former deputy attorney general sally yates got push out and the current deputy attorney general rod rosensteinho is in the president's crosshairs and the president makes it clear. with reports indicating the president could use this memo as a pretext to fire rosenstein, the only person who obviously has the authority over the special counsel's probe, democrats say it could spark a constitutional crisis. drawing out the suspense this morning, the president weighed in on the memo's allegations from the oval office, most notable however, was what he said about the fate of rod rosenstein. here he goes. >> i think it's terrible. you want to know the truth? i think it's a disgrace what's going on in this country. i think it's a disgrace. the memo was sent to congress who obviously was declassified. congress will do whatever they're going to do. i think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. when you look at that and you see that and so many other things what's going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. >> does it make you want to fire rod rosenstein

brian: the president there, vice president there, you have sally yates there, susan rice there.e to write it down quickly. why? she wrote an email response saying it is no big deal. we do that all the time. that just came out in response to this. that is susan rice weighing in.ç she was nine days to get back to senator lindsey graham and senator chuck grassley, wanted everything was possible. so the national archives gave them these notes. they found this letter. now they want her to answer a bunch of questions. they even jotted down the questions and sent them to her. they hope to get it back. judge napolitano to the the story last night when it crossed. he was on with martha mccollum and still can't figure out what is going on. listen. >> she is trying to rewrite history. make it look as something happened that didn't happen. we've been doing this four weeks in a row. every week more, becomes more and more apparent there was a group of people in the l government using the machinery of government to frustrate donald trump becoming president. ainsley: we don't know. we tell you

we all remember in january when sally yates warned don mcgahn about michael filppula. so this is the second time when don mccagahn was warned and he didn't do anything. >> the spin from the white house today, you heard sarah sanders, the president supports victims of domestic abuse. we haven't heard him tweet that or say that. we've heard his aides quote him as saying it. >> and of course it means so much more coming from the president. especially after we had the visual. porter's first wife and the black eye that she sustained. what makes there more puzzling, the president for all intents and purposes, could have had legitimate applausibility. all the reporting shows that he may not have known with rob porter's past and this is more of a mcgahn and kelly problem. instead of the president saying, i'm angry i didn't know. this is not could not don't. of course i support the women. he chose to support rob porter publicly. yet behind closed doors, he is reportedly calling him garbage or a sick puppy. so i don't understand the president's doubling down on defending him whe

he was also very supportive of sally yates, who basically stated that she wasn't going to follow through with president trump's orders. there is a long list of reasons why people should be concerned about the makeup of the special counsel. >> sean: david schoen, we expect general report by mr. horwitz to come out next month. you met with him and you actually spoke at length with law enforcement officials about the packets of what "the new york times" calls "robert mueller's pitbull." >> that's right. i met with the inspector general a couple years ago actually about a broad set of problems involving him and some of his colleagues that -- they weren't guilty of the crimes the were convicted up in the evidence was overwhelming for mr. wiseman knew that the t. can you imagine, as i'm listening to you with the secrecy surrounding a warrant application to the pfizer court to have someone that is a fellow traveler of these folks submitting application, we know something from the devin nunes memo about what was omitted from those applications. >> sean: and they didn't tell who paid for it, did

he was also very supportive of sally yates, who basically t stated that she wasn't going to follow through with president trump's orders. there's a long list of reasons why people should be concerned about the makeup of the special counsel. >> sean: david, you actually met -- we expect it inspector general report by mr. horwitz to come out next month, maybe in a couple of weeks. you met with him and you have actually spoken at length with law enforcement officials about the tactics of what "the new york times" calls "robert miller's pit bull, andrewll weissmann. >> i met with the inspector general a couple of years agogo actually about arrid on mike broad set of problems involving andrew weissmann and his colleagues in the eastern district of new york who secured convictions of people who were not guilty of the crimes they were convicted of and frankly, the evidence overwhelming that mr. andrew weissmann knew that the time. can you imagine, i'm thinking as i'm listening to you, with the secrecy surrounding a warrant application to the fisa court, to have someone who's fellow traveler of th

. >> don mcgahn is under increased scrutiny he got that report from sally yates and permitted flynn toy on for 18 days after being told that the national security adviser was seriously compromised by the russians. >> sally yates was fired because she was trying to save the president from embarrassment over general flynn. if the white house can't vet someone who, a, was actively involved in lobbying for the turkish government and b was involved in a form kidnapping plot how would they catch rob porter porter? kelly clearly knew this was going to be revealed and this white house is failing in the most fundamental level which is its internal staffing. >> to be continued, unfortunately. thank you so much, rick tyler. >>> coming you have, all about that base. how the bipartisan budget bill might play with midterm voters. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. >>> after signing the budget compromise approved by an all-republican congress, president trump is suggesting on twitter he would not have had to accept the compromise if there were more republicans elected to the house an

james comey, andrew mccabe, sally yates, dana boente, rod rosenstein are all complies sit in this because they all approved surveillance on page. now this part is shocking. the fbi then used a yahoo news report that was written by michael his cough about a carter page trip to russia as evidence to corroborate information in the phony dossier. the source for the information and the yahoo news report was none other than christopher steele, the same author of the dossier that they were using. so the fbi used steele's leaked to ya other to corroborate the dossier created by the same person, steele. this is what we call circular reporting, because the fbi was pretending that they had two sources, when in facts it was the same source, and they were presenting that go to the judge. now the memo was also exposing how christopher steele the former british spy that according to reports was known to pay russian sources, had previously worked closely with the fbi, was suspended and then terminated as an fbi source for leaking to the press about his relationship with the bureau. we also know, independ

christopher steele, bruce ohr and the doj, sally yates, andrew mccabe at the fbi.mer director james comey, they were spreading the disinformation campaign. you know what's interesting, they tried to say that it was the russians. but the whole time based on an unverified and salacious dossier and those are the words coming out of comey's own mouth, they used that to spread lies about the trump campaign to the media and anybody they could try to share it with. and this is what is so incredible. the media bought it. and they chose to ignore the other side. they chose to ask for verification. and the entire precedence of the special counsel was based on that dossier according to mccabe. >> sean: you know, i even have testimony, i don't have the time to display it ought. so much information to get out tonight, gregg jarrett remember when he, comey, met with donald trump, he said it's unverified and it's is he legs. salacious. two months earlier he was arguing the opposite. they knew where this dossier came from and they never told the fisa court. criminally speaking, is

james comey fired directoren andrew mccabe and pushed out sally yates, fired.torney general dana who had been fired and brought him back. and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. the white house denied tonight that rod's job is on the line but denied that the president ever tried to fire special counselor robert mueller, which we now know he did. people have been calling this a slow motion saturday night massacre. after nixon cleared out the justice department to try to stop the investigation against him. joining us now is our friend michael besh squlosh. thank you for being with us. put this in context in terms of magnitude and how big a deal this is and how strange it is. j just as you have been suggesting, we could in the next few days seeing the firing of rod rosenstein, which could load to an effort to constrain robert mueller's investigation or even shut it down. so i suggest the next couple days we all sleep with one eye open because we don't know what's going to. happen. even a larger context, this is a guy donald trump who since the time he was elec

christopher steele, bruce ohr and the doj, sally yates, andrew mccabe at the fbi.mer director james comey, they were spreading the disinformation campaign. you know what's interesting, they tried to say that it was the russians. but the whole time based on an unverified and salacious dossier and those are the words coming out of comey's own mouth, they used that to spread lies about the trump campaign to the media and anybody they could try to share it with. and this is what is so incredible. the media bought it. and they chose to ignore the other side. they chose to ask for verification. and the entire precedence of the special counsel was based on that dossier according to mccabe. >> sean: you know, i even have testimony, i don't have the time to display it ought. so much information to get out tonight, gregg jarrett remember when he, comey, met with donald trump, he said it's unverified and it's is he legs. salacious. two months earlier he was arguing the opposite. they knew where this dossier came from and they never told the fisa court. criminally speaking, is

so obama, comey, sally yates, biden and susan rice in the oval office. they just had their briefing. quote, president obama began the conversation by stressing his continued comment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities by the book. the president stressed he's not asking about initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective and reit hated our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book. from a national security perspective, however, president obama said he wants to be sure that as we engage with the incoming team we're mindful to ascertain if there is any reason we cannot share information fully as it relates to russia and then the whole next paragraph is classified, totally redacted and picks up at the bottom of the page. the president asked comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. comey said he would. so this was initially cloassifid as t

now, what about sally yates' ya' role in all of this?all remember watching her sit at that table. she was very upset. she felt michael flynn had done something very wrong and she wanted to bring it to the attention of the trump white house while she -- when she overland and was still in her position there she clearly felt he did something wrong and also observers of this story would say so did michael flynn because he admitted to something. >> well, sally yates was essentially running the justice department during the transition and she was the acting attorney general for the first 10 days of the trump administration as well. she has reportedly thought that michael flynn in that phone call might have violated something called the logan act. you have probably talked about that in the past. that's 200-year-old law that has never been successfully enforced. never. nevertheless flynnevertheless yt flynn violated that important to blackmail. as you alluded to before there was a story that flynn had denied to vice president mike pence that he,

sally yates and susan rice herself.ccording to rice in this email, obama instructed the officials in the room to consider withholding national intelligence from the incoming trump administration in case they were compromised by russia. in other words, almost two months after the presidential election, barack obama viewed trump not as his democratically elected successor but as a traitor and a russian spy. obama viewed himself as someone who somehow had the right to withhold government documents from an elected president. that's not the behavior of someone who believes in democracy. and, yet, that meeting set the tone for that year and all subsequent arguments since. democrats have treated trump and his elections as illegitimate ever since then. and at the heart of their case against trump and this administration is the steele dot yea. so this day the dossier is the only publicly available document that details alleged collusion with russia. now, of course, we have talked a lot about the dossier on this program. but rela

you thin atividuals who no longer doj or fbi from sally yates james yocomey, and now, of cour, andy mccabe retiring this week or being forced out he has an enemy's list, and he, one by one, is removingom them this investigation. we must do all we can in congress to protect bobmueller. there's legislation from republicans and democrats to do that. and if this is not an alarm for us to do that when we get back, i don't know wh >> do you think he would fire rosenstein? it looks like he's set the circumstances to fire senstein. people may ask why does it matter if he fires deputy attorney general rosenstein? because he set the parameters of mueller's investigation. he approved the -- he's technically the person who would have to fire bob >> so let's just say hypothetically, rosenstein is fired, what would you do? you also sit on the house judiciary committee, which would take up impeachment for these proceedings if it re to happen? >> i and with the supp of others, would move tohe house judiciary committy to take up impeacent proceedings. i believe that would be clear obstruction justice and t

sally yates, former acting attorney general, she was fired.ana buente, am i saying that right, check? >> ben tway. >> andy mccabe was asked to step down. if you listen to donald trump jr.'s musings on fox news, fired. rods rosenstein, question mark. what does this paint for you in terms of a president for whom there are no guardrails? typically the guardrails inside a west wing would be a white house counsel, don mcgahn would have been involved. i'm not sure from any press accounts what his role was in any of this. but in a normal white house, when comey and mueller and wray all threatened to resign over the bedside intervention with then attorney general ash croft, the white house counsel was involved, the national security advisor was involved. you've heard nothing of don mcgahn or h.r. mcmaster getting involved. where do any of them come down on the release of classified information over the objection of a sitting fbi director? >> well, again, look, it's a remarkable moment. let's look, though -- let's step back to the fundamental question

signed off on this warrant, the extension of the carter page warrant, as did three people, including sally yatesefore him. would it have been obvious in your opinion that the court was not being fully informed about the dossier's role in the carter page application? >> that's not obvious to me. the memo doesn't say rod rosenstein knew about the origins of the on dossier or anything about that information. it says senior fbi and department of justice people knew. that could mean other people besides rosenstein. >> we have three minutes. i want to give you each a minute. what is the most important thing to happen next? del? >> that's a really tough question. everything changes day to day in the story. and the nunes memo was hyped up by both sides as this being a nuclear bomb when it drops on washington. when it came out it was either a nothing burger, or as eli wrote, sit not watergate and not a nothing burger. it is is in between. >> a material fact was omitted that got an american citizen surveilled to the fourth amendment that concerns me greatly. >> what's next, i don't know. i think at the ju

said that james comey was wrong and made a poor judgment but it was really learn how to lynch and sally yates who could have done something and but for their decision to not order him not to send his letter and they could have on october twenty seventh as i reported in my book they made a decision not to order him because they were worried about his grandstanding if they did and they thought hillary will win anyway what a sad understandable but said choice that gave us donald trump when they didn't order him not to send the letter you suggested that there was such overconfidence that deep thought you could win anyway right so somebody very close to the dog o'shea sions on the day he was considering writing that letter. has told me and i've reported on many sides of this including senior people in the intelligence community that james komi wanted to protect his political rights in the congress and decided to send that letter even though the letter said we don't know anything we don't have any facts he specifically said that in his letter he wrote it anyway because he said there is no way that

and sally yates. >> clearly the targets are there. the next bull's eye is of course, mr. rosenstein. i also thought the language was kind of hm, mischievous. they say the document, the steele document, the dossier, is written ultimately for hillary clinton. in other words, not previously was he working for her, but he's ultimately working for her. in other words, in a continuing way, this document and the work being done by steele for the fbi, was in fact for hillary. look at the way he wrote it. he said the application does not mention steele was ultimately working on behalf of and paid by the dnc ultimately. in other words, they are continuing to be the parents of this whole investigation. it just makes it look scurrilous. i think it's a political document. i think that i have great questions whether it was actually a document that you could argue is even sourced from the legislative branch. i am very suspicious that this is a staff written by somebody who is very much involved with the trump people, hangs out with them, who engineered that little ride down there last m

. >> sally yates, andrew mccabe, maybe president obama, they all had it in for general flynn. even the fbi agents conclude he didn't lie during that under view. what changed between then and now? gregg: the appointment of mueller. another time, thank you very much. tom fitton of judicial watch. the national left-wing media gets schooled. students pushing back at brazen efforts to politicize their tragedy. we'll take it up with our . . ions. but this isn't helpful with the kind of politicizing people have gone to. the solution is not political at all. it's what that young man said. it's about mental health and drug usage. both prescription and illegal, dealing with issues much security. >> this is typical barack obama. all talk, no action. why didn't he get it done while he was there. the psychotropic drugs they put these kids on, it says on the side effects it could cause homicidal behavior. the drug companies are the biggest lobbyists. they will never go after it. the violence in hollywood. they are the biggest contributors to the media. gregg: congress has plenary power to d

. >> sally yates, andrew mccabe, maybe president obama, they all had it in for general flynn.i agents conclude he didn't lie during that under view. what changed between then and now? gregg: the appointment of mueller. another time, thank you very much. tom fitton of judicial watch. the national left-wing media gets schooled. students pushing back at brazen efforts to politicize their tragedy. we'll take it up with our panel today we're out here to test people's knowledge about type 2 diabetes. so you have type 2 diabetes? yes i do. true or false... type 2 diabetes more than doubles your chance of dying from a cardiovascular event, like a heart attack or a stroke. that can't be true, can it? actually, it is true. and with heart disease, your risk is even higher. in fact, cardiovascular disease is the #1 cause of death for adults with type 2 diabetes and heart disease. but there is good news. jardiance is the only type 2 diabetes pill with a lifesaving cardiovascular benefit. jardiance is proven to both significantly reduce the chance of dying from a cardiovascular event in adu

. >> sally yates, andrew mccabe, maybe president obama, they all had it in for general flynn. even the fbi agents conclude he didn't lie during that under view. what changed between then and now? gregg: the appointment of mueller. another time, thank you very much. tom fitton of judicial watch. the national left-wing media gets schooled. students pushing back at brazen efforts to politicize their tragedy. we'll take it up with our panel we'll take it up with our panel big thinking in the finger lakes is pushing the new new york forward. we're the number one dairy and apple producers in the eastern united states supported by innovative packaging that extends the shelf life of foods and infrastructure upgrades that help us share our produce with the world. all across new york state, we're building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd.ny.gov copdso to breathe better,athe. i go with anoro. ♪go your own way copd tries to say, "go this way." i say, "i'll go my own way" with anoro. ♪go your own way once-daily anoro contains two medicines called

graham, january 5th meeting included obama, then fbi director james comey, deputy attorney general sally yatesden and rice. the topic, how law enforcement should investigate russian interference in the 2016 election. in this email rice wrote, quote, president obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities by the book. the president stressed he is not asking about initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective, he iterated our law enforcement needs to proceed as it normally would. that expression, by the book. triceps attorney responded there's nothing unusual about the national security advisor memorializing an important discussion for the record but senator graham doesn't see it that way. >> what brought on that conversation on january 5th. they knew they were going to be out of power in days, an email trail showing the president doing it by the book, when you look at what happened, not by the book, this is really odd. >> reporter: the senators sent

overall-thrust of this is that several individuals including james comey and andrew mccabe and sally yatesnd others signed off on the application for these fisa warrants. every 90 days it has to be renewed. every 90 days you have to have a very specific reason to renew it. what they used according to this was the findings of christopher steele. they never mentioned to the fisa court even they knew that steele was funded by the clinton campaign. they never mentioned that to the fisa judges? >> yes, that is shameful. the american public should realize, this is not like giving somebody a traffic ticket. going into a fisa secret court to get a warrant to wiretap an american citizen, this is the highest responsibility. you have an obligation not to just tell what is bad but any evidence. put in the full picture. they submitted a dossier which comey admitted was unverified and salacious. they said michael cohen met with a russian agent. in the czech republic. he's never been there. it's information like that, that was the basis of this dossier. to use that dossier to spy on an american citizen i

you have sally yates, president obama, vice president biden and susan rice and james comey.oned a january 5th meeting. maybe he will get around and say i wasn't only one with the president at the time i didn't think it was important at the time but they talked about the investigation or she wouldn't have written the memo. and i saw sekulow, jordan sekulow talk last night about this were they spotted? was this meeting found out? were they trying to get ahead of it so they don't look like they were caught not telling the complete truth. what this was done, written, officially after they leave power 12:15, pushed out to the national archives in case somebody wants to look at it in the future to write a memoir or look at years in the white house. stuart: it is covering your tracks. >> i think so, it is covering your tracks. you're quite right. january 20, inauguration day, president trump took office. at 12 noon he took office. susan rice writes the memo at 12:15. you're quite right, who tolder had to write the message and why did she write it? i say covering tracks. last word t

but i think sally yates is really an overlooked person. >> extremely important. and i believe she has really only spoken once about this. she testified anime to a senate judiciary committee, subcommittee, and she said thate white house, right? so she goes, after she has interviewed a flynn, and the white house counsel says to her well, what if flynn it didn't le to -- what is it to the justice department? and she said oh, it is a very big deal. >> laura: blackmail. >> i don't understand that, either. and a lot of people on capitol hill did not. >> laura: 's all right, now we have to move on to susan rice, who has made another appearance in trying to save the obama administration. we find out today and at this new memo that she sent an email to herself. we have a full screen of it on inauguration day saying the following. president obama begin the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities by the book. the president said that he is not asking about in

but it was used repeatedly to review the surveillance of page, by comey, deputy mccabe then obama sally yates and rod rosenstein. >> republicans raise a specter of legality over the trump dossier. today the attorney general sent a formal repersonal to the inspector general. >> shannon: catherine herridge on top of this story for months now. thank you very much. we return to chief correspondent ed henry and claims the president is ready to release top doj officials. what do you know about that? >> there's a lot of talk, the white house denies it. new tonight two congress depression al sources are saying devin nunes had a private meeting that the deputy attorney general threatened to open an investigation of congress. fbi director chris store wray, rosenstein grew so angry he threatened to subpoena emails from the house intelligence community despite obvious separation of power issues. congress al republicans and just it's department of president trump who today told people this memo was a disgrace. since rosenstein was a part of renewing the fisa warrants that led to whether the president stil

u.s.before we break, the attorney for the northern district was sally yates. many of you in the room know her. many of you have not met the current u.s. attorney for the district of georgia. [applause] i thank you for joining with us today to give you insight into the secret service. you should also know that the press club and the commerce club -- they have invited christopher , to come fbi director back home, and he will try to balance off the success that the director of the secret service has had today. the director will be here a very few minutes before he asked to head back to washington. thank you for coming today to what i think was a very important speech. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] members of the british journalist -- media were in-house to talk about media and fake news. we will include cbs correspondent commentary. >> every journalistic outfit, large or small, has tried to find a way

that's exactly why sally yates went to the transition team from trump and told them that michael flynnentially compromise. and a person that has that kind of access to the president of the united states of course his son-in-law being in that kind of position can be completely troubling. it begs the question, of course, did something more happen that rises up into the president himself and does that cause the president to be compromised. that is what part of the investigation is looking at. did the russians have the goods on the president and is that o somehow compromised him. that's part of what bob mueller is looking at. >> hope hicks spent nearly nine hours before the house intelligence committee, not talking about anything during her time at the white house, although we do know that she admitted to sometimes telling white lies with the president prior to that time. rebecca, is there concern at this point within the white house that even circles in washington as to what the white lies could tutor is this more case of a headline. >> it's certainty headline and interesting, we're going

from the republican side came from arizona congressman paul gosssar he said the axes of jami comey sally yates and rod rosenstein constitute treason. in a statement he said i will will be reading to letter to the attorney general seeking prosecution. we have the republican memo in the entirety post-ed on the website. abc7news.com. if you'd like to read it. >>> abc 7 news learned late today flu activity already peeked in the california on and on the decline. the state health department reports 30 deaths last week in california. but in a bit of positive news state officials say overall influenza activity is decreasing even though it's still elevated. now despite all of this health officials warn don't be fooled as abc 7's lyanne melendez explains the season is expected to last several more weeks if not months. >> reporter: it's the trend we've been waiting for in california. >> we're past the peak. but that doesn't mean the season is over. >> reporter: the color red help are eps high activity of the flu. but the number of visits to the emergency room and hospitalization goes down. and this past

and yet people like james comey, andrew mccabe, sally yates, rod rosenstein, we cannot cannot forgetisa page and her boyfriend, and dana boente. we also know that mccabe testified without the dossier, the fisa warrant never would have been approved. and speaking of the application. remember, and the grassley-graham memo, the bulk of that fisa warrant application relied on the garbage this dossiere, had a net, that fusion gps and the fbi never i verified. that is even more troubling, because james comey said it was salacious and unverified. and he also briefed president-elect trump about the fake news dossier, and that was in january 2017, and he said tha same thing to donald trump. he said it was unverified and salacious. once earlier in october, comey had no problem using it to get the fisa warrant to surveille carter page. on to the next point, was president obama briefed on any information contained in the dossier prior to january 5th, 2017? now we know about january 5th in that meeting because the former national security advisor, susan rice is the one that sent her email to hers

law firm, which of course is a huge problem, and we also know that james comey, andrew mccabe, sally yates, and rod rosenstein all approved surveilling in this particular case. the fbibi also used the yahoo ns article written by michael isikoff about the carter trip to russia. they were using it as separate and independent source to corroborate the phony dossier before thehe fisa judge, except the source for the yahoo story was christopher steele. so they never corroborated the information becauseus steele was the source of the dossier and the fake new story by michael isikoff. we also know that no one ever verified what was in the dossier. of course the memo shows that steele was suspended and terminated as an fbi source for leaking to the press, demoted doj official bruce ohr had a close relationship with him. remember, ohre had an office for doors down from the deputy attorney general, rodt rosenstein, who would later appoint robert mueller. ohr's wife, nellie, want to talk about coincidences in life? his wife was employed by fusion gps specifically working on the anti-trump opposition

>> this was the concern with sally yates, the former attorney general who went in to complain because she was concern michael flynn could be compromised. this is perhaps a similar situation here that there are these conferences, there's intelligence indicating that something may have been going on, whether it's the chinese, other countries they were talking amongst each other about conversations with jared kushner and all of this certainly has had the fbi concern, has had intelligence officials concern for quite some time. it would be hard for jared kushner at this point to ever get security clearance. it's also what's been holding this up because the fbi is still investigating this. mueller is still investigating all of this. all of the counterintelligence issues that exist with jared kushner live with the mueller team and it's that investigation is nowhere near complete. >> because the president said he would leave it up to his white house chief of staff. but if he changes his mind, and he's been known to, he could intervene and reverse this decision. >> the law is clear that the pr

. >> remember, if i could just remember sally yates who testified i went to the white house, i thought michael flynn could be blackmailed by the russians, this whole ringing the alarm. when you start looking through these text messages, this fbi agent peter struck his running counterintelligence, there's so much information that could've been used to blackmail him and influence his activities during those investigations. that's really good point. i guess, catherine, where we go from here. you have these things, and they are still disconnected documents but are they more connected now than they were a month ago or a year ago. >> the simple answer is that the more we see these text messages, the more they align with major events in the clinton e-mail and the russia probe and we are at a place where we've never been before in my memory where you've had a half dozen senior fbi executives effectively cleaned out of that organization. i think some people are mistaken that have to do with the text revelations or with the republican house memo, but in fact, it has been the work of this inspect

former acting attorney general sally yates, david boente, and current deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. rosenstein is robert mueller's director supervisor on the russia investigation. that puts him right in the president's cross hairs. asked about the house intel memo today, note how the president spoke. not about facts but in dark, vague almost threatening facts and offering no support for rosenstein. >> i think it's terrible. you want to know the truth, i think it's a disgrace. what's going on in this country i think it's a disgrace. the memo was sent to congress, it was declassified. ask congress is going to do whatever they're going to do, but i think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. and when you look at that and so many other things that's going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. you figure that one out. >> something else we noticed today, the memo also answers a key question about what setoff the russia investigation in the first place. it confirms what the "the new york times" reported late last year, that this investiga

officials identified in the memo assigning one or more of those fisa applications include sally yates, dana boente. james comey, departed andrew mccabe and the current deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. targeting carter page by not revealing who was paying. keeping them honest, as cnn has been reporting, carter page was by 2016 no stranger to u.s. counterintelligence. something that was under scored in the situation room. >> a lot known by carter page. carter page had come to the attention of the fbi years before he joined the trump campaign in connection with the russia intelligence net work in york. >> on top of that, fisa warrants had to be renewed and a case made for renewing them every 90 days. the court renewed this 13 times. even if you believe everything alleged by the memo all of it, he was not even the spark for the russia investigation. how do we know that? it is in the memo. the memo itself says the fbi launched a counterintelligence investigation on george poppa doplis. months before asking for a warrant on carter page. if the memo was designed to discredit the russi

clinton deputy attorney general sally yates and later by trump appointee, deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. democrats are taking issue with the characterization of the dossier and how it was used with the fisa court saying the process is more complex. fox news that the dossier was the first line in the fisa application. so it was played up, not minimized to get the warrant, neil. >> neil: is it the only thing in which the fisa warrant was executed? that's what obviously we don't know. >> right. based on our reporting, there was a mosaic of intelligence that was used to obtain that surveillance warrant. but the bottom line is that the fisa court, the national security court is akin to the supreme court and there's a high bar that you have to cross to spy on an american in the united states and the fisa court would demand that the sourcing of the dossier be clear to them, also whether it might in some way less credible because of its origins and that was not shared with the court and they will not be happy about that to say the least. >> neil: thank you, catherine. diane black sto