phil mudd. answer the main question for us here. on that statement alone, if it is true and believed, he said i hope you can find your way to stop this flynn thing. does that rise to the level of any illegality? >> it does not. what did the russians do in the electoral process and were the officials in the white house involved? comey talks about the president. he doesn't talk about the people we have talked about. paul mondanafort. the second question is whether the president is obstructing the investigation. you are a lawyer. i'm not. when i looked at this as someone who served in government. i looked at someone who walked in the oval office and looks at the fbi director and says something inappropriate. it is that comment about flynn and backing away from the investigation. the president doesn't want the investigation to continue. the context is this is a good guy. can you get out of it? if that is the sole thing we are looking at, that is inappropriate. it is not illegal. >> let's ask laura coats. you are a lawyer. was this inter

>> if you are looking at this as a legal matter, i agree with phil mudd.attorney general wanted to change the terminology, but not interfere with the investigation. i think it is inappropriate. i don't believe it rose to any level of criminal activity. this is when you throw criminal action around on significant public act ors, you better be right. >> even if the democrats, even if they somehow magically wound up in a situation where they were trying to impeach the president for real, it would not be about criminality. that's why i'm saying leave that to mueller. it is all going to be about him. gentlemen, i appreciate the perspective as always. by gentlemen, i mean you, mike [ laughter ] >> this is a fine welcome back. >> it's always good to have you. we missed you. i was happy you were going to be there. happy you were in consideration. quality man with great credentials. we need you here as well. >> thanks for lowering your standards and letting me back. >> that's a high standiard. the other guy. >> you are a high standard, too, phil. >>> james comey wa

phil mudd, sit for a moment. we're talking politics. jen, you must have been up all night where you told democrats, democrats, don't lose your mind and your motivation over jon ossoff's defeat in georgia 6. okay. maybe don't lose your mind but maybe lose a little bit of heart? look. he spent a whole ton of money, the most expensive race ever. the president's popularity rating historically low. it set up pretty well for the democrats. >> maybe. but there are more than 90 districts more democrat grendly or leaning than this district. there are definitely decisions that the democratic party needs to make and we should take a close look at what happened here. but i was thinking this morning about back in 2009 and 2010 we were 5-0. we had the white house, we had the house, we had the senate. we won all five special elections and we were walloped in 2010 in the election. there can be some indications here that could be lessons for democrats on how to run races in the future but we shouldn't be hiding under the table. we need to keep fighting,

face for a second. >> this is our graphic. >> you see phil mudd's face. that tells you everything about how he feels about these subpoenas for the unmasking. explain to people why you look the way you do, phil. >> to say that this is a political exercise is polite. this is a freak show. maggie nailed it. there are two issues here. one of primary concern to the american people that is what happened during an american presidential election and how were americans involved. how do we move forward and protect an election particularly a presidential election in 20. the message to moscow now intervene it's fine. not only is it fine we'll continue to work with you. there's stories today to give back those items back to russia tarp sanctioned by president obama months ago. secondary issue how does u.s. intelligence community handle information. devon nunez decides instead of being a politician for america he's a two headed freak show. if you are a national security adviser several months ago in the waning months of the obama administration your responsibility is to

phil mudd, you've been on the inside of these things. michael flynn, there may or may not be concerns there based on the fear of blackmail. as far as you see, any legitimate reason from an intelligence standpoint to not make jared kushner, allow him to be privy to this information? >> no, i can't see a reason for this. i see the debate in washington, d.c., from democrats, and i would ask them one question that we lose in washington, d.c. give me a four-letter word. that is a fact. we have an investigation that the fbi has confirmed. the former director of the fbi, james comey, has confirmed that some individuals, including general flynn, are the subject of that investigation. he said that in an open hearing. people have said in the media, that jared kushner is involved in this investigation and that people have requested his financial records. the president of the united states, john, has the right to bring in advisers. can you tell me one fact that indicates that jared kushner has broken some law or federal regulation that suggests that

. >> phil mudd, welcome. >> thank you. just a moment on this. note what coats said this morning. it's critical. he said he did not feel pressure. believe it or not, this in some ways, in some respects does not look like pressure. that seems odd. >> okay. >> he didn't say he never had a conversation. i'm talking about coats this morning. >> never denied it. >> it's a very critical point here. the question should have been, did you ever talk to the president about this case? if i'm robert mueller and i work for him, then i have to go forward and say, if you did, what do those conversations include? i'm not interested in your judgment whether you felt pressure or not. i want to know whether you had a statement and the statement by the intel guys this morning, i used to be one of them, didn't say they didn't have a conversation. they said in my judgment, i didn't feel pressured. >> but what about the comey statement? phil? >> let me give you two perspectives. the flynn piece is the most critical piece. as a nonlawyer, i'll play one on -- that said, the reason why i would say this doe

stoddard and counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. phil, this is big. the fisa oversight hearing. the foreign intelligence surveillance act. the wiretap claims. the warrant for carter page. one of the extended members of the team. a lot can come out from coats before he gets to he was asked to back off from the investigation. >> i agree, chris. my concern about the hearing today with the congressional hearings going on with what happened with the election last year is it will get diverted from a question that would have been critical a year or two. americans would have been focused on this a laser before the controversy with russia. this is a conversation the authorities have to intercept communications. potentially communications of u.s. citizens. some of the authorities are debated. including the ability to do that without a warrant. i hope the focus today doesn't divert quickly to what the president said when and focuses instead on what authorities do the people who represent americans want to give the u.s. intelligence community especially collecting against u.s. persons. >> a

ambassador burns joins us along with phil mudd and lieutenant general mark hertling. ambassador, you had strong words not just for president trump but president obama. there's a sense that perhaps one president didn't do enough, another president also did not do enough in a very different way. what to your mind is the sort of goldilocks position here, the sweet spot that would marry the two approaches? what would you like to have seen from both presidents? >> i think the far greater problem has been with president trump. president obama had a tough call last summer in autumn because if he had come to the american people and declared what we knew that russia was assaulting the united states elections, he would have been accused of interfering with the elections. the lessons have to be learned. it was too little too late by the obama administration. it's worse by the trump administration. the intelligence officials know there was an attack on us, on our election system. the president hasn't launch an investigation, he hasn't supported the senate bill for stronger sancti

phil mudd are you hiding from the real story? >> let's have a conversation with the president because he doesn't understand how government works. we unmask all the time when i was at the fbi. last i checked that was george w. bush. they are asking people from the obama administration to come speak. why not ask people from multiple administrations. if you're looking at tension that suggests that somebody outside government is interfering in the president's ability to set foreign policy it is not only the right or the authority it is the responsibility of the national security adviser in this case susan rice to say what's going on here. i hope to current national security adviser would do the same thing. you have to do natural you're the national security adviser, who is interfering in conversations with the russians, who is having side conversations maybe jared kushner but subverting american sanctions. perfectly appropriate. >> james comey, we understand, will be testifying in an open session at the senate intelligence committee

back is karoun and let's bring in phil mudd and analyst john avlon.ohn, is this a surprise that mueller is investigating obstruction of justice ever since comey's 2e6testimony where said he felt pressed to back off the investigation. did the investigation have to go in that direction? >> it is a confirmation of the direction it has been going. it is not incidental it comes out days after a trial balloon floating from the president that mueller could be fired. what also is new is the existence of the contemporaneous memo from the former director of the nsa. this is a ratcheting up. this is now not people saying they expect him to be investigated for obstruction of justice. it is confirmation that is occurring within the special counsel. >> phil mudd, what does this mean for rosenstein? if rosenstein was involved not in a process of obstruction, necessarily, but it was his memo and he was part of the dynamic with sessions and the president. might he have to recuse himself? is that required? is that necessary? >> i don't think he has to recuse himself. h

the phil mudd, the president is receiving a lot of blow back.ding blowback from national security experts. why are so many in military and intelligence community so opposed to his decision to withdraw from this accord? >> wolf in the heat of the moment we need to -- we need a bit of perspective here. let's go back after world war ii. america has been in the leadership role in the fight against comism. terrorism let's fat fast forward the past 120 days for everybody in this country myself included who thinks america should continue with the lead with the europeans and others. number one we we had the president go to the nato, the post world war ii leadership of europe and not offer the commitment to nato you would have expected the europeans steppedway back and said where it is kmerk on the commitment for the past 70 years? the next war coming, a confrontation with russia over krieb o cyberissues not only intervention in our election but in the french election. we have zero credibility to lead the europeans on cyber. the president won't even ackn

david gregory and jeffrey toobin and phil mudd and matthew rosenberg. gentlemen, we got senator warners on the intel committee. democrat. his opening comments. one paragraph is relevant. we should start the discussion there. throw up the paragraph from warner. you don't have it? all right. this is important point he makes. the than t the president appears to have threatened comey's job while telling him i need loyalty. david gregory, there will be a lot of focus on him asking comey to stop the flynn investigation. that is part of what you will hear a lot of politicians call inappropriate today. the question is what does that mean in censure or legality or illeg illegality. warner says, that means do you want to save your job. is that a fair reckoning of the question? >> i think there is no question the president created this awkward pre-text to get together and comey describes it. he indicated he wanted to stay in his role and it was if they never had that conversation. here trump is setting up a dinner with the two of them alone where they isolated and

phil mudd, let's deal with the reality of what this means. other than the legalities of it, we see this time and again, innocent muslims are caught, getting it two ways, isis kills them most of all, and many non-muslims blame the entire community or either not stopping extremism or in some level owning it. what do you believe the reality is when something like this happens where, you know what the reaction is going to be. there will be people who are sympathetic to the muslim community who are being victimized because of actions of extremists in their ranks, or there are others who say their community is the problem and that's why they're so mad and this man just went too far is. >> if you look at the ideology of isis, they say muslims can't live in the west and mouse lius the west should be attacking people in britain and america, et cetera, to force countries like britain and the united states to leave iraq and afghanistan. they want this to happen because they want to accelerate the division between muslims and what they see as the christi

phil mudd, take us through the assessment of what happened here? what are you looking at? >> you look at what happened and why it happened. people are confusing the two over the past 12 hours. we know someone, evidently by his own words targeted a muslim community outside london. there's a quick translation of that to assume it is a terror attack. people on the investigator's side don't make that assumption initially. terrorism involves motive. what was he thinks? simple questions like did he have an ex-girlfriend in the area at the mosque, that leads into the discussion about whether it's terrorism. we should know that today. you've got to differentiate in the investigation immediately whether we think it was terrorism. i believe it was. and whether we know it was a terror or hate crime attack, we're not certain yet. as the prime minister suggested, i think we'll know quickly. >> peter, another important distinction, this is not, it appears what the others were in the past throw or four months in london, islamic extremism. this is the opposite, retaliation perhaps and the

political analyst david gregory, cnn legal analyst laura coates and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. let's start with the law. the court said, at least in part the executive has a legal right to do this, this being the ban, and it will go into effect in part. but then they put out a very curious nondescript legal standard to put into effect a bona fide relationship. i can't find it in case precedent as something that stands out as discernible. this is going to come down to interpretation. it seems like grandparents, fiancees, and a lot of other people may be carved out which means they can't get in here for at least 90 days. if they're refugees, they can't get in for 120 days. but the basis of the decision seems to be soft. that smells like litigation and bureaucratic problems to me, laura coates. what is your legal reckoning? >> i absolutely agree, chris. in fact, the dissenters didn't know this would be the case. this blurred distinction invites future litigation. there may be a nuanced reason for that. number one, the supreme court is not in the business of giving legislative adv

phil mudd, the president is taking credit for the saudi arabian decision, the emirati decision, the bat decision and egyptian, to sever diplomatic ties with qatar, the president tweeting at 8:06 a.m., during my recent trip to the middle east i stated that there could longer can be funding of radical ideology. leaders pointed to qatar, look, and then he had more tweets on that as well. >> i would say be careful what you wish for. typically as a president of the united states you're supposed to be a peace-maker. he's dividing as fast as you can. if you look at one side of the equation you have people like the saudis. they hate the iranians, as does everybody in the white house. in the middle sort you had the qataris, view themselves as a tine country with a heck of a lot of money, view themselves as mavericks and one of the ways they have been viewed as mavericks is the president says anybody who dealings with the iranians should be isolated by us and by the saudis. my point is if you want to divide people further and make the iranians even more of an enemy than they are, be careful becau

. >> phil mudd, you have people the united states has designated terrorists that are on u.s.s banned from coming into the united states who are able to walk around in qatar. they are not convicted. they are not in jail. that's an issue. >> it is, but let's talk about a couple of issues. number one, how do you deal with that? you're dealing with a goth that public shaming is highly embarrassing. do you think that's productive or counterproductive? does that corner somebody? will they avoid or will they respond after you shame the them publicly? >> i think they're going to say we've got to avoid the president of the united states. there's a bigger thing. >> yes. >> you've got to deal with the things on iran, a major air base and syria. i hope there's been a calculation that says if there's a cost we're also to take that cost bill shaming them in tweets. >> ok. so look you have all these countries trying to shame them but in terms of the united states let's lay this out here. ok. trump advisors are coming out and saying, john, that this whole issue in the middle east is not an i

phil mudd, you're an expert.reaction when you hear this federal contractor, woman named reality lee winter, charged with quote removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet? >> i'm hearing it as you do. i will control myself. i hope they goes to jail. if she's guilty, i hope she goes to jail. we have a digital trail on terrorists we talk about repeatedly they leave an e-mail trail, travel trail, you see the same thing play out in the count irintelligence world. she downloaded a document. only about half dozen did it. this is remarkably stupid for someone to leave that kind of digital trail. i have one other question for news media, if you accept information from someone in the u.s. government who took a top secret oath not to repeal information that the government collected, this is stolen information. i want to hear from who published this. did you know you were taking stolen information and what is your responsibility to go to the u.s. government and say, i'm accepting

. >> phil mudd, a lot has happened this week. i want to read what's happening.a fighter jet flew erratically within five feet of a u.s. aircraft. the u.s. downed two iranian-built drones over syria. the u.s. mailitary shot down a syrian jet. a nato f-16 fighter jet tried to approach the plane of a russian minister and was driven off in the baltic sea. do you share the congressman's concerns? >> i think we need to be more careful about what he's talking about. this game is getting, in some ways, simpler, and nobody wants to speak the truth. that is, the assad regime has gained ground. the opposition that we support has little prospect of gaining ground. by gaining ground, i mean of taking power in syria. iranian-backed forces have gained ground. here's the bottom line. if we want to stay engaged in syria, if we want to stay engaged in an operation that potentially that is lethal consequences in shooting down aircraft, we have to face a tough reality. assad is winning. if you want to beat isis, you either accept the fact a bloody d dictator will win, or you contin

. >> you know, phil mudd, there were warnings out there apparently ignored by his facebook posts, hodgkinsone shooter. in march he posted trump is a traitor. trump has destroyed our democracy. it's time to destroy trump and company. in february he posted republicans are the taliban of the usa. were there missed moments there? >> well, that's -- that's the first stage of this investigation. there owes at least five things, including what you indicated, wolf, that i'm looking for within 24, 48, 72 hours and potentially going out weeks. the first is, you mentioned motivation. i'm looking at electronic devices mentioned by the fbi in that briefing. do we have a laptop? do you know what his google searches were to indicate i want to know from his cell phone, who he talked to, texted, e-mails, especially within the last couple days. i want toxicology tests to determine whether he was taking drugs or alcohol. i want travel data to determine whether or not he was moving around alexandria. i want to know where he was in previous days to determine whether he was talking to anybody in local neighborhoo

. >> phil mudd, the president says he was very moved by the chemical attack on syrians, civilians, childrend remember how the u.s. responded? but people fleeing syria and five other muslim majority countries, including libya and sudan, some others, they will not be allowed into the united states, refugees, unless they have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the united states. so, how do you square that? >> i'm not sure you can. the president made the right move in syria. look, when a leader of a country uses chemical weapons against his own people, especially a country that can't really threaten the united states, it's a no-cost move by the president. we've got to respond. about a month ago, wolf, [ inaudible ] at my residency hosted refugees from iraq, from africa, from afghanistan. they didn't come from syria, but they came from countries where the united states is in a war-time environment, regardless of whether congress has declared war. they have lost friends and families. regardless of whether the president sees a photo, where the united states is engaged in war and t

phil mudd joining us.ebating whether the white house should have stepped in to keep michael flynn out of the room at these classified briefings. the cia director, though, if he had known there were concerns about michael flynn, and michael flynn, the president still wanted michael anyone in the room, should pompeo stepped in and said i'm not going to do the briefing with him there, is that his decision, phil? >> hell, no. let's be clear about facts and suppositions. the defense department had a security clearance for general flynn for years. he's maintained that security clearance at a top secret level when he worked for president trump, and he had that security clearance during the briefings from mike pompeo who had been there for a matter of weeks. do you walk into the oval office and say your national security adviser still has a top secret clearance, but i'm not going to talk to him? the bottom line, john, this is not a decision for the white house, but a decision for the defense department that holds

. >> phil mudd you know robert mueller.s the most significant sign yet that the allegation of obstruction of justice is being seriously examined and they source five people briefed on these latest requests. what's your reaction? >> you had to do this. no choice. if you think it's appropriate, as i do, that the fbi should open an investigation because they have facts, not supposition but facts that suggest that there is engagement with the russians, we don't need to look at. facts that show enghamt the russians. you have to say if someone tried to prevent you from conducting a legitimate federal investigation, you have to look at them, too. tomorrow there's going to be saying this is white water. this is an expansion of director mueller's mandate. i served with him four and a half years. he has to investigate whether someone tried to prevent the russian case from proceeding. it's like mom and apple pie. there's no choice. >> mark corralo the spokesman for marc kasowitz, the outside attorney retained by the president, statesi

phil mudd, there are certainly a lot of accomplishments the president could have touted on twitter. this is what he tweeted about today. you can see what he tweeted about today. but take a look at this next graphic. this is what he didn't tweet about, including partial travel ban going into effect, the gains in the fight against isis, the steps his voter fraud commission is taking. is this a missed opportunity? >> it's absolutely a missed opportunity. when i read the newspapers every day, especially overseas papers, wolf, you're looking at some of the things happening in america that are remarkable and some of them are an effect of the trump administration. one you didn't mention, changes in illegal immigration across the southern border and a rapid increase in deportations. we don't have recent figures on those, but those are directly resulting from what the president has told the department of homeland security to do. you mentioned the gains against isis. i would add to that the expansion of military strikes against terrorist targets. in any typical world, wolf, we would be discus

with us now, jill dougherty, steve hall, michael sheer, shawn turner, james clapper, and phil mudd. steve, as a former cia officer, what do you make of the cia's ability to identify that vladamir putin had a hand in this? because that seems like part of the obama administration is that they were -- wanted to make sure the cia was right and get buy-in from other intelligence agencies. >> well, according to "the washington post" reporting, this is somewhat of an intelligence coup to get this concrete information, which sort of put the nail into the coffin of what we had all pretty much sumized that vladamir putin was definitely involved in this. according to "the washington post," this piece of intelligence confirmed that. but then the fascinating thing about the whole piece in the post is that was sort of the easy part. the hard part is now we have that information, what is our policy going to be? you can go really hard and go cyber warfare or go conservatively with sanctions and that's eventually what the administration decided to do. >> michael, just hearing from the president in t

and senior official phil mudd. steve, as a former cia officer, what do you make of the cia's ability to identify that vladimir putin had a hand in this? that seems like part of the delay and part of the obama administration, is that they wanted to make sure the cia was right and get buy in from other intelligence agencies. >> anderson, according to the "washington post" reporting, this is somewhat of an intelligence coupe, to get the concrete information, putting the nail into the coffin of what we all surmised analytically, that vladimir putin was definitely involved in this. hard to imagine otherwise. according to the "washington post," this piece of intelligence sort of confirmed that. then the fascinating thing about the whole piece in the "wo "washington post" is now, what is our policy going to be? you can go hard with cyber warfair or conservatively with sanctions. that's eventually what the administration decided to do. >> michael, it is interesting, just hearing from the president in this latest interview

so, phil mudd, did the white house draw a new red line with the latest statement as far as the syrianime is concerned? >> they sure did. this one is drawn with a magic marker doubled down. you can't go into a new administration and say we're going to be different than president obama who did not respond when assad used chemical weapons. use our military capability the first time assad uses weapons and not [ inaudible ]. i think there are some tough questions, though, wolf. last time significant operation, but against one air field, i think if you're in the white house you have to say, you make it bigger, for example, you get out of an air field and go after a regime target. make assad sit up. second big question, the russians know this is coming. what do they do, respond in kind in a way they are not anticipating? i think a red line is drawn. if they use chemical weapons the president has to hit the go button. >> go ahead. >> here's the question i have, and maybe you can answer. why do this publicly? this is a president who says he doesn't like to telegraph what he's thinking to anybo

big panel, paul here, jason, mary catherine, jeffrey tubin, carl bernstein, david axelrod and phil mudd. you said if that isn't obstruction of justice, i don't know what is. >> i think that's true. when you look at the full scope of activity here by the president, when you see him demanding loyalty and then making the demand -- also, think about the scene in the oval office. it's just astonishing. he asks the vice-president of the united states and the attorney general to leave. doesn't that suggest that he wants real privacy? >> and jared kushner sort of lingers and he tells jared kushner to leave. >> he tells kushner to leave. he wants comey alone. and what does he do? he says, can we make the investigation of michael flynn go away. repeatedly asks him, let him go. that to me is obstruction of justice. and the reason you know it's obstruction of justice is that when comey doesn't end the investigation, trump fires him. that's a pretty compelling case. >> catherine, is it obstruction of justice to you? >> i've been somebody who along the way has been more likely to believe comey and be