and, john carlin.served as assistant attorney general for national security from 2014 until october of last year. he's now an attorney in private practice. and let's start with their first meeting on january 6, at trump tower in new york. and, matt, we're going-- i'm going to ask both of you right now about this. to set a little background. it was new york city, james comey was meeting the president for the first time. he showed up at trump tower to meet the president's national security team, and then privately, he and the president-elect then had a one-on-one session where comey shared with mr. trump information-- he called it sensitive information of a salacious nature that had been gathered as part of the russia investigation. so with that background, here is what james comey goes on to say. they had a meeting-- here are some specifics now. beginning with a dinner at the white house three weeks later-- now, this is january 27, after mr. trump is president. on that day, the president invited comey o

john carlin served as assistant attorney general for national security at the department of justice from 2014 until october of last year. and carrie cordero served in the justice department under presidents george w. bush and obama, where she worked on matters of national security. let's take a closer look now at some of the revelations from today's hearing, beginning with what comey said he couldn't answer publicly. it starts with a question from committee chairman, senator burr. >> in the public domain is this question of the "steel dossier," a document that has been around out in for over a year. i'm not sure when the f.b.i. first took possession of it, but the media had it before you had it and we had it. at the time of your departure from the fbi, was the f.b.i. able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the steel document? >> mr. chairman, i don't think that's a question i can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the investigation. >> and when you read the dossier, what was your reaction, given that it was 100% directed at the president-elect? >>

in the meantime, joining us write now is john carlin, former assistant attorney general for the u.s.tment of justice's national security division. he's a partner at law firm morrisson and for rester where he claires the firm's global risk and crisis management team and he's a cnbc contributor. john thank you for being here this morning. >> thank you. >> we have seen three attacks in london in as many months and we're being told that these attacks inspire additional attacks so that leaves us with the question with what can they do at this point? >> well, this is the most difficult, at least as it looks now, type of attack to prevent. and that is individuals who are inspired by the cause of the islamic state but actually are home grown that live inside their country. i remember now acting director of the fbi andrew mccabe last year at a cnbc aspen conference on cyber summit saying that that was the issue that keeps him up at night. and really the only way to prevent it is to have excellent intelligence which means getting the support and help from the communities where these folks are

. >>> let's bring in now chris sweker, former fbi assistant direct r and john carlin, former attorneyeneral for the u.s. department of justices national security division. john, many headlines coming out of the comey hearing but perhaps only one thing ultimately matters. in your opinion, did the former fbi director say anything that could imply the president might be investigated or even indicted for obstruction of justice into an fbi investigation? >> so i think what you have to realize is what obstruction mean. so the definition of obstruction of justice is that someone with corrupt intent decides to interfere or impede an election. and what we have here is testimony that the president of the united states had a private meeting with the director of the fbi and that in the private meeting with the director of the fbi he pressured him to drop the investigation of michael flynn. then there's testimony about a lot of other surrounding circumstances. so at the end of day, this isn't probably going to be a decision that's ever decided by a criminal prosecutor because there's -- department

let's bring in john carlin, chairman of the aspen institute cybersecurity and technology program and also partner at marison and forrester. good to have you with us eamon mentioned the possibility that this is a ransomware attack what do we know or what can you from your experience surmise about the kind of attack this is and the possible origin of it? >> look, this is another reminder that the era of cyber insecurity is here and if you're a business -- and every business these days is a tech business -- you are vulnerable ransomware is a global plague. and as eamon says, it's extraordinarily well funded because many companies are not prepared when a cyberattacker goes into their system, encrypts data or steals data and threatens to release it. and because they're not otherwise prepared to get their business up and running, they feel they have no choice but to pay. >> but your presumption is that this is a ransomware attack. where do most of these attacks originate? can you make any -- draw any conclusion from your experience as to who may be behind it >> now, let's divide that into