more from cnn's pamela brown at the white house. >> reporter: good morning, christine and dave.he house has approved the democrats memo to come to the white house. now it is up to the president whether he will declassify it. it was a test of transparency considering the justification releasing the nunes memo from the white house was transparency. it will be interesting to see how the white house handles this now it has the democrats memo. white house officials say the democrats memo will go through the same process as the republicans memo. it will be scrubbed. it will be reviewed by white house lawyers. the question is will there by any redactions? the republicans made changes from the fbi input before that memo came to the white house. adam schiff, the ranking democrat in the house intelligence committee, came out and said he is concerned the white house will redact part of the memo for political purposes. it remains to be seen what will happen. the president has five days to review the memo and make the decision on whether or not to declassify it. back to you. >> pamela brown,

john. >> pamela brown at the white house for us tonight. pamela, thanks so much.el haden. thanks for being with us. president trump has been reluctant in the past to admit russia has admitted in the election. barely done it at all. now the administration claiming they have warned russians including vladimir putin not to interfere in the 2018 election. how significant is this? >> first of all, to the degree that is true, that is really good news. but frankly i don't think the administration, here i don't think i'm being hyper critical, i don't think the administration has earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of russian meddling in american response to it. so i'd like to learn an awful lot more about this. fran frankly, john, within the last week, both the president and vice president russian meddling had absolutely no effect on the american election of that year. which is not i think a good premise to begin with. if you want to go back now and threaten the russians about future intervention. >> also not the findings of the intelligence community. they say it's

back to you. >> pamela brown at the white house.ou. >>> the federal government will run out of money in 72 hours. republicans planning to vote today on the short-term spending bill to keep the government running through march 23rd. the measure has one full year of defense spuending. republicans believe that can push the bill through without help from democrats. >>> immigration reform remains in flux. senators supposed to debate and vote on the legislation for the first time in years, but republican leader mitch mcconnell has been silent. both sides have no idea what mcconnell is planning here. and the latest rejection from chris coons and john mccain for protection at the border and the daca deal. no sight on how we fund the government. continuing resolutions. >>> colorado's governor says enough is enough after the third fatal shooting of a police officer in six week. now another widow and 7-year-old twins left in mourning. your heart doesn't only belong ♪to you. bye grandpa. and if you have heart failure, entrusting your heart to e

. >> pamela brown is out front at the white house. we have all sides of this covered. the breaking vote from the house intelligence committee, the big news where you are. what happened in that room? >> republicans joined with democrats in voting to release this memo. this after the republicans last week voted to block the democratic memo's release saying they just gotten a copy of it and only agree to allow the full house to review it in a classify setting. today change of course. the yun nan mouse vote in the committee to send this to the president's desk giving him five days to decide. behind closed doors, there were questions for devin nunes. whether or not the white house work with him in any way to draft the memo. according to adam schiff who briefed reporters afterward said nunes gave a lawyerly response saying no one in the white house drafted the memo. according to schiff's take away, he did not explain any preparation. working with the nunes staff and putting together the memo the president has heralded as a vinds indication. he does not believer the white hou

let's goo to our senior white house correspondent pamela brown. this was the first briefing since the president launched his newest twitter tirade. >> that's right, wolf. there was a lot of ground to cover since this was the first briefing in the white house in a week and press secreta.e.cecret sanders repeated his claim that he's been tougher on the white house than president obama. though sanders cryptically hinted that the administration has recently taken action against russia, something she said we'll learn more about in the coming days. president trump back in the white house and still tweeting about russia writing "i have been much tougher on russia than obama. just look at the facts. total fake news." but the president has yet to condemn russian interference in the wake of the evidence laid out in last week's special counsel indictments of 13 russian nationals. instead claiming it demonstrates a lack of collusion between his campaign and russia. the white house responding to the criticism. >> he called out russia by name in his official st

let's go live to the senior white house correspondent, pamela brown. pamela, what's the latest? >> reporter: wolf, the president delivered tough talk on school shootings there in the listening session, reiterating putting guns in schools by arming, quote, highly adept teachers, suggesting the idea of giving teachers bonuses if they went to firearm training, but, today, the white house would not offer specifics on how this might work and where the money to pay for that would come from. >> there's a tremendous feeling that we want to get something done, and we're leading that feeling, i hope, but there's a great feeling, including at the nra. >> reporter: president trump is pledging action on gun violence in the wake of the shooting at a florida high school last week that left 17 dead. >> for many years, where people sitting in my position did not take action, they didn't take proper action, they took no action at all, we're going to take action. >> reporter: but what that action will be is still unclear. trump unleashed a series of tweets on guns this morning saying, i will be st

i'm pamela brown. this morning florida governor rick scott is set to announce his action plan to increase security at schools amid the stunning revelations that an armed officer on duty at marjory stoneman douglas waited outside doing, quote, nothing, according to the sheriff during last week's massacre. the long serving deputy was suspended while higherups investigated and he has now resigned. >>> also this morning, president trump is set to address the conservative political action congress, backing a gun restriction that many conservatives and the nra oppose. we'll have more on that in just a moment. we begin in parkland, florida, where we find cnn's rosa flores. what's the latest there, rosa? >> reporter: pamela, good morning. we hear this argument a all the time. all it takes is a good guy with a gun to take down a bad guy with a gun. in this particular case there was a good guy with a gun, but according to the sheriff, he stayed outside and did nothing. >> what i saw was a deputy arrive and he ne

. >> and i'm pamela brown. the memo's release could have serious consequence for the trump white house or the russia investigation, and even for america's security. breaking tonight, a senior administration official says that president trump plans to green light the release of the republican memo that focuses -- accuses rather surveillance abuses in the russia probe. we're told that will probably happen tomorrow with the release. and sources tell cnn the top white house aides fear white house aide christopher wray will quit after the release after he publicly revealed, quote, grave concerns that it's inaccurate and misleading. and the president's motive for ignoring that warning is now more clear than ever. we have learned that he has been privately admitting to friends that he believes the memo's release will help discredit the special counsel's investigation. and tonight the washington post reporting that mr. trump never had any hesitation about releasing the memo and that he hopes it might give him justifica

pamela brown. outfront tonight john dean president nixon white house counsel during watergate. and under president trump obama. richard painter, ethics lawyer for president george w. bush and former director of the nixon library. john, if i can, as pamela made the point there, the president is not always very clear what exactly he's calling a hoax, but cast doubt on the entire mueller russia investigation. does this affect tively bury the president's hoax claims? >> it certainly should. it couldn't be more clearly laid out. they have gone -- this is a speaking indictment. really lays out the facts very closely. and bulk of them relate to the fraud against the united states under 18 c 371 which is ironically the central statute that was involved in watergate as well. it's a very broad statute. and to me this looks like an indictment on which you build additional coconspirators and bring them into the picture. >> we notice this too. establish as criminal where i imagine richard painter if mueller were to find evidence, no evidence to be clear contained in this indictment of trump

i want to bring in pamela brown at the white house right now. pamela, a lot of tough words on the panel for the chief of staff john kelly. what are his prospects after this? is this -- is the president -- does he have confidence in kelly? >> reporter: sources tell us, jake, that the president is upset with john kelly and his handling of the rob porter situation. he's been frustrated with him over the last several months for various reasons, but, certainly, this appeared to be a tipping point for him. he was very upset because as you pointed out, there was the initial statement from john kelly fiercely defending porter making no mention of the domestic abuse allegations, and it was not until last night that kelly released a second statement acknowledging those domestic abuse, the alleged domestic abuse. now, today, they said really the only no data point to impact this second statement from john kelly was a picture showing one of rob porter's ex-wives with a black eye that rob porter, himself, had taken a picture of when he was pressed about that,

well, pamela brown are outfront in washington on this major breaking story. we begin with evan. this was one trump former official 100 times stronger than what caused the revolution. >> it snlt. they are trying to make concerns that american public about how this was done. but if you look at the documents it admits additional information, not just the steele dossier that was behind the surveillance of cart er page and includes the fact beyond the fact that steele, the british spy who compiled the dossier, was deemed a credible source by the fbi in a previous investigation. again that's something that would have been put in the application for this surveillance application by the fbi. that would have been relevant for the judge to see. and i'm told that it was in that application, according to the memo itself. but it also excludes a lot of other information, including the fact that page came to the attention of the fbi a few years ago, back in 2013, 2014 when they talked to him as part of a russian spy ring case that the fbi was investigating. as a matter of fact they interviewed

let's go live to pamela brown.t has been a long holiday weekend, the president has been riled up about the russian probe. update viewers on the latest. >> reporter: that's right. the president got worked up over the weekend at his resort in mar-a-lago, after talking to his sons and watching coverage of the russian indictment spurring on his twitter tirade. after a round of golf today, the president went back to twitter, this time taking aim at his predecessor, but notably, not russia. president trump began his press president's day at his florida golf course, after deciding to avoid it in the aftermath of the shooting. he took to twitter, blaming his predecessor, tweeting obama was president up to and beyond the 2016 election. why didn't he do something about russian meddling? the president spent much of the weekend raging on twitter at his mar-a-lago resort, watching cable news, getting riled up by his sons don junior and eric who urge him to take a tougher stance with the fbi, after revealed that the agency faile

first our senior white house correspondent pamela brown in the east room of the white house, awaiting this joint news conference. pamela, gun control almost certainly will come up. >> it certainly will. these two leaders had a rocky start. you recall that contentious phone call they had about refugees. the two men have seemed to put that behind them and have warmer relations. you can imagine, wolf, gun control will be one of the key lines of questioning here when the president does take questions from reporters. really on both sides. australia is a country that has combatted gun violence as well. as you recall there was a mass shooting in the '90s where 35 people were killed. since then australia took very strong measures to cut down on gun violence. that will likely be brought up. and the president's suggestion that teachers who are highly adept should be armed and other proposals and specifics in details and how he could turn these ideas into action will likely come up. a lot of topics on the domestic front beyond that, wolf, plea deal of a third person from his campaign in robert m

. >>> and i'm pamela brown in washington. the other bombshell involves russian meddling in u.s. elections. indictments of 13 russians, unprecedented indictments give us the greatest understanding yet of russia's role in the 2016 election and even before. and it reveals the expansive operation to sow division among voters and even how some trump campaign aides were unwittingly, unknowingly involved. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. >> russians also recruited and paid real americans to engage in political activities to hold political campaigns and hold rallies. they pretended to be grassroots activists. according to the indictment americans did not know they were communicating with russians. now there is no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. there is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election. >> let's get more on this from our panel. we'll start with cnn crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz. we've been covering this story for the better part of the

i'm pamela brown.scott is set to announce his action plan to increase security at schools amid the stunning revelations that an armed officer on duty at marjory stoneman douglas waited outside doing, quote, nothing, according to the sheriff during last week's massacre. the long serving deputy was suspended while higherups investigated and he has now resigned. >>> also this morning, president trump is set to address the conservative political action

with that in mind, pamela brown at white house, i understand chief of staff john kelley weighed in on the democratic rebuttal memo. >> reporter: as you'll recall last week the white house was saying it wanted to release the memo for transparency. general kelley, white house chief of staff, would not commit today one way or the other on capitol hill, speaking to reporters, if the white house would indeed support releasing the democrats' memo. he also wouldn't say one way or the other whether there would be redactions. he was asked by a reporter on capitol hill whether he was leaning towards releasing it even just a little. here's what he said. >> are you leaning towards releasing it? at least a little? >> no, i would say -- i mean, this is a different memo that the first one, it's lengthier, so not leaning towards it. it will be done in a responsible way. but again, the first one was very clean, relative to sources and methods. my initial cut is this one is a lot less clean. but at the end of it all it will be guys like rod rosenstein, chris wray from fbi, certainly the national securi

our pamela brown joins us with the latest.o we know these alleged improvements the president might support? >> reporter: under this bill the goal would be to strengthen the background check system by holding local and federal law enforcement agencies accountable. the aim would be to strengthen it by creating these incentives. it is worth noting here, even if the bill is passed and became law, it would not have prevented what we saw in florida. in that case, the gunman had a clean criminal history and had not been declared mentally defective by a judge. >> the president was discussing gun control at mar-a-lago this weekend. >> reporter: that's right. we were told from sources that the gun issue was on top of the president's mind among other things according to his twitter account. he was talking to his friends, his family, his sons, and what to do about the issue and how to make it harder for young people from buying the guns. he did see the protest from the students. and said he wanted to do something but unclear what exact st

cnn's pamela brown covering both. la, i understand chief of staff john kelly weighed in on the democratic rebuttal to the nunes russia memo a little earlier. i'm wondering what he said. >> well, he really left it open-ended today, talking to reporters on capitol hill, anderson. he wouldn't say one way or the other whether the white house would support releasing the democrats' memo, saying it would need to go through the process first. but as you'll recall, last week the white house said transparency was the justification for releasing the nunes memo, and the president said before he had even read it that he was 100% on board with releasing it. but chief of staff john kelly saying today on capitol hill that he doesn't know what's going to happen. it will need to go through the process, and he also wouldn't say whether there would be any redactions. here's what he told reporters. >> are you leaning towards releasing it, at least -- >> no, i would say -- i mean this is a different memo than the first one. it's lengthier.

i want to begin with cnn correspondent pamela brown and cnn congressional correspondent manu raju, both of you with us tonight. pamela, a new report in the "new york times" this hour saying the president's lawyers, including john dow, jay sekulow and other advisers are saying don't do it, don't talk to bob mueller. you have been reporting with gloria borger on a lot of this over the past week. what can you tell us tonight? >> that's right, erin, in fact, the president's lawyers have been in the president's ears telling him for a long time he should not testify. the concern, it would be a perjury trap. it would be some fishing expedition and would basically set up the president to where he could be caught in a lie. as you know, the president has been outspoken about his desire to want to sit down with robert mueller. he even said he would love to do under oath, but under that caveat that he would only do it at the advice of his lawyers. they're making the argument to robert mueller's team that they have not met the threshold of interviewing the president. they are making the argument tha

pamela brown is in washington with the exclusive details. what exactly happened?> reporter: deputy attorney general -- tell us that the president had other things on his mind. you may have recalled that testify just past that december. we are told that the president asked rosenstein, whether he was on my team, whether the two are on the same team. rosenstein is the person who oversees the russia probe. this is only the latest episode that company many to light portraying a president who asks questions sometimes crosses a line. and this exchange could raise further questions about whether trump was seeking to interfere in the investigation. >> do you know any word on how rosenste rosenstein reacted to this? >> reporter: we were told that he was surprised by this. he didn't give any details in terms of where the russia investigation was headed as the president asked him and that he responded awkwardly we were told as the president's team request saying of course we are all on your team mr. president. the president did appoint rod rosenstein. he was asked about loyal

pamela brown outfront at the white house. pamela, fast moving story. the president, we are awaiting this. he has made it clear he wants it out. ha happens now? >> reporter: right now and white house is moving closer to declassifying the house republicans memo that essentially according to people who have seen it shows a mishandling of the russia probe specifically by the fbi. so the white house essentially ignoring the president's handpick handpicked fbi directors warnings. yesterday saying he had grave concerns about the release of this memo. says the president has read the memo and chose not to discuss that in the ongoing feud with the fbi today as he came back from the retreat at the greenbrier. but as you pointed out, he's been calling those close to him friends, associates, saying that he believes this memo will undermine the russia probe. you heard paul ryan, speaker of the house, say the exact opposite. saying that he believes this will not impugn the russian probe. but still a question of when this will be released, not if, erin, seems all but

first our senior white house correspondent pamela brown in the east room of the white house, awaitinglmost certainly will come up. >> it certainly will. these two leaders had a rocky start. you recall that contentious phone call they had about refugees. the two men have seemed to put that behind them and have warmer relations. you can imagine, wolf, gun control will be one of the key lines of questioning here when the president does take questions from reporters. really on both sides. australia is a country that has combatted gun violence as well. as you recall there was a mass shooting in the '90s where 35 people were killed. since then australia took very strong measures to cut down on gun violence. that will likely be brought up. and the president's suggestion that teachers who are highly adept should be armed and other

. >> cnn senior adviser pamela brown joins me now. what does the memo specifically allege? >> a few things in this republican memo. first off it alleges that andy mccabe, that he told the house intelligence committee that without the dossier that was funded by the fbi would never have applied for this fisa warrant for carter page. adam sc hichlt ff came out and said that's not exactly what he said. the memo goes on to say, and this is new as well, that the fisa surveillance was renewed for carter page several times. the surveillance has elicited information that this person is an agent of the foreign power every time you go to the judge. that information is not included in here. what exactly came of the surveillance so that the judge continued to renew the fisa. it goes on to say that critical information was not in the application to the judge. the fact that it says that christopher steele had ant anti-trump bias, that he conveyed to the justice department official that the fact that the dossier was funded by the democrats. that was not in the initial application to the ju

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cnn's pamela brown, gloria borger brought us the first details of this last week.ago, it tracks with what

let's get to cnn white house correspondent pamela brown. let's start on russia. the president tweeting about russia and still i'm seeing nothing on changing fwun laws. >> reporter: that's right. there hasn't been anything there. that will be a key question in the wake of the school shooting in parkland, florida. the call from the student activists asking for a change in gun laws. you can sxkt a lot of questions to the press secretary, sarah sanders, here, and what the president plans to do about it. after the las vegas shooting, the white house came out and said it would support a ban on stock bumps. nothing has happened in that regard. the question will be why should americans believe that something will happen this time around? though the white house has said that the president supports this bipartisan bill on capitol hill that would essentially strengthen background checks. there will be a lot of questions when it comes to russia. as you know, brooke, on friday there were 13 russians who were indicted. since then, the president has gone after several people an

let's begin the hour with cnn senior white house correspondent pamela brown. also political analyst molly bowle for "time" magazine, congressional reporter for "the washington post," and political commentator matt lewis, "the daily beast." pamela, "the new york times" reporting tonight that the president's lawyers urging him in effect to steer clear of the special counsel. an interview with him, similar to reporting you and gloria borger had a few days ago. tell us what they're telling the president. >> that's right, as gloria and i have reported, the president's lawyers have been telling him for quite some time he should not testify. that it's not a good idea. in fact, ty cobb, the president's lawyer, said on the record it would be a perjury trap, essentially saying he didn't want his client to do an interview because he was worried he'd be caught in a lie. this is what the president's lawyers have been saying behind the scenes. to mueller's team, they have argued that they have not shown enough evidence to prove why they need to sit down with the president of

pamela brown outfront to begin our coverage. just moments ago chief of staff kelly doubled down on lazy comments. >> that's right. speaking to my colleague, he did seem to double down saying some daca eligible who didn't sign up had reasons, but went on to say most probably needed to say to get off the couch. this is in the wake of his comments earlier today that caused quite a stir when he said some of those daca eligible that didn't eligible gap between 680,000 and 1.8 million were too afraid or lazy to get off his as as through no fault of their own. she asked if those comments were offensive. she left it up to the individual to decide and put the blame as you saw directly on the democrats. but it's clear that general kelly's comments today are an attempt to play to the base those with the hard line stance on immigration. as this was happening, erin, the president threw quite a curveball today when he basically said he would love a shutdown. another government shutdown if there is no fix on immigration. these comments coming

let's go to pamela brown at the white house. >> reporter: as you recall last week the white house was saying they wanted to release the memo for transparency. general kelly would not commit. he also wouldn't say one way or another whether there would be redactions. he was asked by a reporter on capitol hill whether he was leaning towards releasing it even just a little. and this is what he said. >> i would say, i mean, this is a different memo from the first one, lengthier, and it is different. so not leaning towards it. it will be done in a responsible way. but again, where the first one was clean, relative to sources and methods, my initial cut is this one is a lot less clean. but at the end of it all, it will be guys like rod rosenstein and chris wray from the fbi giving the president a recommendation on it. >> reporter: for comparison, the nunes memo was 3.5 pages. the democrat memo was ten pages. and today, rod rosenstein was here at the white house meeting with chief kelly, the chief of staff kelly, and white house counsel. the president said you tell me, but today rosenstein wa

i'm pamela brown, thanks for joining us. >>> good evening. news that broke just minutes ago and the controversy almost sure to be erupting even as we speak over the russia investigation and two competing memos about key parts of it from the house intelligence committee. the republican version is out there already, as you know, president trump releasing it over objections from the fbi and others. now after several days considering the democratic rebuttal, the president has decided not, not to make it public. the latest now from cnn's jim acosta standing by at the white house. so, jim, explain this. >> well, i think a lot of people want some explaining when when it comes to this decision, anderson. all week long, there was the expectation that the president in the issue of

. >> and i'm pamela brown.committee chaired by former trump transition team member devin nunes alleges serious abuses by the fbi of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. democrats say it's misleading, that it omits key facts and accuse republicans of using this memo to try to undermine special counsel robert mueller's russia invest

pamela brown outfront. these troubling accusations white house says porter is a man of integrity and honor. there is a restraining order in here. there is a lot of evidence. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. and i've spoken to several people today, erin, here at the white house, some who have expressed shock. they viewed rob porter who was seen as arising star in the white house, a staff secretary, somebody who worked closely with chief of staff john kelly and with the president coordinating the flow of paper wrk mild mannered lawyer. others have expressed frustration no one did anything earlier. back in the fall including chief of staff were made aware of these domestic abuse, physical and verbal abuse from two of his ex-wives spoke to my colleague detailing some of these allegations and told the fbi about this during the course of his background check. now we are told by a white house official that he continued to have his interim clearance despite the allegations coming to the attention of top white house

pamela brown outfront in the white house and pamela there is no doubt that senior staff at the white house were aware. >> yeah, that's right, erin. sources tell us that not only did chief of staff john kelly know about at least some of these domestic abuse allegations but other white house aides did months ago. but you heard raj shaw at the podium saying kelly didn't become fully aware until just recently, until this week, which begs the question, well what does that mean exactly. and the only thing he would say was that he didn't know about this picture of rob porter's ex-wife with the black eye as you saw. so it's unclear why that changed the dial so much for the chief of staff john kelly to then release the statement that came out last night wherefore the first time he acknowledged domestic abuse. because as you'll recall the allegations prior to that that had been reported were those of domestic and verbal abuse and protective order that had come out to the public. and that the ex-wives of robert porter had told the fbi nearly i guess a year ago, erin, about what happened, the sp

pamela brown is outfront live at the white house. and, pamela, the white house in chaos tonight over the abuse allegations according to your reporting. >> reporter: that's right. it's been a week of confusion and division with finger pointing, a swirl of accusations. and while john kelly the chief of staff has been more publicly blame, facing more of the public blame, those inside the white house are also blaming top lawyer, president trump's top lawyer, don mcgahn why he didn't do things earlier. that he found out about some of these allegations january 2017 when rob porter went to him and alerted him that his ex-wives may say some troubling things about their past relationship to the fbi. and we are told over the course of the year, porter would inform mcgahn and gave him information about this. and we are told that the fbi actually turned over to the white house this past spring some of their findings after interviewing the ex-wives that was brought to mcgahn's attention and porter's ex girlfriend called him over the thanksgiving a

pamela brown, our senior white house correspondent is with us as well. pamela, a reminder to viewers what the memo says about george papadopolousling charged as part of the mueller probe. >> george papadopoulos was charged for lying to the fbi and the russia probe and it's interesting because in the last page of this memo, wolf, it makes reference to papadopoulos, that his name was in the fisa application for carter page. in the memo, the argument was made that there was no evidence that carter page and george papadopoulos had talk ed or thee was any sort of cooperation or conspiracy between the two. it does sort of undercut the argument that the dossier was the sort of principle part of the fisa application, that that was really the only reason why the judge signed off on it, because it mentioned that papadopoulos was also used to make the case. to remind viewers, our reporting is that george papadopoulos told the ambassador well before this application was improved that russians had incriminating information on hillary clinton. he allegedly, according t

. >> pamela brown joins us now. what's the president say on releasing the memo? >> they will evaluate the democratic memo if it comes to the white house. it stopped short of saying the president will cle classify it. basically saying it will go through the same process the republican memo did with white house lawyers looking at it. a white house spokesman said it will go through the same mechanism as the republican memo. really won't make a decision until the process happens. as you know with the republican memo the president said he would release it 100% before it even went through that process. if it does pass through the house which it is expected to do, it will come to the white house although the president is tweeting today, targeting the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee calling him a liar and a leaker. adam schiff fired back mocking the president for the way he's using his executive time saying instead of tweeting false smears american people would like him to turn off the tv and focus on the funding crisis, the dreamers and so forth. th

. >> so, don, my colleague, gloria boringer pamela brown and i are told that investigators for mueller have recently been asking witnesses about donald trump's business activities in russia prior to the 2016 presidential campaign as he considered a run for president. this according to three people familiar with the matter, the lines of inquiry indicate the female is reaching beyond the campaign to explore how the russians might have sought to influence trump at a time when he was discussing deals in moscow and beginning that presidential run. mueller, of course, was appointed to investigate russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. but that also includes in his investigation lengths between trump associates and russians and any issues that might arise. that said the president claims any investigation of the family personal finance would be in his view a breech of the mandate. >> what else can you tell us about the kinds of questions that mueller is asking witnesses. >> it's reaching who a whole host of things that happened before the campaign kicked off. including exploration of a trump t

i have to ask you about this reporting by pamela brown about rob porter interview with the fbi and what told. should porter have been fired then and there? >> well, certainly if the fbi thought that the allegations were credible enough to bring forward, and if porter then misled as some say chief of staff kelly and the white house counsel mcgahn about what was said in the interview, absolutely. that's one thing you hear if you talk to people in the white house is they feel porter did mislead them. i'd like to know what he told the fbi, if i misled them as well. the time line is extremely troubling. and the white house still has work to do to try to clean up precisely who knew what and we. again if you talk to people in the white house there is a lot of frustration. they feel some of this has been scrambled about when john kelly knew things and when he didn't. but at the end of the day you can't deny this is a major p.r. debacle in the white house. i'm glad porter is ultimately gone. but this has been a torturous story. nobody with this stuff in the background should be in a position of

. >>> and i'm pamela brown i

here is cnn's pamela brown. >> have you had any dealings with the russians? done a lot of business with the russians. >> reporter: the most expensive home ever sold in america. >> in 2008 at the height of the u.s. housing collapse, trump made a record breaking deal with a russian oligarch known as dmitry rybolovle verks. >> i sold it for a hundred million dollars and i sold it to a russian. >> mr. donald j. trump! >> when according to mcclatchy news his private plane was spotted in two u.s. cities where trump was campaigning. concord, north carolina, and las vegas, nevada. >> it certainly looks suspicious that we have this leading russian oligarch bird dogging our president on the campaign trail. >> joining us now to discuss is walter schwab, a cnn contribu r contributor. >> walter, thank you so much for being with us. first and foremost, if president trump was then a citizen, how much does this sale matter when it happened? >> well, let's remember that the whitewater investigation, which dominated much of the clinton presidency, was similar a land deal that

yet another development, let's go back to cnn's pamela brown. what's happening? >> reporter: anderson, we've learned the ex-girlfriend of rob porter called white house counsel, don mcgann, to inform him of some of the abuse allegations against robert porter. now where that information went and how high up is unclear. but the source i spoke with said clearly it wasn't handled properly, clearly it didn't go up high enough, because he continued to work here and the white house continued to come to his defense once these allegations came out in the public. the source i spoke with said that morale has been low in the white house today, just given all that has unfolded, the fact that john kelley, the chief of staff, aides, revolutions they knew about, at least part of these allegations months ago, the fact that white house counsel was made aware or received a phone call from the ex-girlfriend alleging that robert porter was physically abusive and verbally abusive. and then the fact that the white house stood by him publicly for 24 hours, at least, before john kelley pu

. >> and i'm pamela brown.e could have serious consequence for the trump white house or the russia investigation, and even for america's security. breaking tonight, a senior administration official says that president trump plans to

. >> and pamela brown.d could have serious consequences for the trump white house over the russia investigation and even for american security. breaking tonight, a senior administration official says that president trump plans to green light the release of the memo that accusing the fbi of surveillance abuses in the russia probe.

. >> and i'm pamela brown. the partisan memo from the committee chaired by former trump transition team member devin nunes alleges serious abuses by the fbi of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. democrats say it's misleading, that it omits key facts and accuse republicans of using this memo to try to undermine special counsel robert mueller's russia investigation. >> the big question tonight, will the president use the memo to fire deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, always hanging over there. >> it is. now, the white house has come out and said that is not under consideration, but it certainly raises the question, could that trigger -- if rod rosenstein was fired, could that trigger the worst constitutional crisis since president nixon's saturday night massacre. a lot of parallel drawn to that tonight. i want to bring in the justice correspondent. evan perez. and justice reporter cara, where to start. evan let's go to you. now we have this memo there's been so much build up to it. three and a half

let's go to cnn's pamela brown at the white house. has the white house signaled how it plans to turn these ideas or things talked about into actual action? >> well, the white house keeps saying, anderson, that it is still in the listening phase. the president continues to test out different ideas. but it is far from clear whether he has settled on a set of ideas in order to address this issue. though, he has signaled today that he's willing to push congress on the gun issue, anderson. sources tell us he has been telling his aides that he wants to lead on this issue, unlike his predecessors. but this is a president with fractured relations on capitol hill and also, you just look at history, anderson. past bills aiming on gun control and to address the gun issue in the wake of school shootings have withered away, have failed. so it's unclear exactly what this president will do that's different. here's what raj shah, the press secretary had to say when i asked him that exact question, how the white house will turn ideas into action. >> -