matter is, and i raised this point, if the fbi had come out and shot down "the new york times" story, they would have had to make a substantive statement about the investigation. the takeaway from that is that is something the fbi would have had to deal with. >> important reporting and reaction we're getting from the white house. joe johns, thank you very much for that. the president, as i mentioned a little bit ago this morning, taking to twitter, hitting leakers within the intelligence community about all of this exclusive cnn reporting. here is what he tweeted. the fbi is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time. they can't even find the leakers within the fbi itself. classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on the united states. find now, meaning i think find the leakers now. let's talk about all this and we'll get to more cnn exclusive reporting from pamela brown. julia khayyam is with me, former