mr. guiliani say, it's not a big deal, no one was killed. not the standard for the president of the united states in terms of complying with the law or all of these people around him. if it were, we wouldn't have bank fraud prosecutions, money laundering, all sorts of other issues. what we have is a law that is central to our election system, to our democracy that requires full disclosure of campaign spending, prohibits corporate money from being given to a candidate. >> brennan: that's where the ami disclosure matters. >> correct. the owners of the national inquirer who agreed, apparently in a meeting with candidate trump to use their corporate money to buy the story and prevent the american public from knowing about it right in the middle of the run-off to the general election. >> brennan: the president's attorney, rudy guiliani, says none of this really is illegal because it wasn't direct campaign finance money. these were private payments. >> well, they were private payments, it turns out they were by a corporation or by mr. cohen in amo

mr. guiliani, totally kosher. cnn's kaitlan collins at the white house. while guiliani was saying this, his client, the president was making some false assertions about the fbi raid on michael cohen's office. >> yeah. and the president's eyes, the fbi broke into michael cohen's office and in everyone else's eyes they legally entered to perform an authorized search with even michael cohen, whose office was the one being raided, saying that the agents who did the search were both professional and courteous. but that doesn't matter to the president, because what he is doing is trying to undermine and discredit the many investigations that are now surrounding him. ♪ as the cloud of the russia investigation grows darker, president trump is remaining calm in public. >> but i think it's going to be a really exciting year. >> reporter: but out of view, making clear, he's starting to feel boxed in. launching a fresh barrage of attacks on the special counsel. tweeting nine times about the russia investigation this weekend, claiming it has nothing to do with collusio

mr. guiliani is dead wrong. and mr. mueller is going to establish that. >> congressman, do you have any direct evidence as we speak right now that the president personally conspired with a hostile power, namely russia, to try to interfere in the u.s. elections set to his benefit? >> well, we know a whole bunch of data points. we know about a meeting at the trump tower with russian operatives. we know they lied about that meeting. that they changed the real subject of that meeting. that they finally had to admit it happened. we know of now 38 indictments or pleas. we know about multiple contacts between members of the trump campaign and russian operatives. we know about the release of e-mails and the contacts between roger stone and wikileaks. i think the special counsel is putting these pieces together, point by point, and i expect when he has his final report to deliver to us, we'll have the opportunity to read it and determine what action is necessary. but there's a lot of information out there about contacts between

mr. guiliani there. mr. iliani insists despite the reference to political synergy in the cohen filing that mr. cohen acted on his own. the president's legal team and manafort's legal team have joint defense agreement. mr. trump's team says that mr. manafort's attorney assures them when it comes to the redacted section, the beginning and end of the redacted section have nothing to do with the president. kristin. kristin: ellison barber live at the white house. thanks. >> you bet. leland: former fbi director james comey says that g.o.p. lawmakers came up yet empty yesterday after grilling him behind closed doors on hillary clinton's e-mails. we don't know exactly what questions were asked or how comey answered, and we won't know until the transcripts are released which is expected to happen later today. >> two things are clear to me, one, we could have done this in open setting and two, when you read transcript you will see that we are talking again about hillary clinton's e-mails, for heaven's sake so i'm not

guiliani slide that in there? >> like it's the washington -- >> the press. >> it's not. i'm totally with david on that. >> no less a person than mrrector of the cia said very explicitly that wikileaks was not a journalistic outfit, was essentially an or began of the -- organ of the russian government so the status the legal status of wikileaks is very much an open question, which may change the first amendment analysis of wikileaks role in these disclosures as well. >> jeffrey, buffer climbed in there i was going to ask you, do you think rudy guiliani is serving his client well? it seems not a day goes by or days go by where he does something that makes us all scratch our heads, he just contradicted himself, what is he talking about? >> i had spoken to him at great lengths. i have written about him. i always feel a littdhul -- churlish. it is sometimes hard to see the point of these disclosures are because just keeping the story in the news telling a new version of the facts a new version of the president's legal position, it's hard to know what value that, sir. >> i think one role that guiliani plays in all of this is putting id