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President trump declassifies that explosive memo written by republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. The memo released to the public over the objections of the president s own fbi director and justice officials. Im jim sciutto. And im pamela brown, the partisan memo from the committee chaired by former Trump Transition Team member devin nunes alleges serious abuses by the fbi of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. Democrats say its misleading that omits key facts and accuse republicans of using this memo to try to undermine special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation. The big question tonight will the president use the memo to fire Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein always hanging over there. It is. The white house came out and said thats not under consideration but certainly raises the question, could that trigger, if Rod Rosenstein could that trigger the worst constitutional crisis since president nixons saturday night massacre. A lot of parallel drawn to that tonight. I want to bring in the justice correspondent. Evan perez. And justice reporter cara, where to start. Evan lets go to you. Now we have this memo theres been so much build up to it. Three 1 2 pages. Critics say its misleading whats the central allegation that stood out. I think the central allegation here from republicans who prepared this is that there were four fisa warpts, four surveillance authorized on carter page. And according to the memo the fbi and the Justice Department failed to disclose that this dossier prepared by christopher steele, a former mi 6 agent, he failed to disclose that this dossier was funded initially by democratic donors, by Hillary Clintons campaign. They say because of that it undermines essentially a breakdown of legal process, undermines the entire process, and undermines the investigation that we now are living with. I think for a document obviously thats based on omissions, right, theyre saying the fbi and Justice Department failed to disclose this stuff to the judge that approved these warrants, there is a lot thats missing here. There is a lot of stuff that we know that the fbi had, additional intelligence on carter page, we know that the fbi had additional intelligence in order to get niethese warran. There is a lot missing from the document its sever. On the central claim that in effect the warrant on carter page who at the time was no longer with the Trump Campaign but had been with the Trump Campaign, that it was principally based on what was in this dossier, weve spoken to democrats who were in the room and say thats not the case. Thats not what Andrew Mccabe said. But lets filter out what the democrats said lets listen to republicans. Earlier tonight Lindsey Graham released a statement and he said the following. Mr. Steeles piece was a piece of a larger pizle. I expect the democratic memo will provide further context. Shimen thats consistent with our report there was other intelligence that went into that. The memo hints that. Weve done this reporting for months now if not almost aier. And this i think is central issue for the fbi, omissions, misleading, the characterization by the republicans that this is based on the dossier, that the fbi went ahead and got that warrant based offer the dossier we know from our reporting talking to sources thats not true. There were intelligence officials that were sharing information. Contacts of people in the trump orbit who were in contact with russians that raised a lot of a alarms. Other human intelligence, the fbi was doing its own surveillance. Carter page was on there radar for years. All of that went into this fisa application. And so this is the central issue i think for the fbi. And George Papadopoulos is mentioned on the last page of the memo as being mentioned in the fisa application. It says on the memo process. The papadopoulos triggered opening of a counterintelligence investigation in late july 2016. The russia investigation began before the carter page warrant and based on as you say another i dont want to say suspect but another person involved in the probe. To you, cara, you have to look at how the process works because thats important here. Every time you go back to get a renewal every 90 tais you have to show its elicited Important Information to support the probable cause that this person is acting as an agent of a foreign power. In this case there would have been four judges, four independent judges sign off on this. Right. And not only four independent judges sign off on this but the process, the internal process that it goes through at the department of justice it went through that under trump nominate the and appointed officials. It wasnt a partisan thing that it was just under the last administration. But people that trump put in place were approving the memos and approving their applications to go to the court. And to get a new to get an extension of a warrant, which is essentially happened. They replayed for the initial warrant and three times came back and said to the judge id like to keep it going for 90 days is that right right. Ee and and shimon you, you come back to and you have to show you are gaining valuable intelligence. Right, you do have to show that in the past 90 days we were able to collect additional intelligence that warrants the continued surveillance of in person. Look, this is the most invasive type of surveillance you can do on a person. Its something very serious. The judges take it very seriously. Were talking about carter page. If you go back, the fbi had him on their radar back in 2013 and 2014 as part of an investigation in new york of a russian spy ring. And the fbi talked to him then and told him that the russians were trying to cultivate him. And so all of this is what was contained in the 50 or so pages of in of this warrant application. And so i think one of the things that i think is missing from this is that additional context. And also the renewal is a big part of this because as cara was saying there were two people that trump there were two trump appointees who were part of the renewal process. Thats Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general, and dana bente, acting attorney general then the Deputy Attorney general and was running the National Security division. These are two people who participated in the approval process during the renewal. Dana bente was the person that helped enforce the travel ban after valuey yates refused to do so. Were in the weeds on this because we cover it day to day. But lets be honest. This is political. This is a political strategy. We are told the president was telling people that this would undermine the russia probe. Does it provide the political cover that theyre looking for. I think the republicans think that look they dont care necessarily that it may be gives reason for the probe to end. I think what they want is to bloody it up and make sure that their base knows that when the president is called to testify appear he says no i dont want to do that they can survive that politically. I think that may be it has helped in that cause. Umhum. Earlier tonight the author of in memo, devin nunes, the house intelligence chairman, he was on fox news. He was asked about the prospects of more memos coming out listen to the answer. This completes just the fisa abuse portion of our investigation. We are we are in the middle what i call phase two of the investigation which involves other departments, specifically the state department and some of the involvement that they had in this. That investigation is ongoing. And we continue to work towards finding answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the state department was up to in terms of in russia investigation. Cara, is there evidence the state department was somehow wrongly involved in this . I mean, if there is i think its the first we have heard of it. I havent we havent all the focus has been on the fbi and the Intelligence Community. That we havent really seen what the state department was up to. I mean this is also it seems more politicized because nunes is really trying to focus on the oversight, focus on potential flaws or red herrings that they it throw up to flash up at the investigation. Its not the first time because we go back to the unmasking scandal which unfolded in a similar way going to the white house oh my gosh this happened and petered out. Its funny i asked this question last night, you know, what if just the fbi and doj were doing their jobs and discovered an american who might be talking to russians and explore and found more evidence went back to the judge, isnt that a plausible explanation for what they were up to here . Its pretty extraordinary if you think about it, the fact that the fbi, the hand pick fbi directors come out basically said look this causes grave concerns to release this. The white house in conjunction with House Republicans basically ignored that and release this memo today anyway about one of the most sensitive. Right. Things in american i keep one quick point on that on what you are saying there, pam,able i think you have to remember look there are concerns with privacy. If there is such a thing, and thats what this is about, they havent backed it up. And so the question for members of congress is if you think they broke the law then what law did they break . Who are you charging with that . Are you going to change the fisa law . After all they just reauthorized a section of the fisa law. As far as we no he they made no changes that would have cured this. So it really goes to the point that this is more of a political issue, not something that they really are serious about privacy and protection of americans. Its a great point. Because its certainly a reasonable debate to ask about how far can you go in surveilling americans even in a National Security investigation. But if youre making a charge that its happening illegally you better present evidence. Thats why this is never supposed to be so public, right. The fbi, this is their concern. They value the work they do on fisa and the courts, fisa courts and they treat it with extreme sensitivity about, because the working going into this is so sensitive and so important in terms the way they view it for National Security, that we cant they cannot afford to expose anything that goes on in that court. There are people under surveillance in this country all the time. Sometimes you go to a regular court or criminal judge and ask for this. But when it comes to the fisa stuff it takes a lot to go there especially on a u. S. Citizen where you really need a lot of. Who has not been charged. In this case carter page its not clear he is ever going to be charged. When we started this story remember we get o kept getting the distinction this is a counterintelligence investigation. These are the kinds of things that the fbi does in counterintelligence. There are no charges on carter panl in fairness to him we have to emphasize that. Four people have been charged in the probe not carter page. Thank you guys so much. Coming up the battle raging in washington tonight over the nunes memo and what it could mean for the russia investigation process. Weal get reaction from a Top Republican and a top democrat. Stay with us. Well be right back. A basketball costs 14. 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Surprising. Whats come at me bro . Its something you say to a friend. Whats not surprising . How much money matt saved by switching to geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Richard oh ernie was that too hard for yo . Richard no. Is this too hard for you . Ernie woo were playing catch now richard ugh ernie sorry, sorry, sorry and breaking news tonight, fallout from the release of the explosive nunes memo which alleges that fbi and Justice Department officials abused their surveillance authority. President trump approved the memos release. Democrats called it an attempt by republicans and the white house to discredit the ongoing russia investigation. So lets talk more about this with congressman steve king and Iowa Republican he joins us on the phone right now. Congressman king thanks for taking the time tonight. This is jim sciutto. A central accusation in the nunes memo is that this warrant that was issued on carter page was based principallies on the dossier. In fact though we hear from Lindsey Graham, of course your republican colleague in the senate, he says the following in the statement. Mr. Steeles work, product was one piece of a larger puzzle as it relates to mr. Page and others. I expect the democratic memo in response will likely provide further context. Which is it . Is was the dossier the central reason this warrant was issued . Or as republican senator Lindsey Graham says it was one piece of a larger puzzle . Well, im reluctant to take Andrew Mccabes word for this. But in or excuse me, in the memo, in the nunes memo it notes in there that Deputy Director mccabe testified before the committee in december of 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the fisa Court Without the steele dossier information. So. To be clear. Thats the lynch pin. Thats his word on that. And i dont know that lindsey has read the democratic report at this time or the memo. To be clear ive spoke ton democrats, three democrats in the room for Andrew Mccabes testimony. And they say that that nuns comment mischaracterizes what mccabe and they like senator graham, three members of the House Intelligence Committee in the room for his testimony. They say in fact he said it was one piece of a larger picture. Well a piece of a larger picture but the largest piece of a picture, that by the way that testimony there, a transcript of the testimony that will over time i think we will get to that. And there is so much of this thats gone on here i want the full public to see i mean we found out that the nuns memo doesnt jeopardize any National Security or sources or methods. Its a good thing its out there. Lets put sunlight on this. If the democrats have a case. What i understand is their 18page memo has a lot of sources and methods and a lot of classified that need to be redacted before the public could see it. Its not as carefully drafted as the one of the nunes memo. But we should see all of that that can be released from a nonclassified stand pinpoint and members of Congress Need to have access to the supporting documents and have a chance to read them through. And i from what ive seen, i have been sickened at what ive seen. Congressman king, you make the case its important foreign the public to be aware of this, there to be transparency. It sounds like youre open to the democrats memo to come public once its scrubbed. What is your response to democrats saying that the information in this memo is cherry picked . Well, you know, that down to a short list of what they can complaint about. I mean and i actually heard the general say last night that the memo is incomplete. Well, you can allege that about anything. Memo, you could allege that about the war and peace that it left something. Certainly they condensed it to a zblumt to be fair, congressman, they say because its cherry picked its misleading not just democrats frankly thats what the fbi director said as well. The fbi director read the report on sunday and mccabe was gone on monday morning. I think he saw something in that report that he could not defend. He said there were key omissions congressman king. And i can look at it and see the omissions. It doesnt chinclude the other information in the fisa application that went to the judge. And then the renewal information as well. Remember this went to four different judges, congressman king. At this point. And i hope they are public. And thats where we have to go though, pamela. We have to follow this trail to the end. Got to see the fisa applications. We have to follow the sequence of it put it this into a continuum abchronology to understand who knew what when. And this is clearly politicly mofrted. There is no justification for this no evidence thats brought forward that said anything was discovered about carter page in the first round of 90 days. But we have four of those rounds of 90 days that are set up. And each time it was the saled dossier used primarily to get the fisa warrant. Actually even the memo doesnt say that but please go ahead. Quickly congressman king you say its clearly politicly motivated but by the time the application came to the judge it was in october before the election. Carter page had already left the campaign. Up now the Trump Administration has been saying that carter page wasnt part of the campaign. And if it was politicly motivated why didnt director comey talk about it before the election as did he with the Hillary Clinton investigation . Well, it wasnt a high enough profile for director comey to talk about it for one thing. It was extraordinary he spoke about the clinton investigation at that time for another. Why did they then choose the timing that they did of october 21st to go forward for that fisa warrant . I mean if this they knew it was politic license active and could affect the president ial election . Why didnt they wait until after the election if they had a basis whatsoever. They didnt publishize didnt go public at all. No one knew about it. What was about the impact on the identification if it was in private as fisa Court Requests are always done . Im asking instead what did they need that information so intently for that they had to engage in Something Like this within two weeks before an election . I think that is suspicious. But were not going to know on this until we get to the end of it. And if we remember i do remember watergate. It took a long time to get all the pieces out. And thats one of the reasons that im for all of this to get sunlight on it. I dont have anything i want to hide. If this is the legitimate push on the part of an fbi and on the part of do judge. That should be able to come out be anden proven over time process but the public has to see it we cant dump it all at once it has to come out in metered form so the public can absorb it. But i have converse in devin nunes he wouldnt put a document out like this unless he could defend every word of it. And he would not make a move unless he could game this out several moves forward. I think he is announced that when he said the next phase is the state department. Right. Aflt congressman king thanks for taking the time on the friday night. Thank kmsz we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you too jim and pamela. Yes. Now bringing in eric swalwell. One of the people there listening to andrew mccan kab. Congressman, thank you. I you heard i imagine congressman king there on the allegation he made. First on the issue of mccabe in the nunes memo it says that mcka kab testified before the committee in december of 2017 that the warrant against page would not have been sought, wouldnt have been issued without the steele dossier and the fact that it contended on the steele dossier. Is that accurate . No, jim. Good evening. Thats not what he said. And our memo if released would shine further light on that. And put into focus that the real evidence thats out there not only would raise the seriousness of in investigation because of the new evidence thats so far been unseen but also would further bolster fbi credibility. So kmds swalwell, you just heard congressman king saying look this was clearly politicly motivated. Is there not reason to raise the question, wonder if it is possible there was an abuse of the Civil Liberties of carter page, that a political document was used to get the fisa warrant for page and not disclosed to the judge . You know, no one is above the law. The fbi certainly is not above the law. But what this is doing is its politicizing the fbi in a first world democracy youre seeing the political leader aided by republicans going after the Police Investigating them. One other issue that i have with this is that the republicans by sending this memo before it was dev classified to the white house they essentially shared with the president , Whose Campaign is under investigation, and with the white house counsel, who is a subject or a witness of this investigation, evidence in the case. So you have now read them in or given them a window into evidence, so that they could tailor testimony about what they now know about the investigation. Thats not how you conduct investigations. Thats another reason this is so wrong. Let me ask you this because it gets to the Bigger Picture issue. We said this before earlier as well, that listen, there is a legitimate debate that has to happen in this country and in a democracy about how far Law Enforcement can go, particularly to surveil americans, right, were american citizens we have rights here. And you know as well as me that fisa courts, pretty good hit rate. If you apply for the warrants very rarely are they turned down. Youre a former prosecutor. When you look at this process do you say listen its a little too easy and perhaps there is some evidence in this surveillance warrant application that it was too easy for the fbi . Jim, ive seen all of the evidence so far in this investigation. Ive sat through the witness testimony. I have not seen anything that would suggest that there was a bias here or anything done improperly. And youre right, its important for us to have that debate about the fisa court. But we already had it just a few weeks back deferred prosecutionen nunes spoke on the floor as did steve king asking the congress to reauthorize fisa, to make no reform addressing the abuses they claim exist which leads me to believe this is a reckless way, were, the 702. Under 702 which is monitoring foreign citizens. Congressman king brought up the democratic memo because a lot of questions have been raised about that and why it wasnt also released. But he said there was a lot in there congressman swalwell about sources and methods. What specifics can you tell bus that memo and what do you have to say to his accusation that there was a lot in there that wasnt appropriate . I heard him say that. But i dont believe he said that he had read the memo. You know, our memo rebuts point by point what the republicans have alleged. But also it uses footnotes, unlike anything that they put forward, and further it unfortunately opens up new evidence in this case just to rebut what theyve put out there. You know, i dont think we want any of this in the public light while an Ongoing Investigation is occurring. But if we allow the republicans to taint you know the investigation and the public sentiment against the fbi were left only to put this into, you know, a full picture for the American People to understand. Congressman swalwell, thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you congressman. Of course. Thank you, guys, my pleasure. And when we come back on this friday evening, the former trump aide at the center of the nunes memo. Everything we know about carter page, his role in the Trump Campaign and the investigation. Well be back. Not cool. Freezing away fat cell with coolsculpting . Now thats cool only coolsculpting is fdacleared to treat and freeze fat cells, nonsurgically. 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Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. And welcome back. Carter panl, the onetime Trump Campaign Foreign Policy adviser is at the center of the gop memo released today. Lets bring in cnn intelligence and security analyst bob bay area. And two security analyst. Steve hall. And nada, also a former cia analyst. A little intelligence experience surrounding us tonight. Which is good to have. We want to talk about carter page who is can be, i suppose being investigated is at least a target of russian intelligence. Lets listen for a moment how the Trump Campaign and administration described carter page. Carter panl is an individual who the president elect does not know. He is not part of our National Security orp Foreign Policy briefings that we do now at all. To the best of my recollection i dont know carter page, to the best of my knowledge, carter page never had a donald trump. Com email address, had no formal role in the campaign that im aware of. I dont think ive ever spoken to him. I dont think ive ever met him. That was spin you were just hearing in case you didnt recognize it because in fact he did work for the campaign. And now in effect bob baer in this memo the nuns he is saying listen because carter page was targeted by the fbi. Therefore the fbi and intelligence agencies were targeted the Trump Campaign. Nonsense. They targeted carter page because 2013 he pops up in a counterintelligence investigation. He was being developed by the russians. They were looking at him to become a source to the kgb. And normally the fisher in fact they went to warn him about the recruitment effort he ignored them but when i pops up in the Trump Campaign, the fbi would have been negligent not to seek a fisa on him and look closer. Because all of a sudden he has access and it worries the fbi and they have to pursue this guy. They cant just go to the judge and say look we had a fisa on him in 2013 we need another one now as part of the campaign. Were not seeing the mehta date an not seeing the cia reporting. We know he went to moscow in july of 2017. And meeting with kgb officers close to putin. Making pro russian statements. He fits the profile of somebody the kgb would recruit. Plus you have all this other stuff not just steele stuff but tons of it were not seeing from the fisa that make you very suspicious of this guy. So the fbi going after him was not an overreach in any way. Steve hall you led the station in moscow for a time you know a thing or two about russian intelligence gathering efforts. Why would russian intelligence be interested in someone like carter page, who regardless of the protest stations about the campaign it was a low Level Campaign role in the trump election effort. You have to remember, jim, this is a multipronged operation that the russians were involved in. There was a lot of different disciplines involved from disinformation to influence operations to standard recruitment operations. And so i think what has come over the past couple of months is the russians cast a wide net. They look at people like paul manafort. They looked at people like mike flynn. They looked at people inside the trump family, whether mr. Kushner or whether it was donald trump junior. And of course a guy like carter page is also conceivably somebody who could provide them with one of two things, either simply inside information as to what was going on in the campaign, and if carter page landed a job later on in the administration it could provide them information as to the plans and intentions of the administration were. And of course the best of possibilities for any candidate, whether a page or somebody else, would have been what we refer to as agent of influence, somebody they could whisper into the ear and say next time there is a meeting about russian sanctions or the ukraine or anything else important to russia, put in a good word for us. Quietly see if you cant get the conversation going in our direction. So they were looking at a lot of different people not just carter page. We have to be clear, though that despite the fact that we know he was being surveilled carter page hasnt been charged with a crime. Thats correct. We dont know he committed any acts. Four people have in the russia probe, not carter page that is important. We frankly dont know where things stand with him at this point. I want to bring you in nada because a memo says the George Papadopoulos the aide who pleaded guilty to lying in the fbi was mentioned in the fisa application. It says papadopoulos sparked the beginning of the russia probe in 2016. We know from our reporting that papadopoulos told an australian ambassador that the russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton and the ambassador toll the fbi and that kicked everything off. The memo tried to make it seem tlfrs no connection between page and papadopoulos, no communication. How could the papadopoulos bit of this be relevant to the the carter page fisa warrant. What i think is interesting about the fact that they included this piece is it does undermine their overall point. Theyre saying the fisa application was predicated on carter page and the steele dossier. We know from the memo itself that papadopoulos really is what instigated the russia investigation. So the person that had drafted this memo honestly if i was nunes i would fire them because at this point the memo is not worth what its written on. It doesnt actually state a case for why carter page had anything to do with the instigation of the russian investigation. Hmm. Its fascinating. Thanks to all of you your intelligence sperd, nada, steve and bob. Thanks for staying up with us. The question is the is the memo the smoking gun the republicans think it is and what impact it has on the investigation. Well try to answer those questions after this. Stay with us. Theratears® unique electrolyte formula, corrects the salt imbalance that causes dry eye. So your eyes will thank you. More than eye drops, dry eye therapy. Theratears®. Stop by your locale tax serJackson Hewittou . And get all the benefits of a tax pro. With Jackson Hewitt you get 100 accuracy and our max refund guarantee. So, switch to Jackson Hewitt. Open late and weekends. You may reveal. And the reign continues. Oooh. As the earl of sandwich, i dub thee. 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If we can use analyze each patients Breast Cancer to personalize their treatment, imagine what we can do for the conditions that affect us all. Imagine what we can do for you. The white house and some of the goch paining the socalled nunes memo as a smoking gun with allegations of abuse of fisa warrants. Democrats slamming the memo as inact and misleading. So which is it in lets ask david rift ripkin former counsel for the townhall counsel for president reagan. And former assistant to Robert Mueller at the department of justice. First question to you, michael, considering the fact you worked with Robert Mueller, what kind of impact do you think all of this will have on the russia investigation . And also, how do you think Robert Mueller i mean he is sitting back watching all of this play out. What do you think he is thinking. Congressman swalwell brought up the point that in a sense President Trump is looking at evidence in the memo and an investigation thats looking at him and his campaign. Well, i think thats a fair point, though the memo itself is really pretty devoid of substance that might tip the hand of the prosecutors with respect to mcgahn or the president or anybody in his orbit. I think the congressman is correct that it was really poorly executed from that standpoint. But i think in the end there is not enough there to really tip his hand. With respect to what impact does it have on the investigation, you can look at it in a couple of ways, one with respect it the obstruction of justice alleged obstruction of justice allegations, we have reported that the president has been talking to his friends, that he is going to release this memo because he thinks it will damage the mueller investigation. So thats almost an admission of intent to interfere with or obstruct an investigation. So i think mueller can take note of that. Its another one of these examples where the president is giving mueller a window into his intentions as he did when we learned that he had ordered mcgahn to order rosenstein to fire mueller and that when he drafted the misleading memorandum on air force 1. So we get a picture of what this president is thinking with respect to the investigation. With respect to the collusion stuff. So. Give me one second. If you dont mind, jim. On the collusion stuff what with we dont know is whether this fisa warrant was targeted against carter page in his sort of individual capacity or carter page in a broader sort of conspiracy coordination sense. And its hard to know. Because the steele dossier which is essentially 17 memoranda have two as they relate to page and relate to his conversations with the head of the Russian National oil company, and it relates to the relief of sanctions. Okay lets set that aside for a moment because i want to zero in on the memo and what we learned. You heard Michael Zeldin make the point that the central allegation of how you know this was all about the dossier, you know and how this warrant was obtained not backed up by the evidence there but also prior to the release you had the fbi and members of the Intelligence Community throwing hands in the air saying we are going to reveal this grave dsh these grave details about National Security issues. I mean as you read this memo did you see secrets revealed in effect about the way you surveil. What i saw and its not dispositive lets forget about speculation what the president s motivations have been. Lets focus on the memo. It reveals very troubling facts in at least three respects. Clearly at best, the fisa application did not contain all the information about mr. Steele, the context for the dossier, the fact that he was discharged as an fbi informant. And the fact and this memorandum was the critical piece as director Deputy Director mccabe testified without it there would not have been a warrant. Thats a republican. The democrats actually ishtd say not just republicans. But lets see lets see but the point is without the fact that they put in there indicates if at least on a but for base it was necessary. How do you know that it was. Because bush bush daus because you dont put things in application thars extranz if you dont put it you dont need it there. But at the least they didnt release all the information. I can think of no good reason in the fisa context where doj and mba not to tell everything to the fisa court. Number one. Whats troubling also is the timing. That warrant was sought roughly two weeks before the election. The doj has a longstanding policy reflected by the way in eric holders 2012 memo which says you dont investigate unless its absolutely necessary during the time of elections. Because it runs the danger as it happened of leaks and impacting the political process. Hold on why didnt they do it in 2013. He was no longer part of the campaign and it did not leak out. Of course there were leaks numerous leak base the election. Not before the election relating to this. My point is it makes no sense not to wait for a couple of weeks after the election is over, or much earlier there is no question whether or not he was part of the campaign at that time. Everybody who sought it knew he would have conversations with the campaign officials. Which is called indirect targeting. My point is this, the timing is it troubling. The content of application is troubling. The fact that fbi thought for a year not to give any information had to be threatened with contempt and the fact is we do know now but they misled the American People by claiming their sources and methods being jeopardized. I read this there is zero damage to sources and methods. The only reason timothy try to fight it because it embarrassing thats not good enough reason. Do you think the director wray was right in that he was concerned there were some critical omissions . Well let let them. The informations are the other information used to get the application. But lets deal with that. Lets have an investigation look at the facts. Lets stop talking about what trump intended what somebody else intended. It is what i would say is its not dispositive but its very troubling. If there was any other context everybody on the democrat side would be troubled by that. All right david ripkin Michael Zeldin thanks representative. The memo has people asking whether were on the eve another saturday night massacre. Is that a fair parallel mp. Will how will the nunes action as go down in history . Our historians are joining us next to answer those questions. S a lot of dissolved solids. Pour it through britas twostage filter. Dissolved solids remain . 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New dueling lobster tails has two tails thatll fight to be your favorite. One topped with creamy shrimp and scallops, the other. Steamed with lemon and herbs. And no, youre not dreaming, classics like lobster lovers dream are back too, along with decadent new lobster truffle mac cheese. But enough talking about lobster lets get to eating because lobsterfest wont last. So dive in today at red lobster democrats are warning President Trump that using the nunes memo to fire Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein or special counsel Robert Mueller could spark a constitutional crisis. Just the latest comparison being drawn to the watergate era. Lets get some Historical Context with cnns president ial historian Douglas Brinkley and timothy naftali. Thank you both for coming on this late friday evening. Doug, first to you. With the release of this memo, there have been these comparisons to mccarthy, to nixon. You know, you guys are historians. Tell us how you see it. You first, doug. Well, if Rod Rosenstein would have been fired by donald trump, it really would have added to the saturday night massacre analogy, which took place on october 20th, 1973 when nixon ordered the firing of archibald cox. As it is, its been feeling like a saturday night massacre in slow motion. The firing of comey early in 17 and recent you know, and yates situation and mccabes early resignation. The similarities to me are Richard Nixon abused power, obstructed justice, and we see donald trump at least looking like he obstructed justice. I think the big news today really in the end is that the Mueller Report keeps on going. And if this was the republicans and trumps attempt to undermine mueller, i think it failed miserab miserably. Who knows . Maybe donald trump will still fire Rod Rosenstein. It was smart of him not to have. Tim, i wonder if you agree with this. When you look at this, you have the fbi director, the one who came in with the president s, you know, seal of approval after he fired james comey, standing up to the president here. Do you see evidence here that the institutions, in effect, are holding, right . That its not, you know, a sort of redux of the saturday night massacre, et cetera, you know, nixon, watergate. A couple things. First of all, i think the institutions are doing well, but theyre doing well in a hurricane. I mean whats unprecedented about todays release is that its the first time that two branches of government have coordinated an attack on the independence of the fbi. In our history, weve had executive branches that have tried to undermine the fbi, generally secretly, not publicly the way that President Trump has. And there have been times when congress has gone after the fbi and investigated it. But this is the first time that both branches have gone at it at the same time. So what were watching now is a real test of the strength of that fine institution. I would also id like to point out that during the watergate era, president nixon did engage in selective declassification in order to defend himself. It was wrong then, and its equally wrong now. Theres a real problem for the fbi, let alone the democrats in congress. How does the fbi defend itself . The fisa application process is highly secret. This is the first time that the u. S. Government has declassified it. The fbi cant fight back. The materials they have, they cant declassify without the help of the white house. So whats the fbi supposed to do now . How can it tell the American People, look, weve been our work has been mischaracterized . Weve been discredited. Its not right. Its not true. Theyve gone public with exactly i mean that rare statement from Christopher Wray earlier this week. They cant talk about the specifics because it is classified. They cant talk about the specifics. They cant in an earlier segment, you had this discussion as to whether or not the Deputy Director former Deputy Director mccabe had said that the steele memo was central to the fisa warrant for carter page. Well, we dont have the deposition. We dont have his testimony. We dont know what he said. We have to take it at face value. That could be released, those. I hope it is. If theyre all about transparency, hopefully theyll release that. I want to go to you, doug. Like President Trump, president nixon waged war on the media, but the difference is President Trump has a Friendly Network on his side, which apparently leaked the memo before it they got it before. It was on the air before they briefed all the reporters. How much of a difference is that making . Its a gigantic difference. I mean tim touched on one, that nixon had to deal with the democrats on capitol hill and back during the saturday night massacre days, you had republican senators, a power like Barry Goldwater telling nixon that you lied. You dont see these profiles of courage on capitol hill with the exception of john mccain, who wrote a very powerful comment today. In the 1970s, there was no fox news. There was no breitbart. They didnt have that kind of echo chamber. You simply had Network Television and the New York Times and washington post. But of course things have changed and i dont think donald trump would be able to survive like he is now without the oxygen thats being pumped into him on fox. If you put on fox right now im not suggesting viewers do it is 180 degrees opposite of whats being said on cnn. Doug brinkley, tim naftali, thanks so much for joining us on this friday night. Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. Stay with cnn for more on the russia investigation tonight. 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