let's go to cnn's jessica snyder. jessica, what are you learning? >> you know, wolf, we're learning general michael flynn pet met with turkish officials at the same time he was at rallies with then candidate trump and advising the campaign. the white house, though, taking a hands-off approach saying they never knew flynn was a foreign agent even though the documents show they should have. tonight the white house saying president trump had no idea when he chose his first national security advisor that lieutenant general michael flynn had been a paid lobbyist for turkish concerns at the height of the campaign and through election day. but a source tells cnn white house counsel was well aware both before the inauguration and after general flynn was named national security advisor that his company was planning to file a foreign agent disclosure form. >> he didn't file until two days ago so therefore nobody would have known that because he hadn't filed as a foreign agent until two days ago. >> reporter: a senior administration official confirming that fl

cnn's jessica snyder has been tracking that story for us. jessica, what are you learning? >> reporter: you know, wolf, justice officials pointing squarely at the russians today warning they will not tolerate state sponsored cyber attacks. this is the first time russian officials have ever been charged with a cyber hacking crime but the u.s. government. the fbi says these two men are russian spies and tonight they are wanted for pulling off one of the largest cyber thefts in u.s. history, accuse of stealing personal and financial information from more than.500 million yahoo! users. the russian intelligence officers were indicted today for a breach of the u.s. government says stretched over two years in both the u.s. and russia. >> the department of justice is continuing to send a powerful message that we will not allow individuals, groups, nation states, or a combination of them to compromise the privacy of our citizens. >> reporter: the fbi said some of the hacked yahoo! accounts belong to u.s. government officials as well as to employees of a u.s. airline. yahoo! which ha

joining me now is cnn correspondent jessica snyder. t appears the white house continues to distance itself from general flynn. just hours after vice-president mike pence said that the president made the right decision to fire flynn, what more can you tell us? >> yeah, the white house, jim, taking a hands off approach here. in fact, spokesman sean spicer specifically stating this afternoon the president didn't know general michael flynn as the head of his company was acting as a foreign agent, but a source does tell me that white house counsel did know both before the inauguration and right when he was named national security advisor. in fact, democrat elijah cummings on the house oversight committee sent a letter to vp pence on november 18 after the election raising issues of conflicts of interest even though pence now saying he was just made aware this week. of course, the potential problem here is that members of flynn's consulting company secured meetings with turkish officials in mid september at the height of the campaign and secur

jessica snyder, cnn, washington. >> the sudden firings raise questions. whether the trump administration believes its agenda is being compromised by career civil servants. this is sometimes referred to as the deep state. the white house press secretary sean spicer was asked specifically about it at his briefing on friday. >> does the white house believe there's such a thing as the deep state that's actively working to undermine the president? >> well i think that there's no question when you have eight years of one party in office that there are people stay in government, affiliated with, you know, joined and continue to espouse the agrenda of the previous administration. so i don't think it should come as any surprise that there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and, you know, may have believed in that agenda and want to continue to seek it. i don't think that should come as a surprise to anyone. >> more on that in a moment. we have details on the former trump's national security adviser. the white hou

cnn's jessica snyder is live in washington for us. jessica, democrats had some more pointed questions today than one would regularly typically expect for a deputy attorney general nominee. >> jake, this would typically be a low-khelil notice confirmation hearing for the number two spot at the justice department. well, instead it was a fire works filled tense showdown over what to do about russia's election meddling and the president's own wiretapping allegations. russia and wiretapping dominating what would normally be a routine confirmation hearing. deputy attorney general nominee rod rosenstein today confronting lingering anger toward attorney general jeff sessions. >> i think senator sessions should come back. i think he owes it to this committee to come back and to explain himself. >> reporter: senator franken still stewing after a.g. sessions told trump he was not aware of contacts with russia. >> i consider what senator franken asked sessions at that late moment that that story just came out as a gotcha question. >> it was not a

jessica snyder reporting. some more on all of this with democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut. he's a member of the intelligence committee. congressman, thanks for joining us. >> hi, wolf. >> your colleague on the house intelligence committee, the ranking member adam schiff, he said earlier today that he's been presented with what he described as new evidence on the trump campaign's ties to russia that could merit a grand jury investigation. do you know what he's talking about? >> well, the ranking member and the chairman and the leadership of the two houses here in congress are part of a group that is known as the gang of eight and the gang of eight are a group of people with whom the intelligence community and law enforcement share particularly sensitive information. so, i think that that is what adam was talking about because the rest of the members of the committee have yet to see this piece of evidence. i will tell you that, you know, congressman schiff is a former prosecutor, a very, very caref

we want to bring in jessica snyder. said these are countries that don't vet well enough. >> secretary kelly saying this is ensuring proper vetting. right now on the list, syria, sudan, libya, somalia, iran and yemen. travelers from those countries will be blocked from obtaining visas for about 90 days, and iraq, though, notably, no longer on the list. that removial was the result of the highest negotiateings. so the question is, what happens next? homeland security secretary, john kelly, said more countries could soon appear on the list but wouldn't elaborate which ones. >> there's a number of them out there, and i don't want to speculate. probably 13 or 14 other countries, and not all of them muslim countries and not all of them in the middle east that have very questionable vetting procedures that we can rely on, and if we overlay additional vetting procedures, the chances are those countries, there will be minimum citizens from there visiting our country. >> he is stressing it's all about the vetting. what is the dif

cnn's jessica snyder is following it all for us. jessica, what are you seeing?a lot leading to the travel ban version 2.0. the question in all of this that's looming, will any federal judge step in as they did last time, that seattle judge, to halt president trump's revised executive order or will these judges let the ban take effect? the trump administration is fighting hard to say this order is very different and therefore legal. they're citing several instances, saying the ban doesn't apply to visa holders or green card holders. there is no indefinite ban on refugees, just a 120-day ban. in addition, the order no longer prioritizes religious minorities and there is a provision that people can object and be heard. the trump says that's all enough to pass constitutional muster. but civil rights groups around the country say, wait a minute, this is still intended to ban muslims and that's why the courts should stop it. we'll see, john, what action these federal judges might take if any. as you mentioned, that seattle judge having a hearing again in another case.

with me now is jessica snyder and laura coates. jessica, you have new reporting about the u.s. attorneys fired tonight. the issue here is how this request was handled. what are your sources telling you? >> the people i spoke with, they're really flabbergasted that it happened suddenly and abre abru abruptly. we are learning how this all went down. it was acting attorney general dana boente. he was working the phone, trying to get the word out. and suddenly, the media reports got out. a press release from the department of justice itself. and that's how some of the u.s. attorneys found out they would be asked for their resignation. this was very abrupt and really, they were given just a few hours to clean out their desks and get out. what's also interesting about this, don, is that we understand many u.s. attorneys had asked the administration where they stood. would they be fired at some point? would they be asked to stay on? and throughout the past few week, since the administration took effect, silence. they asked for it. they got none. >> as jessica is reporting it isn't tha

let's go to jessica snyder on more of the president's wiretap claims and the fbi response. jessica, tonight members of both parties are asking the white house where is the proof? >> yeah, wolf. that's right. it's bipartisan bewilderment. they haven't seen any evidence to back the wiretapping claim from the president. it's the fbi making the public push for clarification. >> reporter: tonight fbi officials are demanding a flat-out denial from the justice department but not yet getting one, this after president trump went on a twitter tirade, tweeting just found out president obama tapped in i phones in trump tower. bad or sick guy. sources tell cnn the fbi asked the doj to refute the claim because as a matter of law, the president cannot unilaterally allow eavesdropping of a president's phone only the congress. >> the process to attempt a fisa process, involves operational and senior leadership review both within the requesting agency and the department of justice and ultimately the court. >> reporter: so far the justice department isn't commenting on trump's twitter accusati

for that let's go book to the hill and cnn's jessica snyder, what details did the senate lay out about their investigations because their meetings are going to be behind closed doors? >> reporter: they are, anderson, but the intelligence committee moving full steam ahead on this, the chairman saying he has a full staff already knee deep in these documents and senators burr and warner, they also say they have 20 witnesses they want to interview, they have set up interview weather fiiew with fi. we know that former trump campaign manager, paul manafort, he has agreed to talk to the committee and jared kushner has oft offered the same. and those -- he met with that state run russian bank, back in the summer at the height of the transition, the senator saying they're pleased that jared kushner has made that offer, and then of course there's the issue of general michael flynn, it was talked about a little bit at the press conference, however i did talk to general flynn's lawyers, his lawyers say they have spoken to the committee, flynn has not spoken to the committee. but at the same time,

joining us is jessica snyder.took great paps to rewrite the executive order and both judges are saying it's the president's own campaign statements that gave them pause. >> a majority of opinions went into pain staking detail about the comments president trump and his team made specifically referring to their plans for a muslim ban. both judgeses cited then candidate trump's interview here on cnn with you where he said i think islam hates us and he referred to a press release calling for a complete and shut down of muslims enter the u.s. they said those statements coupled with white house senior adviser steven miller's tv appearance when they were rewriting the order when he said the new order would have the same policies of the old. all of that made it clear that the intent all along was to ban muslims from entering the u.s. anderson, an interesting note, the mareland judge said the world is not made brand-new every morning and reasonable observers have reasonable memory. the administration can try to rewrite it,

jessica snyder has details. >> reporter: a secret service source tells cnn video surveillance shows 26ar-old jonathan tran hopped a fence to the grounds at the northwest corner by the treasury building and jump a gate and walked along the driveway. he set off several alarms but continue td continued undetected. he moved around to the south side of the white house through the first ladies garden. he was finally caught at the entrance to the residence just below the president's bedroom. president trump was inside the residence grchlt sh there were multiple failures of the security system, whether it was the physical security of the fencing, the technological secure means and the human capitol means. >> reporter: the source says he was seen looming around pennsylvania avenue almost six hours before he was arrested. this is not the first time this video showing a previous security breach in 2014 when a 42-year-old iraq war veteran armed with a knife made it all the way inside the white house, into the east room before being tackled, just 29 seconds after he jumped the fence. the day after

jessica snyder live on capitol hill, we just talked to senator angus king and the kmejs kmeed.said obviously if this was true it would mean general flynn has something very important to say. what exactly is he saying? >> reporter: well, his lawyers are talking now, erin. he just reached that statement. i actually talked to them yesterday. interestingly, the lawyers told me that they themselves, not general flynn, had in fact been talking to the house senate zbejs kmeelgts. so now it's coming out that he may have something to say. they're saying that general flynn certainly has a story to tell and he very much wants to tell it. should the circumstances permit. however, the lawyer not exactly commenting on these reports that general flynn will in fact testify before the committees saying that out of respect for the committees we will not kmenltd right now. then at the end of this statement a little bit of double talk as well. saying that no reasonable person who had the benefit of advice from counsel would submit to questioning in sauch highly pli politicized witch hunt environme

seeing as jessica snyder is looking into all of this for us. this hearing is supposed to take place i take it behind closed doors. >> that's right, wolf. the chairman richard burr saying that the testimony will be private interview but likely under oath. of course on the list of likely questions, why did jared kushner take a meeting with the chair of state-run russian bank at the height of the transition? >> jared kushner met with this russian banker during the transition. sergey gor cough is the chairman of veb bank and has deep ties to russian government. gore cough was appointed to his job by vladimir putin. kushner met with him in december 2016. but insists this was all part of kushner's transition duties. jared attended the meeting in his capacity as transition official. nothing of substance was discussed. there was no follow-up. but the bank says executives met with kushner as part of a road show of business meetings in 2016. exposing that gore cough met with a number of representative accident tifs from a number of the banks circles in t

jessica snyder has details. >> reporter: a secret service source tells cnn video surveillance shows 26-year-old jonathan tran hopped a fence to the grounds at the northwest corner by the treasury building then crossed east executive aif. he jumped a gate year an unmanned guard post and walked along the driveway. tran set off several alarms but continued undetected. sources say some of the alarms may have failed. then tran moved around to the south side of the white house, through the first lady's garden. he went undetected on the south side grounds for more than 16 minutes before finally being caught at the entrance to the residence just below the president's bedroom. president trump was inside the residence. >> there were multiple failures of the security system. whether it was the physical security of the fencing, the technological security means, and the human capital means. this absolutely should not have happened. >> reporter: the source says tran was observed looming around pennsylvania avenue as early as 6:00 p.m., almost six hours before he was arrested. >> go back, everybody i

jessica snyder reporting for us. coming up, the new republican health care plan is facing some headwinds, including from inside the republican party. we'll ask the chief deputy republican whip how he plans to get his members all on the same page as the bill makes its way through the house. >>> also, take a look at this live pictures from the white house briefing room where the press secretary sean spicer getting ready to give his first oncamera briefing in more than a week. we'll go there live once it begins. across new york state, from long island to buffalo, from rochester to the hudson valley, from albany to utica, creative business incentives, infrastructure investment, university partnerships, and the lowest taxes in decades are creating a stronger economy and the right environment in new york state for business to thrive. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today at esd.ny.gov it's realizing beauty doesn't stop at my chin. roc®'s formula adapts to delicate skin areas. my fine lines here? visibly reduced