senator risch: got that. i'm talking about somebody that could have done something about this while it was going on. you are aware that president obama talked to mr. putin about that, are you not, in the sum irof 2016? ambassador burns: that's what the news reports say. i also know the obama administration briefed the eight senior members of congress early on. there were public statements made by jeh johnson on october 7. they did take action. it's not as if the obama administration just was silent on this issue. senator risch: indeed, when mr. -- when president obama told mr. putin that we knew that they were taking active measures, that was a class -- that was classified information, was it not? ambassador burns: i think if you are the president of the united states, and you're trying to deliver a stiff diplomatic mission, you are well -- that's the object of the conversation. senator risch: couldn't agree more. that's the purpose of classified information. no good if you collect it and don't use it. ambass

attorney general sessions: no, senator risch, they have not. enator risch: thank you. senator feinstein: mr. chairman, thank you. welcome, attorney general. on may 19, mr. rosenstein in a statement to the house of representatives essentially told them that he learned on may 8 that president trump intended to remove director comey. when you wrote your letter on may 9, did you know that the president had already decided to fire director comey? attorney general sessions: senator feinstein, i would say that i believe it's been made public that the president asked us our opinion, it was given, and he asked us to put that in writing, and i don't know how much more he said about it than that, but i believe he has talked about it. i would let his words speak for themselves. senator feinstein: on may 11, on nbc news "nightly news" two days later, the president stated he was going to fire comey regardless of the recommendations. so i'm puzzled about the recommendation. because the decision had been made. so what was the need for you to write a recommendation? attorney general se

republican jim risch telling us what he wants to learn. but first, here's this hour's eye opener. antell us what he wants to learn. >> it's more like a tom clancy novel than your you're garden variety testimony. >> it's a little awkward to make it so plain and so blunt but i don't think it's particularly nerious. >>

>> no, senator risch. they have not. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator feinstein. >> thanks very much, mr. chairman. welcome, attorney general. >> thank you. >> on may 19th, mr. rosenstein in a statement to the house of representatives essentially told them that he learned on may 8th that president trump intended to remove director comey. when you wrote your letter on may 9, did you know that the president had already decided to fire director comey? >> senator feinstein, i would say that i believe it's been made public that the president asked our opinion.

. >> senator risch. >> attorney general sessions, good to hear you talk about how important this russian interference and active measures in our campaign is. i don't think there's any american who would disagree with the fact that we need to drill down to this, know what happened, get it out in front of the american people, and do what we can to stop it. that's what this committee was charged to do and that's what this committee started to do. as you probably know, on february 14th, "the new york times" published an article

. >> first, james risch highlighting as what he sees as trump's friendly language of director's account. >> he did not direct you to let it go? >> not in his words. >> he did not order you to let it go. >> again, those words are not an order. >> he said "i hope." >> like me you did hundreds or thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses and of course, you have knowledge of thousands of cases out there where people have been charged, do you know any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter of any criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? >> i don't know well enough to answer. the reason i kept on saying his words, i took it as a direction. it is the president of the united states with me alone saying i hope this, i took it as this is what he wants me to do. >> we'll hear more from senator risch shortly. here is democrat from north virginia drawing something he sees. >> you are in a meeting and the attorney general is in the meeting as well and tyet the president asked everyone to leave including the atto

during questioning from a republican senator, senator risch, mr. comey told us that he took the president's conversation with him about the f.b.i. investigation into general flynn as a directive to scuttle that investigation. it is clear that the president -- that president trump's legal defense is to refute mr. comey's account. well, the president threatened mr. comey with the release of tapes of their conversation. presumably, that includes the conversation when president trump asked director comey to, quote, let go, unquote, of the flynn investigation. it's awfully curious that no one from the president's team will either confirm or deny the existence of the tapes. when the tapes are the only way to prove that mr. comey's testimony which came under oath are false or misleading. president trump, if you disagree with anything the director said today, play the tapes for all of america to hear or admit that there were no tapes. second, director comey's contrasting view of the clinton e-mail case and the russia case is telling. mr. comey did not wish

how are you doing a favor to somebody forcing them to buy insurance they don't want, robert risch? >> steve moore, you are a good friend, but you are absolutely full of baloney with regard to all of this. the major problem here is that you're eliminating taxes. you're appealing taxes on the rich. something on the order of 3$365 billion of taxes that would have gone to subsidizing health care. once you give that big tax cut to the wealthy, and this is really -- this republican bill is not a health care bill, it's a tax cut for the wealthy bill. once you give those taxes, $365 billion that were -- that was supporting health care, back to the wealthiest members of our society, obviously you're not going to have enough to provide subsidies for the 80% of people on obamacare, on the affordable care act who need subsidies. you know, steve moore -- let me just finish this thought. >> okay. >> you keep on talking about the fact that obamacare, or the affordable care act is unraveling. number one, part of the reason it's unraveling is because the trump administration has not given insurers

senator risch, thank you very much for making time for us. as we say in the business, you know, a teasing ahead. you've done that. we'll be watching as we would anyway for your upcoming questions. >> this story doesn't need a tease. >> shannon: it doesn't. thank you, sir. >> let's bring in bret baier, chris wallace and dana perino. it's great to have all three of you with us today. dana, ladies first. former press secretary ari fleischer said to the "wall street journal." two goals for crisis control for the nation's chief executive. don't make it worse and refocus the nation on a different topic. go inside the west wing. what's the strategy? >> since 1995 i've followed the advice of ari fleischer. conventional in an unconventional time. you have a president today with a very light schedule. he has a little bit of a speech later. i think the white house could actually provide a counter narrative. last night you had his attorney,, the outside legal attorney advising out this putting out a statement saying the president feels totally vindicated

. >> you know, senator risch made a point yesterday of saying that president trump may have said "i hope you'll drop it," but hope is not the same thing as giving a direction. >> right. the words are not enough. the special counsel, bob mueller, is going to be looking at the entire circumstances to decide whether or not there was a corrupt intent to influence or impede the investigation. >> if you were prosecuting this, do you think there is enough to prove intent, to obstruct justice? >> i would continue the investigation. i think there is circumstantial evidence of corrupt intent so far. the things i've mentioned, excusing people from the room and the other circumstances surrounding that comment. i would certainly keep the investigation going. i would talk to other witnesses. i would talk to jared kushner, to the attorney general, to the people that were excused from that room, to see what the president had said to them and anybody else that might have relevant evidence. >> what would be some of the challenges to filing criminal charges against a sitting president? >> well, there is a

and let's just answer jim risch's question.e chose to stand on the idea that no one has ever been prosecuted for hope. is that true? >> a bunch of cases have come out since then saying, yeah, this has been in the dialogue of these kinds of scenes for many years. people know that -- they believe that if they can shade their language in these moments, they can get away with it and the history of the case law says no you can't. >> it's kind of like nice business here. i hope nothing happens to it. >> yeah. >> so the other sort of interesting thing that stood out to me, and this is not what he actually testified to but what he wrote, the day before his blockbuster testimony. this is fascinating to me. i thought it was the key phrase. march 30 phone call, this is how he reacted when trump once again asked him to get out the fact that he personally was not under investigation and comey said, "i explained that we had briefed the leadership of congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those congre

senator risch: thank you very much. and just a few seconds i have left, mr. rosenstein, could you tell me, please -- we get a lot of pushback from the privacy people, and we've now heard testimony there has been no intention of violation over it. can you tell the american people what's in store for someone who these guys catch intentionally misusing 702, since you're the highest ranking member of the department of justice here? mr. rosenstein: within the department of justice we treat with great seriousness any allegations of violations of classified information. so if there were a credible allegation and someone had willfully violated section 702 in a way that was in violation of a criminal law, we would investigate that case and if prosecution were justified we would prosecute it. director mccabe shares that thought. we need to make sure they are used appropriately and responsibly, we comply with the constitutions and procedures and we will devote whatever resources there are if there are willful violations people will be held accountable. senator risch: an

it is a big hope of his. >> exactly. >> lets answer jim risch's question.t. he chose on the idea that no one ever prosecuted for "i hope" >> this is been in the dialogue of these kinds of scenes for many years. people know that -- they believe if they can change their language in this moment they can get away with it. the history of the case, no, you can. >> nice business you got there. the other sort of interesting thing that stood out to me in the james comey, this is what he wrote and circulated before his big block buster day. >> i explained that we had briefed the leadership of congress on exactly which individuals we with r investigating and that we told those congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating president trump. it would create a duty to corrupt, should that change. >> exactly. as i said last night. the president is on the edge. he cannot learn because i can go onto that meeting, i really want him to say this and i hear him describe all the reasons why he should not and he says look, if i say you are not under investigation

. >> reporter: idaho republican jim risch. >> he did not direct you to let it go. >> not in his words. this is the president of the united states with me alone saying "i hope" this. i took it this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that but that's the way i took it. >> reporter: oklahoma republican james lankford argued president trump didn't say anything to comey that he hasn't said on twitter. >> quite frankly, the president has informed around 6 billion people that he's not rea of this investigation. do you think there's a difference in that? >> yes. >> okay. what was -- >> there's a big difference in kicking superior officers out of the oval office, looking the fbi director in the eye and saying "i hope you let this go." i think if our agents, as good as they are, heard the president of the united states did that there's a real risk of a chilling effect on their work. >> reporter: president trump has disputed comey's account, even tweeting last month, "james comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations." >> lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> reporter: comey says

>> i don't as i sit here. >> martha: senator james risch, good to see you tonight, sir.ing that's the way that he interpreted it was that he was getting a lot of pressure put on him in that moment. you are saying what really matters only are the words themselves customer >> well, look, the presidents had words, words matter, but jim comey is sitting there, he has a lawyer, a good wordsmith. if you look at the documents that he put out for us, seven pages, he was very explicit. he was exacting in his language prior to president said that he hoped for an outcome. now mr. comey said, and he is a good lawyer, he took it a different way. this is a big leak, this cannot be moshe. if you thought the president meant something different than what he actually said, he should have said, well, mr. president, exactly what you mean? from mr. president, are you saying that i should do this? you cannot let this much up. >> martha: and when he went home that night, he perhaps would have made the choice to talk to somebody about it. i don't understand why, why was jeff sessions left out o

i hope -- ( applause ) we're add outs here, senator risch was making it sound like trump was innocentlying, like language doesn't have subtext, like trump was a disney character standing out on a balcony singing. ♪ i hope michael flynn will be free some day ♪ ♪ i hope he'll get away ( laughter ) that's not what happened! trump ordered -- this is what happened -- trump ordered everyone to leave the room, everyone was in the office, trump ordered everyone to leave the room. kushner, mike pence, even jeff sessions, who is comey's boss, by the way, he kicked them all out of the room, then turned to comey when they were alone and looked him in the eye and said -- ♪ i hope -- ( laughter ) come on, man. that's not hope. republicans basically wanted comey to common rate trump and he didn't. democrats wanted comey to plirnl impeach and convict and jail trump. he didn't do that either. or at least we think he didn't because, clearly, the senators kept all the juicy details for themselves. >> we are reconvene in closed session at 1:00 p.m. today. >> we will be having a closed session shortly so we

so did jim risch of idaho. it didn't advance the ball that much on the investigation. the big takeaway was jeff sessions saying i'm an honest guy and i didn't collude with the russians. i have to add, though, that jeff sessions had not been accused of colluding with the russians, there had just been questions raised about his contacts. >> indeed. john, thank you, john harwood in washington. >>> still ahead tonight, opec promised to hold its production cuts. but that appears to be easier . >>> one health insurer is doing what most others are not. it's planning a broad expansion of its obamacare offerings next year. centene plans to sell plans in three additional states, kansas, missouri, and nevada. it will expand in six states where it already sells plans. aetna and other companies have largely quit the obama markets. >>> north dakota isn't the only one trying to stabilize oil production. jackie deangelis has more. >> reporter: the oil cartel's monthly report confirms an increase of a little less than a half million barrels a day. libya, nigeria, iraq, all boosting out

in loving and cher risching -- cherishing our brothers and sisters. we're brothers and sisters. we must understand that our fore fast mothers and forefathers came to this great nation in different -- foremothers and forefathers came to this great nation in different ships. we're in the same boat now. as dr. martin luther king once said we must all learn to live together as brothers and sisters, if not we would perish as cools. -- fools. yesterday was a difficult and dog -- dark day. there was so much pain, so much suffering. for so many people. or our fellow members, our families, for our staffs. it shook the congress and our nation to its core. i, too, was in shock. my heart and my soul ached for those who were attacked and for those who witnessed the violence. like, mr. speaker, i would to like to express my love, my feeling, for all of our colleagues, our friends, our staffs, to the officers and their families. and each and every moment my thoughts and prayers have been with all of the victims and their families as they begin the long road to healing and recovery. they must u

this from idaho republican jim risch. >> he did not direct to you let it go? >> not in his words, no. he is the president of the united states. with me alone saying i hope this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that but that's the way i took it. >> reporter: the president stayed silent during the hearings. even askewing his favorite medium twittered but did speak at the faith and freedom coalition while avoiding comey's name. >> and as you know, we're under siege. you understand that. >> that's right! >> but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever. you watch. [ applause and cheers ] >> reporter: kpix 5 political analyst paul henderson says comey's hearing was not the partisan slugfest previous hearings have devolved into and he finds that telling. >> that we didn't see a whole host of republican representatives coming out to attack him or denigrate him. instead, in the deafening silence that followed the hearings, the only person that we saw directly attacking comey is the white house counsel representative for donal

. >> reporter: some, like james risch, did challenge comey's interpretation of the president's words. >> you may have taken it as a direction, buthat's not what he said. >> correct. >> he said, "i hope." >> those were his exact words, correct. >> reporter: the president claims comey's testimony vindicated him but it was also largely untrue. comey argued you can't have it both ways. >> i used to say to juries when you talked about a witness, you can't cherry pick it. you can't say i liked these things but on this he's a dirty, rotten liar. you have to take it all together and i tried to be open and fair and transparent and accurate. >> reporter: recordings, of course, would be the ultimate proof, and today the house intelligence committee sent a letter to the white house counsel's office asking them to hand over all tapes, if they exist, scott, within next two weeks. >> pelley: nancy cordes on capitol hill, thanks. the nation's top law enforcement officer, the attorney general is supposed to be a firewall 20 president and the f.b.i. so where was jeff sessions? jeff pegues is looking in

. >> reporter: idaho republican jim risch: >> he did not direct you to let it go? >> not in his words, no. i mean, this is the president of the united states, with me alone, saying "i hope this." i took it as, this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that, but that's "ie way i took it. >> reporter: oklahoma republican james lankford argued, president trump didn't say anything to comey that he hasn't said on laitter. >> quite frankly, the president has informed around six billion >>ople that he's not real fond a this investigation. do you think there's a difference in that? >> yes. >> okay. >> well, i think there's a big difference in kicking superior officers out of the oval office, looking the f.b.i. director in the eye and saying, "i hope you let this go." i think if agents, as good as they are, heard the president of the united states did that, there's a real risk of a chilling effect on their work. si reporter: president trump cs disputed comey's account, ten tweeting last month, "james comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations." >> lordy,

>> that arose from the so-called dossier, senator risch?, anywhere. >> i believe that's the report that senator franken hit me with when i was testifying and it -- i think it's been pretty substantially discredited but you would know more than i. but what was said that would suggest i participated in the continuing communications with russians as a surrogate is absolutely false. >> mr. sessions, there's been all this talk about conversations and that you had some conversations with the russians. senators up here who are on either foreign relations intelligence armed services, conversations with officers of other governments or ambassadors or what have you are every day occurrences here, multiple time occurrences for most of us. is that a fair statement? >> i think it is. >> and if you run into one in the grocery store, you'll have a conversation? >> yes and nothing improper. >> on the other hand, collusion with a russian or any other government for that matter when it comes to our elections would certainly be improper and illegal. would tha

. >> senator risch. >> thank you very much. mr. comey, thank you for your service. america needs more like you. and we really appreciate it. yesterday, i got and everybody got the seven pages of your direct testimony that's now a part of the record here. and the first -- i read it, then i read it again. and all i could think was, number one, how much i hated the class of legal writing when i was in law school. and you were the guy that probably got the "a," after reading this. i find it clear, i find it concise. having been a prosecutor for a number of years, handling thousands of cases, read investigative reports, this is as good as it gets. i appreciate that, not only the conciseness and the clearness of it, but also the fact that you have things written down contemporaneously and you have them in quotes so we know exactly what happened and we're not getting some rendition of it that's in your mind. >> thank you, senator. >> you're to be complimented. >> i had great parents and great teachers who beat that into me. >> that's obvious, sir. the chairman walked you t

investigation, and now he's allegedly being looked at for obstruction of justice despite what senator rischointed out in his testimony. i think calling this a witch hunt is a smart political strategy looking at all those things. chris: all right. enough about all of this. we're going to talk about one of the real subjects affecting people's lives that you all want to hear about, and i want to turn to president trump announcing this week that he is partially rolling back president obama's opening of diplomatic and economic ties to cuba. here he is. >> america has rejected the cuban people's oppressors. they are rejected. officially today, they are rejected. chris: brit, how significant is the president's decision really when you consider the fact that, yes, he is rolling back some things, on the other hand to, the u.s. embassy in havana is going to stay open, u.s. airlines and cruise ships are still going to be able to serve the island. >> what he did is he dialed back part of the outreach of cue a baa, a signal -- cue -- cuba. there's not going to be any real detente between washington and

risch, senator risch, he said, i hope you will hold back on that. but when you get -- when the president of the united states in the oval office says something like i hope or i suggest or would you, do you take that as a directive? >> yes. yes. it rings in my ear, will no one rid me of that meddlesome priest. >> said who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and the next day he was killed. we're thinking along the same lines. several other questions and these are more detailed. what do you know about the russian back veb. >> nothing that i can talk about in an open setting. >> that takes care of my next three questions. >> i know it exists. >> you know it exists. what is the relationship of ambassador -- the ambassador from russia from the united states to the russian intelligence infrastructure? >> well, he's a diplomat, who is the chief of mission at the russian embassy, which employs a robust cohort of intelligence officers. so surely he's witnessing of their very, very aggressive intelligence operations in the united states. i don't consider him

>> no, senator risch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >>> senator feinstein. >> thanks very much, mr. chairman. welcome, attorney general. >> thank you. >> on may 19th, mr. rosenstein in a statement to the house of representatives, essentially told them that he learned on may 8th that president trump intended to remove director comey. when you wrote your letter on may 9, did you know that the president had already decided to fire director comey? >> senator finestein, i would say it's been made public that the president asked us our opinion, it was given and he asked us to put that in writing and i don't know how much more he said about it than that. but i believe he has talked about it and i would let his words speak for themselves. >> well, on may 11th, on nbc "nightly news" two days later, the president stated he was going to fire comey regardless of the recommendation. i'm puzzled about the recommendation because the decision had been made. so, what was the need for you to write a recommendation? >> well, we were asked our opinion and when we expressed it which was consistent with

. >> senator risch. >> attorney general sessions, good to hear you talk about how important this russian interference and active measures in our campaign is. i don't think there's any american who would disagree with the fact that we need to drill down to this, know what happened, get it out in front of the american people and do what we can to staunch it. that'it-- stop it. that's what this committee is to do. as you remember the "new york times" published an articlin are alleging there were constant communications between the trump campaign and the russians in collusion regarding the election. do you recall that article when it came out. >> not exactly. >> generally. >> generally i remember those. >> mr. comey told us when he was here last week that he had a very specific recollection. in fact he chased it down through the intelligence community and was not able to find a scintilla of evidence to that effect. then the republicans and democrats up here to tell them that this was false, that there was no such facts anywhere that corroborated from the "new york times" had reported. noneth

you heard senator risch saying they did answer your question.but the democrats and others commentating on it say why couldn't they answer the direct question? >> democrats wanted to get into specific conversations. they didn't want to get into specifics at all, things were not going to talk about it. conversation with the president for it will only tell you in a general sense we've never been pressured emma never felt pressured, never been asked to do anything that was inconsistent morally, legally. democrats hated it. republican said that's good to know. the one before that you go, you just got back from syria and iraq. we have a couple pictures. your assessment of how the fighting is? >> what's remarkable is the iraqis are fighting in mosul. we are advising for the iraqis are fighting in iraq. the serious are fighting -- the syrians are fighting in syria. isis only has control of three areas, smaller regions in the far western side of iraq, including the center of mosul. and in syria, it's really only the euphrates valley. the noose is being c

senator james risch's question to james comey, stay with us. in the country, n e we never forget... that business the united states postal service. priority: you i was thinking around 70. to and before that?re? you mean after that? no, i'm talking before that. do you have things you want to do before you retire? i'd really like to run with the bulls. wow. hope you're fast. i am. get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change with investment management services. i did active duty 11 years.my in july of '98. and two in the reserves. our 18 year old was in an accident. when i call usaa it was that voice asking me, "is your daughter ok?" that's where i felt relief. it actually helped to know that somebody else cared and wanted make sure that i was okay. that was really great. we're the rivera family, and we will be with usaa for life. usaa. we know what it means to serve. call today to talk about your insurance needs. beth is a total boss. she switched to the best deal in america. total wireless. she gets the largest most dependable 4g lte network... ...and 5gigs of high spe

senator risch from idaho was absolutely correct in questioning comey.nt is every time you try to talk about it, you try to make "i hope that this flynn thing will go away" pressure point. it is not a pressure point, but if comey took it as a pressure point, even incorrectly took it as a pressure point, he should have said something in the private conversation that the president had the courtesy to give him. >> here are the exact, here is the exact language. we can both be clear, this is from the james comey prepared statement, he then said "i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he is a good guy. i hope you can let this go." james comey saw that as a directive. >> and the president saw that as an expression of a hope, and that's the difference here. and that's the problem when people try to overparse a just semantics to reflect their bias, and try and create a case where there isn't one. if that sentence is supposedly all that james comey has to stand on to accuse the president of obstruction, this thing will go away

risch, senator risch, you said he said i hope you will hold back on that, but when you get a -- when a president of the united states in the oval office says something like i hope or i suggest or would you, do you take that as a directive? >> yes. yes, it rings in my ear as will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest. >> i was just going to quote that, henry ii, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and the next day he was killed. we're thinking along the same lines. several other questions and these are a little bit pour detailed. what do you know about the russian bang veb? >> nothing that i can talk about in an open setting. >> that takes care of my next three questions. you know it exists. what is the relationship of ambassador -- the ambassador from russia to the united states to the russian intelligence infrastructure? >> he's a diplomat. who is the chief of mission at the russian embassy, which employs a robust cohort of intelligence officers, and so surely he's witting of their very, very aggressive intelligence operations, at least some of it in the united states. i don

james risch/-r- idaho: you may have taken it as a direction, but that's not what he said.e said 'i hope'jamey comey/fmr. fbi dir: correct comey called the conversation concerning.... but drew no conclusions. jamey comey/fmr. fbi dir: i dont think it's for me to say whether the conversation with the president was an effort to obstruct.comey confirmed that he told trump that he wasn't personally under investigation. the president's attorney said the president feels vindicated marc kasowitz/president trump's outside counsel: "mr. comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president trump privately: that is that the president was not under investigation" meanwhile democrats drew a very different conclusion: rep. nancy pelosi/-d- minority leader: his pattern of concerted and inexcusable effort to shut down the fbi's investigation of his cronies' ties to russia and all of that i think disgraces the office of the presidentstrong language, but stopping short of saying the testimony showed the president obstructed justice. (grant) comey also said the presi

. >> senator risch. >> thank you very much. mr. comey, thank you for your service.rica needs more like you and yesterday i got and everybody got the seven pages of your direct testimony that is now a part of the record here. i read it. then i read it ben. all i could think, number one, how much i hated the class of legal writing when i was in law school. you were the guy that probably got the a after reading this so. i find it clear. i find it concise. and having been a prosecutor for a number of years handling, hundred, maybe thousands of cases read police reports, investigative reports, this is as good as it gets. i really appreciate that. not only conciseness and clearness of it, but also the fact that you have things that were written down contemporaneously when they happened. you actually put them in quotes. so we know exactly what happened and we're not getting some rendition of it that is in your mind. >> thank you, senator. >> you're to be complimented. >> i had great parents and great teachers who beat that into me. >> that is obvious, sir. the chairman wal

risch, senator risch, you said he said i hope you will hold back on that, but when you get a -- whenresident of the united states in the oval office says something like i hope or i suggest or would you, do you take that as a directive? >> yes. yes, it rings in my ear as will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest. >> i was just going to quote that, henry ii, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and the next day he was killed. we're thinking along the same lines. several other questions and these are a little bit pour detailed. what do you know about the russian bang veb? >> nothing that i can talk about in an open setting. >> that takes care of my next three questions. you know it exists. what is the relationship of ambassador -- the ambassador from russia to the united states to the russian intelligence infrastructure? >> he's a diplomat. who is the chief of mission at the russian embassy, which employs a robust cohort of intelligence officers, and so surely he's witting of their very, very aggressive intelligence operations, at least some of it in the united states. i don't c

james risch/-r- idahoyou may have taken it as a direction, but that's not what he said.ay comey/fmr. fbi dir: correct comey called the conversation concerning.... but drew no conclusions. jamey comey/fmr. fbi dir: i dont think it's for me to say whether the conversation with the president was an effort to obstruct.comey confirmed that he told trump that he wasn't personally under investigation. the president's attorney said the president feels vindicated marc kasowitz/president trump's outside counsel: "mr. comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president trump privately: that is that the president was not under investigation" meanwhile democrats drew a very different conclusion: rep. nancy pelosi/-d- minority leader: his pattern of concerted and inexcusable effort to shut down the fbi's investigation of his cronies' ties to russia and all of that i think disgraces the office of the presidentstrong language, but stopping short of saying the testimony showed the president obstructed justice. ( mark ) a major upset in the british parliamentary

risch, senator risch, you said he said i hope you will hold back on that, but when you get a -- when a president of the united states in the oval office says something like i hope or i suggest or would you, do you take that as a directive? >> yes. yes, it rings in my ear as will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest. >> i was just going to quote that, henry ii, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest and the next day he was killed. we're thinking along the same lines. several other questions and these are a little bit pour detailed. what do you know about the russian bang veb? >> nothing that i can talk about in an open setting. >> that takes care of my next three questions. you know it exists. what is the relationship of ambassador -- the ambassador from russia to the united states to the russian intelligence infrastructure? >> he's a diplomat. who is the chief of mission at the russian embassy, which employs a robust cohort of intelligence officers, and so surely he's witting of their very, very aggressive intelligence operations, at least some of it in the united states. i don

in for risch reagan. >> hello, can you hear me? neil: i can i'm in adele, you can't be leaving. don't let my troubles be yours. >> thank you, my friend. we're hours away from senate republicans to introduce a new health care bill. at this hour it seems a deal is highly unlikely. let's look how the market is reacting to all of this. lauren: i'm lauren simonetti in for trish regan this friday. welcome to "the intelligence report." president trump says if they can't decide on what they are working on now they should immediately repeal and then replace at a later date. will republican senators be on board with this plan? we'll stay on it. >>> how about this for outrage. a i will relate immigrant is about to win a lawsuit for being in the country illegal. the immigrant suing san francisco because police turned him over to the immigration agents. that is in violation of the sank wear city law. adam, the clock ticks or doesn't it at this point? good to see you? reporter: good to see you, lauren that's a great he question. this deadline is really pie-in-the-sky. remember mitch mcconnell

. >> idaho republican jim risch. >> he did not direct you to let it go. >> not in his words, no.his is the president of the united states with me alone. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. i did not obey that but that is the way i took it. >> the oklahoma republican argued president trump did not say anything to comey and --that he has not set on twitter. informedesident has about 6 billion people he is not fond of this investigation. do you think there is a difference in that? >> yes. i think there is a big difference in kicking superior officers out of the oval office, looking the f.b.i. director the eye, and saying i hope you let this go. i think if our agents heard the president did that, there is a real risk of a chilling effect on their work. >> president trump has disputed commies account, even tweeting last month james comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversation. >> i hope there are tapes. >> comey says that tweet three days after he was fired let him to take the unusual step. he asked a friend to share the contents of his memos with a "new york time