit secret society was probably a joke. john, nunes is also now looking at the state department in his effort to try to discredit the dossier itself. right. he says information was passed to christopher steele, of course who is the author of the trump dossier through the obama state department from obama associate sydney. i know you have known her for a long time. what do you make of that? >> it was trey goudy who suggested this. didn't name sydney as i read the story. and i think it's ludicrous. so what. i'm sure that christopher steele collects information from countless sources. sydney passes and shares information and always has. it's been his style. so i don't see anything there at all. >> because james what matters here again,

more using the same rationale and subsequent renewal applications filed with the foreign intelligence surveillance courtn april and in june of 2017." here's the important part of page five. the first of these filings was publicly reported in the u.s. media in april of 2017. yet the fbi did not subsequently disclose to the fisa court the evidence suggesting that steele had lied to the fbi. instead, the application still relied primarily, remember, the bulk of the application as the folding clinton bought and paid for dossier. go back -- scroll down my hair, the other weight. against the application, we are six months into this thing, relying on his credibility even though he fbi knew he was not credible at that point. especially as it relates to the media incident, which pushed him out of the fbi's way in october, the same month the first fisa warrant was granted. here is what is on page six. whether mr. steele lied about his media contacts is relative for at least two reasons. it's relevant about his credibility as a source. second, it is relevant to the reliability of his information gathering efforts.

was filled with russian lies, russian propaganda, totally unverified, to lie it a foreign intelligence surveillance court, to obtain a warrant. so they could spy on trump campaign advisor carter page. now during that fisa warrant process, the fbi, or at least the upper echelon, not the rank and file, repeatedly never told the fisa judges that the phony salacious dossier was financed by hillary clinton and the dnc. in other words they purposefully omitted crucial information from the fisa court judge so they could continue this process. james comey, andrew mccabe, sally yates, dana boente, rod rosenstein are all complies sit in this because they all approved surveillance on page. now this part is shocking. the fbi then used a yahoo news report that was written by michael his cough about a carter page trip to russia as evidence to corroborate information in the phony dossier. the source for the information and the yahoo news report was none other than christopher steele, the same author of the dossier that they were using. so the fbi used steele's leaked to ya other to corroborate the dossier created by th

that came from the foreign intelligence surveillance court?d blast them, sean, they said that they stepped all over the fourth amendment. they were conducting warrantless searches. they knew that they knew that they were violated the rules and regulations the fbi cannot self-regulate. it can't watch itself. there needs to be changes. there were a lot of things that did change but a lot of things that haven't changed like we have seen. and i think that this calls for further investigation. i know that the house intelligence committee, the senate committee is also looking jewish area and others intelligence apparatus and whether or not that was weaponized against our own people. carter page is one example of many we need to get to the crimes that potentially are committed here. misrepresenting information to a court is bad enough but, it suggested in the grassley graham unredacted memo think had actually seen all four fisa warrant applications. grassley and lindsey graham saw them. saw them available in some capacity as devin nunes believe askin

directly quotes an application that fbi officials put together and then provided to the foreign intelligence surveillance court to get the authority to wiretap former trump aide carter page. it's really unusual to actually include the text from one of those applications. and one of the big questions, possibly facing the fbi now is should they redact that text or keep it in? it's possible that text is incredibly relevant to the argument democrats are making with this memo. so it does make sense that it's a longer process. however, that said, of course, the longer the process goes on, the more likely it is that it ends up being sidelined or not being revealed at all. >> betsy wood rufr. erin thanks so much. >>> next, the republicans used to be the deficit hawks, now, not so much. have they abandoned their principles in this week's spending bill deal? relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. it quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. relieve heartburn with fast- acting, long-lasting gaviscon. and helps keep acid down for hours. jimmy's gotten used to his whole yup, he's gone noseblind

information about the sourcing and financing of the dossier was not shared with the foreign intelligence surveillance courtprovides the ability of law enforcement to track the communications of american citizens. we also understand the f.b.i. and department of justice relied in part on media reporting to lend credibility to the dossier and the issue there is that the firm behind the dossier had been briefing reporter, a half dozen american media outlets about the dossier. it appears there was circular reporting in this case. we also understand based on the information we've gathered that once the british spy's contact was cut off with the f.b.i. over his connections with media and other reporters, he continued to funnel information into the f.b.i. through a justice department contact bruce orr. bruce orr has been demoted when the revelations came tonight and his wife also worked for the same opposition research firm. we're also understanding that there is information in the memo that indicates that the british spy who compiled the research had for a lack of a better term, a severe dislike, an agenda agains

totally unverified, to lie to a foreign intelligence surveillance court to obtain a warrant so they could on trump campaign advisor carter page. now, during that fisa warrant process. the fbi or at least the you were echelon, not the rank and file, repeatedly never told the fisa judges that the phon phony salacious does quay was financed by hillary clinton and the dnc. in other words they omitted crucial information from the fisa court judge so they could continue this process. james comey, andrew mccabe, sally yates, dana, rod rosenstein, they are all complicit in this because they, at different points, they all approved surveillance on page. now, this part is shocking. the fbi then used a yahoo news report that was written by michael from september 23rd, 2016 about a carter page trip to russia as evidence to corroborate information in the phony russian paid for dossier. here's the thing. and this is critically important. the source for the information and the yahoo news report was none other than christopher steele, the same author of the dossier that they were using. so, the fbi used s

. >> you have oversight over the foreign intelligence surveillance courts. you just voted three weeks ago to give them expanded powers. in fact, you personally voted against an amendment by one of your republican colleagues that would have required a higher threshold for surveillance of americans. at the same time that you're voting to expand what these courts can do, voting against an amendment that expands surveillance, the courts can undertake, you're saying they're abusing their power. >> you're confusing two different things. 702 authority which we voted on three weeks ago is the authority to survey non-u.s. citizens on non-u.s. soil. it isn't a fisa reauthorization. >> americans can be swept up in that. >> they can. but again 702 deals with non-u.s. citizens on non-u.s. soil. that's a very different process. >> i just want to understand the case here. the case is that essentially that the problems of these specific agents working on this case for unenunciated reasons in your view had some motivation to materially omit this because they had an ax to gri

committee in december 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the foreign intelligence surveillance courthe dossier information. congressman, nowhere in your ten page memo to you and the other democrats were about that. >> congressman himes: that is true, but i was in the room. it devin nunes was not in the room when andrew mccabe was interviewed and i will tell you that he did not say that. he did not say that a fisa warrant would not have been requested but for the dossier information. >> chris: wedding you put that in your memo? >> congressman himes: because the transcript of our conversation was classified in the democratic memo -- this is important. the democratic memo on like a republican memo contained no additional classified information that was made public. i was in the room. andrew mccabe did not say that the fisa warrant would not have been sought. what he did say was that the warrant, the application itself, which of course went through all sorts of scrutiny that doj and then was scrutinized by a republican federal judge, that all of its pieces were important, but he absolute

democratic national committee's financing of the so-called dossier was represented to the foreign intelligence surveillance court? >> my understanding is the way it was presented, saying that, in fact, it was initially funded through a political organization is the way it's normally done. and that it's not appropriate to say what specific organization. i'll leave it to the experts but the experts say this was the appropriate professional way to conduct themselves. >> these memo feuds on the house side, i know you're in the senate, they're pretty intense. do you think they're distracted from the overall effort to safeguard elections in the united states? >> absolutely. the whole assault on the integrity of the fbi and mueller and the special investigation are all about derailing the effort to get to the facts, facts that are so important to understand how the russians intervened, who is responsible, who if anyone collaborated. we need to get a watchdog that says the russians can never do this again. we don't a watchdog in the oval office, we have a lap dog for russia and that's inappropriate. >> let's turn to the

court itself is going to be aware of the allegations. an there is an institution -- it is not the house intelligence committee. it is the foreign intelligence surveillance fact gets to decide whether the application submitted to the fisa court was or was not deficient or was or was not candid with the court. the court is now on notice and you could be -- be very confident that the justice department and the fbi whether bring this memo to its attention, to the extent it isn't aware of it already. and they -- we're going to find out -- i think relatively soon, whether the fisa court is outraged, like the congressmen were or whether they react more like james comey did, like, yeah, really? that is it. that is why you're defaming the fbi and attacking career officials? and so i think you have between -- between your outrage congressional guests and the former director's tweets, you have the poll of the discussion. polls of the discussion. and we have an institution that will tell us which is accurate and my bet is with the former director. >> i have to say, i want to read a mccain statement because he maybe gets at the root of the larger concern. latest att

probably a 50, 60, 70-page application by the justice department to the fisa court, the foreign intelligence surveillance court. i think one of the real questions here is how much of the steele dossier, how much of the controversial part of the nunes memo was actually relevant to the fisa court. was there corroborated information? was there loss of additional material that led to the court deciding that it had probable cause to believe carter page was an agent of a foreign power? that's why release of a memo, i think, is such a fraught proposition because it is only going to paint one very small slice of a larger and more complicated picture. >> well, we know from cnn reporting that it was not just the dossier that was used to get the fisa court. we know from our reporting that it was other information that was substantial and validated. so we do know that. mary ellen, to you, extraordinary statement, public statement that the fbi felt it needed to put out last night to publicly plead with the white house to not release the memo. quote, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally

have worked with the fisa-- or foreign intelligence surveillance court-- and says ofere is a "troublingakdown legal processes." what is that based on? the memo centers on secret surveillance of carter page, who was an advisor to then-candidate donald trump for some six months in 2016. republicans charge that the f.b.i. and d.o.j., including top officials james comey, rosenstein and andrew mccabe, got permission to spy on page based on flawed sourcewethat biased against trump, and that the agencies knew that and icd it. specly, the memo says that officials did not disclose that toe trump opposition research dossier puther by christopher steele was funded at one point by the democratic national committee and the hillary clinton campaign. another charge? that christopher steele himself was biased, telling a justice official in september of 2016 he was "desperate that donald trump t be elected." one more: that the justice official he told, a ohn named bruc himself had conflicts-- that his wife worked for the company behind the assier. th matters far beyond carter page, because republicans s

the relationship was concealed from the foreign intelligence surveillance court. this whole memo, dana, is painting a picture that everything that led up to the initiation of the russia investigation and ultimately the appointment of a special counsel sings on this unverified dossier which this memo suggests was unreliable, unverified and was corroborated in part through circular reporting that christopher steele, who compiled this dossier, fed information from it to news organizations then wrote a story about it. he said that's corroborating my very own dossier. so we're not sure where this is going to go legally, but politically it will be fodder for a fairly wide discussion here i think in washington. >> dana: indeed. we have a guest coming up on the show that does question what could happen legally, including something that might be welcome news to paul manafort. before i let you go, tell me, is the president saying anything about this? and i understand that former fbi director james comey has decided to weigh in. >> reporter: the president weighed in in the o

one of four people who in series signed requests to keep it going with the federal foreign intelligence surveillance court his role is not a central character in that drama. so for all those reasons it seems like although there was a great deal of in in him on friday, i think he's keeping his head down and i don't see any signs he's going anywhere. >> of course, seasoned prosecutors and formers u.s. intelligence officials say there's a relatively high bar to convince a fisa court to allow spying on americans. what evidence did it bring to the court. now much of that evidence is classified so we can't know for sure. but there's a new "time" magazine article that helps put some of the pieces together. saying carter page hit the u.s. intelligence radar back in 2013. that early. three years before he joined the trump campaign. the co-author of that article joins me now. "time" magazine's washington bureau chief. trump allies keep arguing that carter page is insignificant. that he's exaggerated his russian contacts. but tell us about the letter that "time" uncovered that purportedly is by carter page back from

these applications to the foreign intelligence surveillance court typically never come into public view it's going to have to be, depending on what the republicans and democrats say that it says. but it doesn't say what we do know from even the republican memo is it doesn't say much about the investigation of the president or much about the campaign. so i think we're going to have to wait for the end of the robert mueller investigation to know who is vindicated and who isn't. >> so this memo, to your thinking, pete, does it change the narrative at all of the investigation at this point? >> well, it certainly changes the narrative of the people who don't like it, who believe that robert mueller is going off in the wrong direction. there is this growing sense among some supporters of the president that there are people in the government out to get him. and it certainly seems to have given some fresh fertilizer to this narrative. i don't know that it changes the overall picture for the investigators. remember, the people doing this investigation were well aware of all the things that were

memo was made public challenging gop allegations of government abuse at the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court. >> our memo gives more of the complete facts. >> reporter: this is a direct rebuttal to house republicans' allegations of partisan bias when the justice department skz a fisa court to authorize surveillance on a former trump campaign aide, carter page. >> they're trying to put bob mueller on trial. >> reporter: democrats contend that they accurately told the fisa court that christopher steele was hired by politically motivated u.s. persons and his dossier was done to discredit trump's campaign. the president pounced. fbi did not disclose who the clients were. the clinton campaign and the dnc. wow! he denounced the democrats' memo as a total political and legal bust yet repeatedly told foxx news this. >> with all of that being said, we have to come together as a nation. >> reporter: and the president repeatedly said, let's come together. it seemed that was in the context of getting past the russia investigation. congressman adam schiff who's the top democrat on that panel who was in t