roy blunt, you're a member of the senate intelligence committee, senator.e just heard about andrew mccabe telling the house intelligence committee that contemporaneously james comey was fired by the president, had shared those sensitive words with him. what's your reaction to that? >> well, i'm not sure i know exactly the context that that discussion was held in, but we did have an open hearing on this. the former director said that he was asked for loyalty. then said he pledged loyalty at some level. it just sounded like on both sides of that conversation, it didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me but nobody -- i don't know that anybody is disputing that. i do know that mr. comey, three separate times, told the president he wasn't under investigation and on none of those times had the president asked him if he was. so here's the director of the fbi volunteering to the president-elect and then the new president on three different occasions, by the way, sir, you're not under investigation. i don't know why that was part of that discussion either. but, you

the staff of the house intelligence committee.ned today that the republican-led house intelligence committee which is supposed to be investigating trump and russia, they interviewed a character named felix sater two days ago, a key figure linking the trump business empire to russia. he's also got interesting organized crime ties that might make him a particularly juicy target for aggressive interrogation. for some reason the house intelligence committee decided they would do their interview with felix sater in new york with no members of congress present two days ago. now we've learned that today the house intelligence committee did another out of state interview today on the friday before christmas in new york. they interviewed a woman who has served as assistant to donald trump and a senior vice president at the trump organization for three decades. every e-mail, every phone call, every meeting, every piece of paper that has gone to or come from donald trump for 30 years has gone through the hands of rhona graf. that's what you

chair of the house intelligence committee saying that if the department of justice and the f.b.i. did not come forward and provide the information that they are requesting they could be facing charges of contempt and taken to court now at this point the intel committee the house intelligence committee wants information about what happened regarding the firing of an f.b.i. agent peter struck who was investigating donald trump there are rumors that he was fired because he had a clear bias against the president and was supporting hillary clinton now they've given december fourth monday as the deadline for when they are demanding that the f.b.i. comply and provide this information we have heard devon newness the chair of the house intelligence committee describing frustration with the department of justice and the f.b.i. saying they're stonewalling and holding back the investigation not providing the information that is needed by hiding from congress i'm from the american people documented political bias by a good investigator for both the russian collusion probe. investigation the f.

the summer repeatedly urged senior senate republicans, including the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, to end that committee's investigation into russia interference in the 2016 election. "the new york times" publishing this just a few minutes ago, that's according to half a dozen lawmakers and aides. so, again, this is just posted. we are just digging into this. i'll let you know what we're able to get from this new report in terms of whether we may be able to get in touch with one of these reporters, as well. there is actually a significant number of developments today in the robert mueller investigation and the special counsel investigation into russian interference in the election last year, and whether the trump campaign was involved in that. today, the trump campaign chairman, paul manafort, who has been charged in a 12-count felony indictment now, he appears today to have successfully negotiated a bail agreement with prosecutors. not all of the court filings related to the bail negotiations were unsealed today but based on what we can see, it appears that paul manafort will be

you're on the intelligence committee. i assume you read that lengthy article in the "washington post" today detailing president trump's refusal to accept evidence of russian interference in the u.s. presidential election. officials told the post that the president is daily briefing was structured to avoid upsetting him so they do not talk about that. what's your reaction? >> i think that's bizarre. these are the people the tax payers pay to get us up to date information with the respect to the challenges our country faces as far back as before the election in the fall of 2016. we basically knew that the russians are trying to interfere with the election. and somehow there is this relationship between the president and mr. putin, i don't begin to be able to psychoanalyze it, but somehow they support each other, even though we understand that the russians clearly have hostile interest. >> the washington post spoke with some administration officials who insist that despite the president's friendly rhetoric toward putin and t

clarification of the difference between the public statements versus what the letter to you from the intelligence committee said? >> so from what i understand, our legal team is discussing with the committee exactly what the focus of the search will be. so we're in the process of determining that and hope to begin doing that search in rning over documents within the next couple of weeks, certainly,'s fast as we possibly can. amy: glenn greenwald tweeted tuesday -- "click on 'jill stein' that's trending & you' see countless leading dems -- with large platforms - strongly implying if not outright stating she's a kremlin agent: all because of a congressional inquiry. they couldn't better replicate mccarthyism if they tried." glenn greenwald made a silar point last august on democracy now! >> to me, any of us who grew up in politics or came of age as an american in the 1960's or 1970's ,r 1980's or even the 1990's knows that central to american political discourse has always been trying to tie your political opponents to russia, to demonizing the kremlin as the ultimate evil, and then trying to insinuate that

so he's not the first, there have been a whole bunch of democrats on the respective intelligence committeesommittees, who have expressed alarm as well. >> right. but senator warner by giving this speech on the senate floor is elevating and escalating it what really has been a coordinated crescendo of criticism of bob mueller by conservatives and republicans. the reason he did this before the holidays, we're told, he told manu raju and other reporters he wanted to draw attention to this before the holiday season. he's worried that the president and some of his allies may indeed try to do something with the special counsel's office over this holiday break. there is going to be a two-week period or so the president is going to be down in mar-a-lago, where often things happen. i think what he's also doing is putting the spotlight on republicans, too, to get them to go on record and to be asked about this. because senator burr, the chairman of the intelligence committee, and senator warner, the vice chairman, who is a democrat, have conducted what is as close to a bipartisan coordinated systemat

we're hearing the president of the united states calling up the chairman of the senate intelligence committeeo get this investigation over with and calling members of the committee, calling mitch mcconnell repeatedly and angrily saying he wanted this investigation over with and shut down. is that happening on this house side? is here any evidence that the president is making similar phone calls to republican house members and republican house leadership? >> well, yesterday we saw clear evidence of this. an internal republican memo on the intelligence committee suggested that the department of justice should be held in contempt of court for not, you know, following the president's wishes and other wishes that they, you know, haul in witnesses related to some of these bogus claims and after that memo was leaked within hours, the president was tweeting about it. so that shows some degree of coordination and of course, the chairman of our committee is recused because he's been working hand and hand with the white house. from every level of congressional or criminal investigation from asking james

she, excuse me, intelligence committee. i'm on a intelligence subcommittee on homeland security. i'm on the crime and terrorism subcommittee. we know when these investigations begin. we know that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. we are not in any way, wishing to push an investigation beyond its life. beyond its final report. and so what speaker ryan should be responding is thank you, leader pelosi, you can be assure ed that they have my commitment to the committee and to the leadership of the committee. democrats and republicans. that we will allow them to finish their legitimate work. there's no men of congress whomts to make weaste. who wants to waste time investigating and getting nothing from it. but we feel the atmosphere. we question theed for six hours yesterday, deputy director mccabe. it was a confidential meet k, but it was driven by republicans. they don't want to discuss anything dealing with, this is on judiciary, the idea of the russian interference with elections or the b obstruction of justice. but they wanted to probe mr. kab on his wife's running for

that was the house intelligence committee. then it went to the house oversight committee. they decided they'd look into a very specific part of it. they'd look specifically into mike flynn's payments from foreign sources. and despite their very narrow focus on just that piece of it, the house oversight committee appears to have stumbled on to something unexpectedly rich. their inquiries turned up the news that mike flynn had apparently not disclosed his foreign payments from russia even though he had been told explicitly and in wting that he needed to do that. the department of defense inspector general's office announced that they had start add independent investigation of mike flynn. the white house remarkably -- remarkably refused to hand over any documents to the house oversight committee about mike flynn. they would not hand over a single document, a single piece of paper about mike flynn. and that's a -- an important stonewall there. and the democrats on that committee reacted the way you'd expect. they were not happy with that refusal. democrats on that committee sa

intelligence committee is different than other committees in congress. u're allowed access to sensitive and secret information, you have special procedures and physical facilities for handling information. you work closely with the intelligence community and various agencies and members of the intelligence committee, being a member comes with extra prestige because of that, entrusted with that high level information. are members of the committee allowed to take materials, including the classified materials that you obtained for the purposes of the russia investigation and instead secretly start using them for something else entirely that they do without informing the rest of you? >> well, you certainly can't take any classified materials outside of the scif, the classified space, unless specific procedures in place and taking to another classified setting and done following specific procetocols. and you can't take them from committee and share with members of the other committees. we have to have a vote whether to allow other committee members to come int

up next, james comey's own account and hear from a member of the house intelligence committee. later tell you about the vice president's surprise visit to honor troops in afghanistan and ongoing effort to honor his boss profusely when "360" continues. the great emperor penguin migration. trekking a hundred miles inland to their breeding grounds. except for these two fellows. this time next year, we're gonna be sitting on an egg. i think we're getting close! make a u-turn... u-turn? recalculating... man, we are never gonna breed. just give it a second. you will arrive in 92 days. nah, nuh-uh. nope, nope, nope. you know who i'm gonna follow? my instincts. as long as gps can still get you lost, you can count on geico saving folks money. i'm breeding, man. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. at t-mobile when you holiday twogether, great things come in two's. like t-mobile and netflix. right now when you get an unlimited family plan, netflix is included. wow t-mobile covers your netflix subscription, so you can catch the hottest new movies and sh

born to move. >>> yesterday the intelligence committee released a transcript of eric prince's testimonye that committee. before yesterday, that had only happened once before in this investigation, with carter page. why do we get transcripts from eric prince and carter page but not from anybody else who's testified? last night adam schiff, top democrat on the intelligence, told us this is by design. a unilateral decision by the republicans who for whatever reason want page and prince's testimony made public and nobody else's. the only other transcript we have been promised all this time is that of glenn simpson, the co-founder of fusion gps, the firm that hired christopher steele to put together the famous trump/russia dossier. in august he spent ten hours testifying to the senate judiciary committee and then fusion gps said it stood behind the dossier and happy to see simpson's testimony released to the public. we could get ten hours worth of testimony about whether the dossier is true or not and why glenn simpson says there is. there's a ton of interest on all sides of what he told the

when comey testified before the senate intelligence committee he said he told senior leadership about this. he didn't say he told mccabe about it. this is the first time we're hearing that mccabe could be contemporary witness disputing the president's account if special counsel robert mueller decides to look into this further, look into the firing of james comey, perhaps ask mccabe his impression, because according to mccabe, comey told him about this at the time. could be a contemporaneous witness. >> what could you tell us about mccabe's relationship with republicans? >> reporter: number of republicans have been critical of mccabe, don't believe he's necessarily been a fair arbiter at fbi and particularly don't like the way the e-mail investigation was handled, the clinton investigation. and that's one reason why he was brought behind closed doors before two house committees today. he just left today, wolf, after spending nine hours behind closed doors. second testimony this week. in large part asked about the clinton e-mail investigation. what i'm told from republicans who left the

this hour i'll talk a democrat on the senate intelligence committee. and our correspondents and specialists are also standing by. first let's go to our cnn white house correspondent jim acosta. jim, the president may be hoping tax cuts may help ease the pain of that loss in alabama. >> reporter: he certainly hopes so. the president tried to change, but after roy moore's stunning depeat, even the president's only allies agree the president is weakened. one source described it as a quote, earthquake that is devastate frg the president. but that's hardly the only tv drama around the white house these days especially in the last 24 hours. trying to steer a wounded republican party back on message president trump touted the gop's tax plan that appears to be on its way to final passage. >> our current tax code is burdensome, complex and profoundly unfair. if has exported our jobs, closed our factories and left millions of parents worried that their children might be the first generation to have less opportunity than the last. >> reporter: the gop plan is exp

today spent eight hours testifying on capitol hill to the house intelligence committee. on't know what he told the committee behind closed of that trump jr. testimony will ever be released. but already democrats who were inside that room today for the testimony are claiming that mr. trump jr. not willing to discuss conversations between him and his father when the president drafted the initial misleading statement aboard air force one to describe the june 2016 trump tower meeting by his son, son-in-law and campaign chairman along with a ga zillion russians. whether donald trump jr.'s unwillingness to answer the questions about that, whether that bothered members of the committee at all, well, that depends on which one you asked. >> do you feel like he was able to answer all the questions about the trump tower meeting, his communications with his father -- >> as i said, my answer's no different. he answered the questions. >> when he answered the question, in detail or -- >> he answered the question. he answered our questions. >> as to this very central conversation between

he's on the house intelligence committee. n, yesterday your colleague, the top democrat on your committee, congressman adam schiff, joined me here in "the situation room" and he explained his deep fears that republicans will shut down your committee's entire investigation into the russia probe and eventually take aim at the special counsel's investigation as well. do you share those fears? >> i do. and those are two separate things. you know, as adam i think probably told you on monday, we have three witness depositions scheduled in such a way that the various investigators will be spread thin across three different interviews. many of the interviews or some of the interviews have been conducted without our having the documents that we have requested. there have -- there are probably ten-plus witnesses that we've requested to speak to, people who would potentially have knowledge of the topics we're investigating that have not yet been scheduled. yeah, i'm terribly concerned. in concert with the president, not just the presiden

even if the house intelligence committees investigation was shut down, that doesn't affect mueller. mueller's investigation will continue -- >> right. >> -- as a criminal investigation, and i am not sure it would be such a bad thing. i honestly can't figure out what value the house intelligence committee's investigation, quote, unquote -- there are people on there that are commendable, but you have this whole thing, devin nunez and others doing their private thing. it's really confusing a lot of the issues, i think, and not providing clarity for the american public which would be the goal of it. we do know there's another senate intelligence committee that is going more on track, so i don't know even if they did shut that down it would be necessarily a huge loss. >> i think those committees, as manu would say, would beg to differ. have a good holiday. >>> and benjamin netanyahu reacts to the united nations on president trump's israel move. >> we're now talking to several countries who are seriously considering now saying exactly the same thing as the united states, and moving their

lawmakers on the house intelligence committee want information from the f.b.i. and if they don't get it there could be criminal charges for contempt now at this point what the committee wants to find out is why top f.b.i. investigator who was looking into trump in the allegations of russian collusion and such they want to know why he was fired now reports seem to indicate that he was fired for an anti trump an anti republican bias that can committee has set monday as the day that they want to know they want testimony and they want answers from the f.b.i. this is devon noone is the chair of the house intelligence committee explaining their frustration. by hiding from congress i'm from the american people documented political bias by a key head investigates for both the russian collusion probe the clinton investigation the f.b.i. and the do you engage in a willful attempt to thwart congress's constitutional oversight responsibility so if information is not provided with monday being the deadline it appears that legal action could be taken against the department of

to keep revealing additional evidence, additional facts, so i really hope that the house committee on intelligence does not shut down. >> there is a lot of concern, including adam schiff, your california colleague, who is the ranking democrat on that committee, because nothing so far is scheduled for next year. they're wrapping things up right now. let's see what happens on that front. does your committee, congressman, the judiciary committee, want to interview rowena graff as well? >> i would be happy to interview her. i do know that we did have a confidential interview of andrew mccabe yesterday with the fbi and i would be happy for he came back in an open public hearing because i think america would like to know what he said. >> because cnn has learned that andrew mccabe, the deputy director of the fbi, is one of the people who were briefed contemporaneously by the fired fbi director james comey after his conversations with president trump. you're on that judiciary committee. as you correctly point out, mccabe appeared there this week. he appeared before other committees behind closed doris as

alice stew to tell the house intelligence committee about conversations he had with his father over the now infamous president trump tower meeting. >> senatorial franken expected to make an announcement this morning. >> firefighters racing against time in california. all of los angeles county under extreme fire danger warning. good morning everyone welcome to "early start." . >> good morning. it's thursday december 7. 1:00 in california. up first, eight grueling hours of testimony from donald trump jr., but it's what the president's son refusing to tell house members that is what's getting all the attention. the main focus of wednesday's close the door session, a june 2016 meeting at trump tower between don jr. and a russian lawyer designed to get dirt on hillary clinton. >> house spregters pressed him about his father's knowledge of that meeting but he refused to tell them what he and his dad discussed citing attorney/client privilege. president trump did participate crafting his son's initial response toe reports of that meeting. that statement turned out to be misleading suggesting i

i stand here is a vice-chairman of the intelligence committee. we are in the middle of our own investigation and i'm proud of the way chairman burn our committee have taken on this very difficult task. we've made tremendous progress uncovering the facts of russian interference in the elections. the committee's work helped exposed the dark underbelly. we have looked at the full accounting to target our state electoral systems. and despite the initial denials of any russian context or the election, the committee's efforts help uncover numerous in trouble high-level engagements between the trump campaign and russian affiliates. many of which have only been revealed in recent months. we have a lot of work to do. our committee has gone out of its way to ensure bipartisan backing. committed to seeing the effort through. however, it should be clear that our committee cannot and will not stand as a substitute for mr. mueller's investigation. as noted on numerous occasions, the fbi is responsible for determining criminal activities related to this inquiry

announcer: now the house intelligence committee considers legislation to reauthorize section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. that allows the intelligence community to access communications of non-us persons outside the u.s.. this is an hour and 15 minutes. assified matters. rrsuant to committee ules, the chair announces he may postpone ing any measure or adopting an amendment on which a recording a vote is ordered. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at anytime. item for consideration today is fisa act. >> to amend the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978, to improve foreign intelligence collection and the safeguard of accountability and oversight of acquisition of foreign intelligence to extend title vii of such acts and other purposes. i ask the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. without objection, so ordered. today, the committee will consider the fisa reauthorization act that will renew section 702. the committee held an in-depth discussion and adopted numerous ideas based on those efforts.we drew upo

intelligence act. this committee meeting is an hour and 15 minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the committee will come to order. the permanent committee on intelligence is pleased to be out in the public for a rather appearance. to our guests in the audience, welcome. we appreciate you being here. proper decorum must be maintained at all times and we're here and in open session. this markup will address only unclassified matters pursuant to committee rule 6-c and clause 2 subsection h4. the chairman mri conclude any on adopted member for recorded votes or yea's and nays, authorized to declare a recess at anytime. item hr-4478 fisa amendment's reauthorization act of 2017 and the clerk will designate the bill. >> hr-4478, to improve foreign ip -- intelligence collection, and foreign intelligence to extend title 7 of such act and for other purposes. >> consent the bill be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. without object

it says, the white house has been cooperative with the senate intelligence committee's inquiry and the president is at no point has attempted to apply undue influence on committee members. he has reiterated what he has long said publicly, there is no evidence of collusion and these investigations must be -- must come to a fair and appropriate completion. it's interesting, he said, he said, there is no evidence of collusion. he didn't say there was no collusion. what do you think of that, david axelrod? >> you know, he has been saying -- he's been pushing for some time for these hearings to come to an end, so, the fact that he had privacy conversations about it adds a little coloration to this. the question seems resistant to that notion. and you know, we should keep in mind, every donald trump sees this entire thing through his own prism, understandably. the fact is, the russians, they invaded our democracy. they were seriously, seriously involved in tampering with the election process. you know, we know that they hacked. everybody seems to agree on that. you know, we know all of these

congressman adam schiff on the intelligence committee spoke with reporters after donald trump jr.'s eight hours of testimony today and revealed that he refused to answer questions about his conversations with his father about that trump tower meeting with those russians. >> he acknowledged having discussed the june 9th meeting and the e-mails that went into establishing that meeting after those e-mails became public. he acknowledged discussing that matter with his father. but refused to answer questions about that discussion on the basis of claim of attorney/client privilege. in my view, there is no attorney/client privilege that protects a discussion between father and son. >> who's the attorney and who's the client in that construction? >> well, the claim of privilege is that at a time when father and son were discussing the june 9th meeting and the e-mail that is led up to it, they had the discussion in the presence of counsel. the presence of counsel, though, does not mean communications between father and son are privileged. i did not ask them to relate any communications that

>> congressman, we have agreed to provide all the relevant documentation to intelligence committee. i haven't seen it all at all, sm not going to answer. >> so, during the questioning, he pretty thoroughly laid out the number of people on mr. miller's team who have financial donations to democrats, the clinton and obama campaigns, i mean i think over half of the team donated to either clinton or obama. none of them donated to trump. either mr. mueller was curating a university of people that hate the president or it's just one hell of a coincidence that a whole lot of people have demonstrated wh why is that we learhe is feelingmore and more . so, you've answered the question by saying people have personal opinions, but that doesn't always influence action. the action is your responsibility to make sure that it's not infected by tobias and i would proffer that when he goes and changes the wording from gross negligence of crime to extremely careless, but isn't a belief, that is an action. wwe can't find outcome you want to tell us whether or not the money was used to go and buy the do