we're also not used to watching russian tv or reading newspapers said russian we don't hear those russian communities so they have decided to establish those in the region into have forced to news but then they trust that local media over the russian media. and of those religious court it's between those nations effectively two years church and fake. of traditional society they trust church. and also '02 propagate and to have those people and the citizens of my country and it is about dignity to be fundamentally different in and then if we join nato or the you so if they use these different channels and that since that to ruin schleicher the hearts of the people. >> fakes to the four of you this has been a valuable panel. i focus on following the money issue about the moscow funding two years ago directing that intelligence assessment so looking its european democracy to help us understand what has happened because of those pro russian political figures so had you been able to determine if putin employs various strategies to curry favor and what would those strategies me?. >> first, ed th

serilic or russian alphabet. he and his team did not let down their guard for new intrusions and by the summer of 2016, they detected fancy bear sniffing out more prey. >> it's really exciting to catch these guys in the act. >> the russian hackers had infiltrated act blue, democratic fund-raising website. >> they were diverting people who went to the act blue system, the donations system, to a server that they owned. >> his team showed us exactly what they found. >> this is the website of the dccc, the democratic congressional campaign committee. on july 19th, 2016. if you right click and go to view page source, it will bring you the html source. so the code that's behind what you see. in this case, what was interesting was that normally here, this is the hyperlink, normally this would go to secure.actblue.com, but in this case, it goes to secure.actblues.com, with an "s." >> act blues with an "s" had nothing to do with the democrats and appeared to be a russian cover. >> the second i saw we were sending -- there

they also report that they believe that some of the russian whoz participat russians who participatede attack were here on american soil. does that make sense, that the russians need to physically be here when we think about an attack that appears on the cloud, on the internet? >> to me it does, rachel, and the uptick in visas, it's a reminder, perhaps in some ways, spies are just like us. in order to apply for work overseas, they have to apply for visas. in this case they probably applied for a usage of cover that intelligence services around the world use. not always do intelligence officers travel under official cover. sometimes they go under what's called non-official cover and the russians are pretty adept at this. you may recall in 2010, the fbi rounded up 10 so-called russian illegals, that is to say, russians who had illegally assumed american identities and had been living here, in some cases, for decades, collecting intelligence in an effort to send it back to moscow. in this case, though, it sounds like the individuals came here under official cover requesting diplomatic vi

the russian ambassador kislyak and several other russian ambassadors.t. equal footing was extended to the foreign ambassadors. initial short reception before the speech. any conversations with mr trump where brief and could not be private. my recollection is the direction between mr trump and ambassador kislyak was limited to polite pleasantries ambassador kislyak was limited to polite pleasa ntries appropriate ambassador kislyak was limited to polite pleasantries appropriate on such occasions. we are not aware of any conversations between kislyak and senator sessions. in a small setting like this one it is unlikely they could have engaged in a meaningful private conversation without drawing attention from others present. you have any reason to disagree? i think that is a very fair description of the reception situation. i appreciate them having made that statement. thank you mr general, for being here. good to see you again. i want to follow up on what senator keenan asked, concerning, and you and i are the same concerning, and you and i are the same v

-russian relationship. i think we can disagree on whether deep nuclear cuts are practical or desirable. i personally think the russians aren't quite interested in that, but i think we all need to agree on the importance of extending new start and preserving our intrusive transparency, predictability and verification regime with russia and i think that's something that needs to be clear and the administration needs a clear statement, make a clear statement with regard to that. now, a great piece in survival last month where he talked about the idea, idea of leashing through process. so he talked about the importance of the arms control process and clarifying soviet position and contribute to go russian understanding about deterrence and what americans understand as deterrence. so this kind of acceptance eventually of the american deterrence logic. he also called for a statement of the principal that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought and i strongly endorse that. i think if we think about su

and the russians are pretty adept at this.you may recall in 2010 the fbi rounded up ten so-called russian illegals. that is to say russians who had illegally assumed american identities and had been living here in some cases for decades collecting intelligence in an effort to send it back to moscow. in this case it sounds like the individuals came here under official cover requesting diplomatic visas. of course they're not going to say i'm a russian intelligence officer. they may say, for example, i did with the ministry of defense or ministry of foreign affairs, but in doing so it made it much easier for the fbi to spot this uptick and deny the visas, at least until the election was over. >> and this is reported as something that is concerning to both the fbi and the state department in terms of the way these things normally work. are you surprised to hear or unsurprised to hear that the fbi would have noticed this uptick, the state department might have recognized there's some strange surge in those kind of applications? is

back in our lifetime we had never known the russian government or the russian military to ever be our friend, and wanting the same things we wanted out of life. with that being said, the seriousness of this russian hacking is very serious to me and concerning. you were saying that you had not been briefed on that. i think it was october 9 when it was known that dod and mr. mr. jeh johnson, homeland security, made that public, what was going on. then on december 29, president obama at that time expelled 35 russian diplomats and denied access to a russian compound and broadened existing sanctions. i would ask, did you have any discussions at all or sat in on any type of meetings or recommendations made to remove those sanctions? atty gen. sessions: i don't recall any such meetings. to the president being inaugurated until through the transition, were there any meetings that he showed any can learn federation or just inquisitive of what the russians were really doing? atty gen. sessions: i don't recall any such conversation. i'm not sure i understood your question, maybe a better listen

we remember back in our lifetime we never known the russians to be the russian government or the russian military to ever be our friend. and wanting the same things we wanted out of life. the seriousness of this russian hacking is very serious to me and concerning. you said you were not briefed on. that i think october 9th, the one known that the odni at that time i think mr. clapper and also mr. jay johnson, homeland security, made that public what was going on. then on december 29th, president obama at that time expelled 35 russian diplomats and denied access to kpounld and brooned the existing sanctions. have you had any discussions at all or set in on any type of meetings or recommendations were made to remove the sanctions? >> i don't recall any such meeting. >> and during the time not from the president being inaugurated on january 20th, prior to that in the campaign up until through the transition, was there ever any meetings he showed any concern or consideration or just in quiztive of what the russians were really doing and if they really done sfwlit. >> i don't recall any such

kushner's omitted meetings with russian officials.ort news tell the story of clandestine calls and meetings between mr. kushner and russian officials during the campaign and transition, attempts to conceal those meets from u.s. intelligence and law enforcement, and mr. kushner's subsequent support for attempts to obstruct the investigation of trump russia contacts. the letter concludes the white house should take all possible steps to protect national security, including immediately revoking mr. kushner's security clearance. congressman ted lieu was one of the lawmakers who signed that letter. tonight congressman lieu told chris hayes he believes jared kushner committed a felony. that's next. into promotions? ♪ nah. what else? what if we hire more sales reps? ♪ nah. what else? what if we digitize the whole supply chain? so people can customize their bike before they buy it. that worked better than expected. i'll dial it back. yeah, dial it back. just a little. live business, powered by sap. when you run live, you run simple. unlike or

it wasn't russians.e development of it technologies is extreme, extreme important, you know, and valuable feature of contemporary world but it is not that simple. it's backfired. whatever the russian intent was, and you can argue about whether it's right to put it at russia's door, but the fact is, if you were hoping, and it seems you were, because there were warm words, a direct quote from you, welcoming donald trump, saying he was a man to be admired, picked himself up twice from being knocked down in business. me? yes, this is a quote from you. trump, you said, is a smart guy, he lost two times everything and he raised himself up again. he is addressing some internal failings of the american people. where is the word of "admiring"? ineversaid admiring. that is a hugely admiring comment, is it not? no, no, no. the truth is, i never admired trump, even since i was in new york city. i did not like the guy. but my assumption was don't oversimplify the character of this person. and the fact of this person.

montenegro, first of all, we are not used to watching russian tv or reading russian newspapers in russian. so they, therefore, decided to open, to establish a number of offsets of russian media in the region that do broadcast news in all local language. and then to use local networks to republish those news. first publish news. then people will trust local news or local media if not a russian media. after some time, they have today become the most popular among local population. and finally because of cultural and historical and religious closeness between two nations they really effectively used church and faith. my societies in principal traditional society and people trust priest and trust church. since we are orthodox population, so they used church to propagate orthodox style of life or eastern orthodox style of life and to present to the people to citizens of my country that it is about identity and it is about cultural roots and it is about dignity and that eastern christianity is fundamentally than western world. and if we join, we join nato or the eu, at the end of the day we're

so, word of warning with anything coming out of russian state media. >> absolutely. >>> in the russiannvestigation, the special counsel goes on i hiring spree as the president goes off and the vice president lawyers up. ready to take control of your back pain? new icyhot lidocaine patch. desensitizes aggravated nerves with the max strength lidocaine available. new icyhot lidocaine patch. >>> all right, new developments in the russia investigation. special counsel robert mueller bringing 13 lawyers on board to help with the probe, and we're told he's not done hiring. the "washington post" reporting mueller's team is now investigating the finances and dealings of the president's son-in-law and adviser, jared kushner. a lawyer for kushner says they don't know what the report refers to, since it would be standard practice, of course, for the special counsel to examine financial records to look for anything related to russia. >>> cnn has already reported the fbi is looking into kushner's role with the campaign. the report, which cited u.s. officials, also appeared to prompt an unusual state

manafort forced to step down over ties to russian backed entities. the national security advisor, general flynn had to resign over his lies about engagements with the russians. and we saw the candidate himself express an odd and unexplained affection for the russian dictator, while calling for the hacking of his opponent. there's a lot to investigate. enough, in fact, then director comey publicly acknowledged he was leading an investigation into those links between mr. trump's campaign and the russian government. as the director of the fbi, mr. comey was ultimately responsible for conducting that investigation. which might explain why you're sitting now as a private citizen. what we didn't know was that the same time this investigation was proceeding, the president himself appears to have been engaged in an effort to influence, or at least co-opthe director of the fbi. the testimony mr. comey has submitted for today's hearing is very disturbing. on january 27th after summoning director comey to dinner. the president appears to have threatened the dir

russian-owned compound. and he broadened the existing. do you have any -- have you had any discussions or set in on any type of meetings or recommendations were made to remove those sapnctions? >> i don't recall any such meeting. >> and during the time, not from the president being inaugurated on january 20th, prior to that in the campaign up until the transition, was there ever any meetings he showed concern or consideration or just inquisitive of what the russians were really doing and if they'd really done it? >> i don't recall any such conversations. i'm not sure i understood your question. maybe i better listen again. >> you were part of the national security team. >> yeah. >> if he would have heard something about russia and capabilities and concern about what they could do to our election process, was there ever any conversations concerning that whatsoever? >> i don't recall it, senator manchin. >> i know it's been askied of you, the executive privileges and i understand that. but also when we had mr.

he's out there to try to contact russians, the russian hackers, to try to get e-mails they might have stolen from hillary clinton. and he contacts five different groups of hackers, at least two he thinks are definitely russians. does he get anything from them? interesting answer. quote, mr. smith said after vetting batches of e-mails offered to him by hackers groups last fall, he couldn't be sure enough of their you a then at this tease to leak them himself. he told all the groups to give them to wikileaks." this stuff, wikileaks never published those e-mails or claimed to have them. this is a republican operative convening a team to try to work with people who they expect and believe to be the russian government to try to get from them what they hope are e-mails stolen from hillary clinton. it's clear the reason they wanted to get them is because they wanted to use the e-mails here in the united states against hillary clinton. i don't think i'm going too far out on a limb here to call that a literal example of colluding with the russians in their attack on the united states, or at le

the russian government was not involved. putin went on to say that hackers are free people, just like artists who wake up in the morning in a good mood and start painting. amid growing anticipation for comey's appearance next week, we're learning for the first time about a possible meeting during the campaign between the russian ambassador to the u.s. and the president himself. five current and former u.s. officials told nbc news they are aware of classified intelligence suggesting there was some sort of private encounter between trump and his aides and the russian envoy. on the sidelines of a foreign policy speech last year at the mayflower hotel. it's been reported previously that then candidate trump greeted the ambassador sergey kislyak during a vip reception before the speech where jared kushner and jeff sessions were also in attendance. but this is the first indication there interaction may have been more significant. if such a meeting did take place, it would be the third meeting with the russian ambassador that jeff

we remember back in our lifetime we've never known the russian government or the russian military to ever be our friend and wanting the same things we wanted out of life. with that being said, the seriousness of this russian hacking is very serious to me and concerning, and you're saying that you had not been briefed on that. i think it was october 9th, when it was known that the dni at that time, i think mr. clapper and also mr. jeh johnson, homeland security, made that public what was going on. then on december 29th, president obama at that time expelled 35 russian diplomats, denied access to two russian-owned come poupo and broadened the existing sanctions. sir, i would ask, have you had any discussions or sat in on any type of meetings where recommendations were made to remove those sanctions? >> i don't recall any such meeting. >> during the time not from the president being inaugurated on january 20th, prior to that in the campaign up until and through the transition, was there ever any meetings that he showed any concern or consideration or inquisitive of what the russians wer

we knew much more about the russian side. and they knew more about our practices and a lot of that is gone. >> so i think it's important to talk about positive examples of our operation where it does exist but i also think, i think the other issue here is that if you look at in terms of bureaucracies, on the inside and just the rhetoric, the new generation of people who are now becoming sort of bureaucrats. >> the rhetoric was sort of people who are not part of the cooperative activity and so i think that's a different total change when it comes to nuclear issues to generally sort of much more nationalist so there's this other aspect of this, that's much more troubling than is positive. >> so first of all, there is

that's a russian su-27 fighter. that's the same kind of russian fighter that got to within five feet of that big american surveillance plane just a couple of days ago, also over the baltic sea. so this is this remarkable scene. you can see shot from the window of the larger russian aircraft. the russian fighter jet pulls up in that tiny space between the f-16 and wing tip of this larger russian plane. the russian jet squeezes in between the two of them. the reason the russian fighter jet, you can see it at one point in this tape tilting its wings, that's apparently to show the f-16 that it is armed with air-to-air missiles. see that tilt right there? that's him showing off his missiles underneath his left wing. that su-27 is apparently armed with the kind of missiles that fighter jets use to shoot down other fighter jets. that's what that showing off is. the nato f-16 hangs in there for a few more seconds and ultimately moves away. so this is not an abstract thing. right? relations between russia and the west, relat

the connection with the russians? do those contacts go beyond meetings in september of 2016, and what is his role, as center langford asked, and was or any kind of connection with the russian investigation? the most noticeably today on the hill, we have a lot of questions about media reports concerning the special counsel, and whether the president could fire robert muller at will, and here is critical exchange between the senders and the deputy attorney general? >> president trump ordered you to fire the special counsel, what would you do? >> cedric, i will not follow any orders unless i believe those are lost on appropriate orders. under regulation, robert mueller might only be five for good cause. >> there is no cause. >> that's great. >> is it fair to put that to rest? >> as far as i'm concerned, yes senator. i appointed him. i stand by that decision. i think was the right thing to do under that circumstance. i'm going to defend the integrity of that investigation. speed it were to go back to the breaking news of

how does one go about attributing that to the russians? what kinds of information, signatures or cyber activity would you look for in order to make that atrib bugs and how do you validate that? >> you probably have to have that discussion in closed session because it's sources and methods. and it's probably better to have that discussion with someone in the intelligence community. i do recall that looking at the intelligence, it was a pretty clear case perhaps beyond a reasonable doubt, mr. gowdy, that the russian government was behind the hacks into the dnc based on everything i was seeing. in terms of atribution. there are normal considerations who is engaged in some type of cyber attack. my personal opinion was that -- and is that those normal considerations were out the window and he that we had an independent overriding need to inform the voting public of what we saw going on. and the way i looked at it as a corporate lawyer was if i'm the issuer of a public stock and i see a very powerful actor in the market trying to manipulate the

what the russians did. as some other collea g u es what the russians did. colleagues have mentioneded, why they were so successful. we must determine the necessary steps to ta ke to determine the necessary steps to take to protect our democracy and ensure they can't do it again. we have elections this year in 2017, simply put, we cannot let anything 01’ simply put, we cannot let anything or anyone prevent us from getting to the bottom of this. mr comey, let me say at the outset, we haven't always agreed on every issue. in fact i've questioned some of the actions you've taken. but i've never had any reason to question your integrity, your expertise or your intelligence. you've been a straight shooter with this committee and have been willing to speak truth to power, even at the risk of your own career. which makes the way in which you were fired by the way in which you were fired by the president ultimately shocking. we began this entire process with the president and his staff first denying that the russians were ever involved and then falsely claiming that

the russians interfered in our election in the 2,016th cycle. they did it with purpose, sophistication and overwhelming technical efforts. it was an active measures campaign driven from the government. it is a high confidence judgment in the community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. it's not a close call and it's very serious which is why it is refreshing to see the bipartisan focus because this is about america, not about the party. >> so that was a hostile act against the country. did the president in any of those interactions that you>> shared with us today ask what you should be doing to protect america against the russian interference in the system? >> i don't recall a conversation like that. >> do you find it odd?re >> attended a fair number of meetings on that. >> did you find it odd that he seems concerned by the electio elections? >> did you have any interactions that suggested he was taking that hostile action seriously? as you are very aware it was only the two of you in the room for that dinner. you've t

they expelled russian spies and closed facilities used by the russians for espionage against america. i hope, secretary johnson, that you will be able to share a sense of the debate that was ongoing in the executive branch as evidence of the russian involvement and hacked emails piled up through the late summer and early fall. what led to such a long delay of making attribution and why was the most significant step of imposing costs on russia for its interference come only after the election and what are the lessons learned? at its heart, our democracy relies on the trust of the american people and their institutions. the events of last year and the potential for worse in the future are a stark warning to all of us that we must guard our democracy jealously and there are powerful adversaries that wish to tear down america's role as its champion. we have our work cut out for us, but the world is counting on us to be up to the challenge. i thank you for your extraordinary service once again and your testimony today. i yield back. >> secretary johnson, would you like to make an opening s

montenegro first of all we're not used to watching russian tv, reading russian newspapers in russian. we're not like people in ukraine, for example. we don't hear russian communities living there. they therefore decided to open, establish, a number of ussia media in the region. they brought news in the local language and use local networks to republish those news. publish kate news make either fake, then those news will be broadcasted or republished by local news. then people will trust local news, local media, not russian media. constitute nick and russia today can -- spute nick and russia today can -- sputnik and russia and russia can become popular today. they effectively use church and faith. my society, traditional society, people trust church. since we're also population. o they use church to propagate orthodox style or eastern orthodox style of life and present to the people, citizens of my country, that it's about our vanity and roots and it's about dignity. and that if in christianity is fundamentally different than western world. if we join nato, or the e.u., at the end of t

russian government.what the americans did in the obama administration was to ban the russians from having access to them. they told them they all had the leave in 24 hours and they couldn't come back, and then the f.b.i. and others went in and proved to their own satisfaction that what they thought was happening was actually happening. the trump administration in a meeting between secretary tillerson, secretary of state tillerson and the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov last month said that they would drop what had been a linkage between the two, what the trump administration had said was linkage between letting the russians go back into the buildings and have access to them again and the russians giving up a situation that had been going on for several years in st. petersburg where in response the previous u.s. sanctions against russia over ukraine, the russians had refused to allow the americans to build a new consulate in st. petersburg. and so the administration had said, well, you give us our

ambassador or any other russian official. if any brief interaction occurred in passing with the russian ambassador during that reception, i do not remember it. after the speech i was interviewed by the news media. there was an area for that, in a different room. then i left the hotel. but whether i ever attended a reception where the russian ambassador was also present is entirely beside the point of this investigation into russian interference in the 2016 campaign. let me state this clearly, colleagues: i have never met with or had any conversations with any russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the united states. further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the trump campaign. i was your colleague in this body for 20 years, at least some of you, and i participated -- and the suggestion that i participated in any collusion that i was aware of any collusion with the russian government to hurt this country, which i have served wit

information and he also used the russians. he went on television and said if the russians are listening, find those emails. he placed everything right on his sleeve and he knew the russians were listening. i think he gave himself away just like when he had -- i said to myself, trump this investigation is not going so well, let's get rid of comey. it is disparaging to the russians. that to me is un-american. no matter what you think of that james comey, he is a fine upstanding decent, honest american patriot. alan is a democrat in brooklyn, new york. courts --e reason the the election immediately was the state of vote count they felt would eat irreparable harm to the president the of the apparent winner george w. bush. compared to the situation we have now it's eames that we have a far greater likelihood of irreparable harm being done to the country's from permanent or lasting actions of a president whose legitimacy may be determined to be void after the facts. lower court judges changes in the paris climate treaty. irreversibl

these aren't russian. these are patriotic russian nationals. you saw that about what he said with the possibility of the dnc hack being russian in origin. if they did it there's nothing i can do about it. these are patriotically minded people. all of this is plausibly deniable, within the gray zone which allows him to sit there with megyn kelly saying look there's nothing going on here. >> that extraordinary smirk on his face. >> i want keir simmons to chime back in here. you had an interesting run-in with that russian banker, remember the russian banker from a sanctioned russian bank, who met with jared kushner and by the way, nice hustle. i want to share this video. looked like you must have had sneakers op. what did he tell you? >> well, that's right. this is sergey gorkov who met with jared kushner back in december and as we know, there is still a good deal of mystery about what happened in that meeting. it was around about 30 minutes we believe, so we tracked him down here at the forum here. he is the chairman of the vnesheconombank bank,

here was his response. >> have you met with any other russian officials are folks connected to the russian government since you endorsed donald trump? >> i don't believe so. i -- you know, we meet a lot of people, so, -- >> separate from those two meetings you discussed with the ambassador? >> i don't believe so. >> later that week when sessions updated his sworn testimony to the senate judiciary committee, when he acknowledged the two meetings with kislyak but he did not, don, mention any encounter at the mayflower hotel. >> interesting. jim, i want you to stick around because i want to bring back dana bash. also cnn legal analyst laura coates and national security and legal analyst susan hennessey. thank you all for joining the panel. laura, you first. this is possibly yet another undisclosed meeting with the russian ambassador and this attorney general has already had to recuse himself from the russia probe. do people just really have that bad of memory? what do you make of this new reporting? >> the amnesia is suspicious at best. the idea you can continuously forget about important mee

but by the russians to have back channels. but i just want to say one other thing about what carl said. but it is absolutely true that the president can lift the veil on a lot of this, simply by making the kinds of disclosures that have been the norm since nixon. for example, his tax returns. he could release his tax returns for the last ten years and other details about his businesses that would give people confidence or not that he didn't have these obligations or connections to people who are related to russia, if not russian. and he hasn't done that. and every day that passes that he doesn't do that, he's adding to the suspicion that there's something there. >> it would be very helpful to see, to see, as well, the kushner company's tax returns and whether jared kushner or his family's organization has loans that are outstanding to russians, ethno-russians, et cetera, or have been seeking them. >> thank you all very much. >> thank you. >>> just ahead tonight, two vastly different views of how unusual it was if jared kushner

did the president ever show any concern or interest or curiosity about the russians russians were doing? >> as i said earlier, i don't remember any conversations with the president about the russia election interference. >> did he ever ask you questions about this? >> there was an initial briefing about our findings and i believe there was a conversation where he asked questions about what we had filed found. we have this big messy wonderful country where we fight each other all the time, but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for, except other americans. that's wonderful and painful, but we are talking about a foreign government that used technical intrusion and other methods to try and shape the way we think, we vote, we act. that is a big deal. people need to recognize it, it's on about republic and's or democrats, they're coming after america which i hope we all love equally. they want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. they think this great experiment of ours is a threat to them so they're going to try and run it down and dirty it u

associates of the russian government? mr. comey: i cannot answer that sitting here. attention nowurn to michael flynn and his underlying conduct. his alleged interactions with the russian ambassador on the phone and what he said to senior trump administration officials. i understand there are other nn.ues with mr. fly those are serious allegations that will be pursued. but i want to speak to his interactions with the russian ambassador. it was a story in the washington reviewed says fbi michael flynn's calls with russian ambassador, t found nothing illicit. is t story accurate? mr. comey: i don't want to comment on that, senator, because i am sure the bureau is not confirmed any interception of indications. i don't want to talk about that in an open setting. 40 be improper for an incoming national security adviser to have a conversation with a foreign ambassador? mr. comey: and my spirits, no. >> but you cannot confirm or deny that the conversation happened? mr. comey: i don't think i can talk about that in an open settin

expulsion of 35 russian diplomats and closure of two russian compounds.bama also proved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in russia's infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs the could be detonated if the united states found itself in an escalating exchange with moscow. it was still in its planning stages when obama left office. it will be up to trump to decide whether to use the capacity, according to the washington post report. let's look at what president obama said back in december about how the administration handled the situation. [video clip] tos. obama: the goal was make sure we did not do the work of the leakers by raising more questions about the integrity of the election when i was taking place, at the time when the president-elect was raising questions about the integrity of the election. finally, it is worth pointing out that the information was out there. it was in the hands of wikileaks. that was going to come out or what. about, thatoncerned was not compounded by potential hacking that co

he's still saying not the russian government but now he's saying atri othericly minded russians couldinterfered in the u.s. election. >> right. well, i think this is just his way to cover up them medaling in our election. the lengths they went to were involved. they put out fake news stories. they had social media bots spanning media continues. you can't really deny it at this point. i think this is his best cover story so far. >> interesting that he's startsing to make up a cover story as if the iron is getting hot. thank you very much. attorney general session sgs is the only one in the trump administration. global affairs elise labbin is out front. how tangled is the kislyak-trump web? >> it's very tangled, erin. ambassador kislyak is so prominent in washington but now he is at the center of the investigation into russia and really in the thick of the storm. ambassador sergey kislyak is at the center of the investigation of ties between russia and the trump campaign. u.s. officials consider him a spy and a spy recruit ever. a charge that the kremlin denies but he raised eyebrows wh

and -- the trump campaign and the russians. i want to drill right down as my time is limited to the most recent dustup regarding allegations that the president of the united states obstructed justice. and you nailed this down on page five, paragraph three, you put this in quotes, words mattematt you wrote down the words so we can have the words in front of us now. 28 words in quotes, it says, quote, i hope, this is the president speaking, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go. now, those are his exact words, is that correct? >> correct. >> you wrote them here and put them in quotes. >> correct. >> thank you for that. he did not direct you to let it go. >> not in his words, no. >> he did not order you to let it go. >> again, those words are not an order. >> he said i hope. now, like me you probably did hundreds of cases, maybe thousands of cases charging people with criminal offenses, and, of course, you have knowledge of the thousands of cases out

what is the russian strategic interests. why are they doing that even though they know it's pretty dangerous. we have seen the buzzing. you're right. this is actually pretty serious. i think the russians have several objectives. one of the objectives is to make clear to nato we are here, we are ready, we are armed and just don't come too close. in a sense, it's not to move too close, not to engage in too many military maneuvers, not to spend too much hardware and so on. the other objective is what i tried to point out in my remark remarks, to create a sense of unpredictability. a sense where the opponent in that regard, nato, does not know how far othe are the russians going. what do they want to achieve. that kind of creates the image of an adversary that is very dangerous, one that you cannot calculate what would be his next move. i think the larger picture behind all of that is that russia is trying to get back to a quote, the russians are trying to keep the american out in the russians in and oppose soviet states. they a

has tracked the hackers in this qatar incident to russian criminal organizations or to the russian security services blamed for the election haks here in the united states. one official told us that based on past intelligence quote not much happens in that country without the blessing of the government. today president trump tweeted criticism of qatar that mirrors broader concerns that the saudis and others in the region have, that they have long objected to qatar's foreign policy. in his tweet president trump didn't mention the hack but voiced support for the regional blockade of qatar and cited qatar's funding of terrorist groups. they have rejected the terror funding accusations. the fbi and cia declined to comment the story and qatar government issued a statement saying quote the hacking of qatar news agency is an aggressive coordinated crime that continues jessiescalation qatar. these efforts undermine qatar's investigation and do not support the unity of the reeblgon to fight terrorism, instability and conflict. >> it not the kind of fake news that president refers to because that's n

interference in the alleged russian interference in the us election campaign. all of his meetings with mrtrump documented all of his meetings with mr trump because he was concerned the president might lie about them. the white house has responded, saying the president is not a liar. some of the main stories from bbc world service, first of all, as you will know, it is the uk general election today, we are into the last hour of voting, that has been taking place in more than 40,000 polling stations. a total of 650 members of parliament are going to be elected, and nearly 47 million people are registered to vote. the polls will close at the end of this programme in about 45 minutes. bbc news will be broadcasting an election special, we will get the exit polls very quickly, and whether you are watching in the uk or outside of the uk, you will see that right here. let's look at the timeline that leads us to today's testimony from james comey. his first clash with donald trump was during the election campaign. mr comey had announced the fbi was dropping an investiga