Bureau was and out subpoenas tied to Michael Flynn and russia. Plus, the white house apparently caught off guard by its own decision. Who could replace james comey, and will that person be able to investigate the president without fear or favor . Good afternoon, everyone. Im jake tap ter. A source close to former fbi director james comey tells me that there are two reasons why President Trump fired comey. One, comeys refusal to provide the president with any sort of assurance of personal loyalty, and, two, the fact that the fbis investigation into possible trump Team Collusion with russia in the 2016 election, thats still not an active investigation but its actually accelerating. Federal prosecutors reese represent thely issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security advisers Michael Flynn. Now, the white house officially disagrees with this theory of what happened, but mounting evidence suggests that comey was fired because of the president s irritation with the fbis russia investigation. Now the white house officially points to Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein fresh on the job writing a memo expressing concern about the way comey had handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation last year faulting comey for being unfair to clinton for among other Things Holding a press conference in which comey, quote, released derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. The president took the advice of the Deputy Attorney general who oversees the director of the fbi, brought those concerns to the attorney general who brought them to the president and they made a decision to remove him. Thats the official white house version. The evidence to the contrary, however, is that we know from the president s public statements that he does not share any of rosensteins concerns that comey was unfair to clinton. In fact, the president has faulted comey only for not going further, for not criminally charging clinton, but in addition to that fact, rosensteins memo expressing his concerns was dated may 9th, yesterday. The white house tells cnn the president had been considering firing comey since the election, most intensely last week, were told. Hmm. If only there was some way for us to see what was on the president s mind in realtime last week. Oh, right. Theres twitter. Take a look at the president s late night tweet storm of may 2. Fbi director was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds. The phony trump russia story was an excuse used by the democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps trump justni ran anr gr. White house officials tell us that the president last week was very frustrated about the russia investigation and lets take a look at the letter that iconr estigation, zero. But the second paragraph in the letter, thats allnr about russ with trump claiming thatco come told him three times he was not personally under investigation. The white house apparently does not like any questions about any of this. You want to question the timing of when he fires and when he hires. Its inappropriate. Hell do what he wants to just like he fired fbi director comb we he was faced with evidence that was unignorable now. Except, of course, that evidence about how comey had treated the clinton investigation happened last year was quite ignorable for the president until apparently he needed a justification for firing comey, and by the way, reporters questioning the white house and the timing and all that, thats quite appropriate, and were going to continue ton do it. Photos now coming in the former fbi director comey arriving at his home in mclean, virginia. Well share those to you in a second and right now director comey is fired but not silent. We could still hear from him next week as we learn today that the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee has invited comey to testify on tuesday. Cnns athena jones is live for us at the white house. Athena, the white house going on offense today attacking comey to defend his firing. Reporter hi, jake. Z now hearingni from the house that the president had the beenxd losing confidence in fbi andnr even that he had consider letting him go starting ever since the day he was elected. That is the white housenr argumt today and in a pretty intense briefing that we saw earlier. In the wake of an enormous backlash over his sudden firing of fbi director james comey, President Trump is defending himself before reporters. Why did you fire director comb . Why did you fire director comey . Because he wasnt doing a good job, very simple police. He was not doing a good job. Reporter and on twitterni promising to replace comey with someone better and predicting that when things calm down, everyone in washington, quote, will be thanking me. Country over party. Reporter but as protesters gathered outside the white house today, critics slammed the move, questioning the administrations rationale for dismissing the director. Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein pointing to comeys mishandling of the clinton qaar personal email. Reporter evennr thoufjni th candidate trump applayd comeys moves during the campaign. I have to give the fbi credit. Reporter and as recently as last month said he had confidence in the director. I have confidence in him. Well see what happens. Reporter but today at the White House Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders says the president s displeasure with comeys Job Performance will been growing for some time and suggested his pm before Congress Last week was the last straw. He had lost confidence in director comey and frankly he had been considering letting director comey go since the day he was elected. Reporter at one point sanders accused comey of using his position to commit atrocities at the Justice Department later adding that he had taken a stick of dynamite and thrown it into the department of justice by going around the chain of command when he decided to take steps without talking to the attorney general or Deputy Attorney general. Reporter now members of both parties on capitol hill are raising serious concerns about the timing of the dismissal and white house officials, many caught off guard by the moveable the blowback are scramling to fix it, the fact that comey was leading the investigation between collusion between Trump Officials and russian officials. This had nothing to do with russia as much as someone must be getting 50 every to imthe word srd said. Vice president mike pence on his way to the capital also defending his boss. The American People have to have confidence inco the fed bureau of investigation. Reporter those explanations not sitting well with come members . Why did it happen lastnixd n . When the investigations getting too close to home. When youni fire the most admired person in america you need a vetty good explanation and so far i havent seen it. The president , meanwhile, sent today behind closed doors meeting with russias foreign minister and ambassador and Henry Henry Kissinger who served as secretary of state. And we havent seen much of the president today. He has been tweeting. He said dems have been complaining for months and months about director comey. Now that hes fired they protend to be aggrieve. Phony hypocrites. Yeah. Athena joan, thank you very much. Some democrats are coming on the department of justice. Stay with us. Dear predictable, theres no other way to say this. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say if you love something. Set it free. See you around, giulia whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. 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Choose your trio with any 3 of 9 selections for 15. 99. Like new creamy lobster pasta toasted parmesan shrimp and southernstyle crab cakes. Come create your trio before it ends. Nice tells you what you kind want to hear. Ifferent. But kind is honest. This bar is made with cranberries and almonds. So, guess what . We call it cranberry almond. Give kind a try. I really always feel sorry, whenever theres replacement talk i feel sorry for the west wing because the chaos and the mayhem starts at the top. Theres no one that can stop what happened yesterday. Trump absolutely believed there wouldnt be any pushback and the democrats would like his firing of james comey. He completely misread it. No one was on tv. This is the line how the of the white house for three hours defending his decision and then he watched cable news and became very incense that had they failed to respond in the proper way and he spends three people out on tv to message is. This is not something that the White House Press staff can really control this. Free flow of falsehoods and all of this inconsistency starts with the top and flows downward, and so in a way it will happen to Sarah Huckabee sanders just like its happened to sean spicer if she ends up with that job. She will be at the podium and she will be dealing with the same kind of chaos that everyone else has been dealing with. A. B. Is so much nicer than i am, feels sorry for the white house staff. They are defending ways that is damaging their own reputation. Some things you defend, policy choices you agree with and try to make a best case for it and they are showing incapable of talking sense to their boss. If you showed me god knows i wasnt a trump supporter, reince priebus, Jared Kushner and his daughter ivanka trump, mike pence, lay 48 hours and call him privately to see if he wants to resign, the obvious things to do if youre a staff to try to protect your boss. They are ignoring him or wont speak up to him. You have, president who is reckless, irresponsible, not very prepared for the job, i would say and now the staff,nrn some of whom would know bert, seem incapable of doing anything and unwilling to do much to stop him. One. Strange optics of this firing of comey during this russia investigation was that President Trump earlier today met with both the Russian Ambassador kislyak who has been a key player in all this talk of espionage and the like as well as the Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov who was asked by reporters about the firing of comey. Take a listen to his youre kidding, youre kidding. Sergei lavrov making a little joke there, youre kidding, youre kidding alongside secretary of state of tillerson. And rinkside at a hockey game, a question about the effects of the russiau. S. Relations. It looksnr ve dont be angry with me. We have nothing to donixdnre it. nrni and in accordance with his law. The russians seem to find ar ly amusing. Well, terrible thing thats happened here is that the entire United States Intelligence Community srmt that the russians have democracy and are trying to do the same thing in western europe and have undermined our own democratic processes and with a president of the United States who has made it very clear he does not give a damn, and so as bill kristol is saying, theres reason to question the stability of this presidency and the way it is being conducted and also the fact that its hallmark, its most basic emblematic act is that of uq 9nibfuscation and z ransparency andnini ord process. We have never been in a presidency like this, and thats what the comey firing is about. It is about something that should deeply concern republicans, the heros of watergate, where republicans who did not want to see a president. United states abuse constitutional process, here we now have instead of a republican senator saying what did the president know and when did he said in the watergate investigation, we nowco have mih mcconneli÷ the senate leaderni essentiallyco saying well pret much go along with anything here as long has it keeps bottled up. Thats the meaning of his actions and the words are not so important, so we have a situation here that really is a great danger to this country. And bill, very quickly, if you could. You talk to republicans on the hill. Are they worried . Yes, and i think today for the first to ima couple said to me, we put out the ones more skeptical of President Trump. They put out statements saying im concerned. Im unhappen he, but what do they do and there are some things you can imagine them doing in a bipartisan way, saying we wont go away with confirming your nominees, mr. President , until you appoint a director that has bipartisan support, until you agree to come clean and cooperate with the investigations. They are moving a little bit beyond, some of them, being worried and concerned to thinking, gee, we are elected officials here, the United States senators, constitutional officers, what do we do about this . Thanks one and all. Appreciate it. Our next guest was with the fbi for years and worked directly with james comey. His take on the firing next. Lets see, there are the wildcats til we die weekenders. The watch me let if fly. This i gotta try weekenders. Then weve got the bendy. Spendy weekenders. The tranquility awaits. Hanging with our mates weekenders and the its been quite a day. So glad we got away weekenders. Whatever kind of weekender you are, theres a hilton for you. Book your weekend break direct at hilton. Com and join the weekenders. What makesheart healthysalad the becalifornia walnuts. R . The best simple veggie dish ever . 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Because quality Public Schools build a better california for all of us. Because quality Public Schools the Energy Conscious whopeople among usle . Say small actions can add up to something. Humongous. A little thing here. A little thing there. Starts to feel like a badge maybe millions can wear. Who are all these caretakers, advocates too . Turns out, its californians its me and its you. Dont stop now, its easy to add to the routine. Join Energy Upgrade california and do your thing. Welcome back to lead. Well continue with politics and the abrupt firing of director james comey. The bureau is still processing the news and still has comeys term as present on its leadership page and same thing on history page where the fbi lists its directors, then and now. Lets bring in ernie babcock, an fbi deputy counsel who worked closely with comey for three years. Good to see you. A source close to comey tells me comey was fired because comey refused to pledge any sort of personal allegiance to trump and also the russia investigation was accelerating. Why do you think comey was fired . Unfortunately, i think he was fired because he was stand you go up for the things that he believed in which, unfortunately, were not the same things that our current president believes in. Such as what . Well, the fbi, as you know, stands for the federal bureau of investigation. It also stands for did i felt, bravery and integrity, and mr. Comey epitomized each of those things and by taking the stance he did with respect to the Clinton Emails he held up that integrity even on an unpopular situation when he was forced to make that decision because of the actions of the attorney general and president clinton. Do you think President Trump fired comey because of his actions during the clinton investigation, or do you think that thats just an excuse for firing him because he is Going Forward and accelerating the russia investigation . I would go with the latter. It seems to me if what director comey had done with regard to those emails was egregious, that president obama would have stepped up and fired him. Clearly he did not do that. In his memo Deputy Attorney general rosenstein wrote, quote, over the past year the fbis credibility and reputation have suffered substantial damage and have affected the entire department of justice. You worked at the fbi for three years. Do you agree . I do note agree with that at all. I think during the period of time that director comey has been there, he has built on the fine work done by prior director muller. He has created an atmosphere of integrity and transparency, and, unfortunately, being transparent is now becoming a political football and one side or the other will not be happy if you actually do your job. How was morale at the fbi under comey when you were there . It was outstanding. Jim comey is an inclusive leader. He would not make and did not make critical decisions on his own as some other leaders do. He brought the senior staff together on a regular basis and included them in making any of the difficult decisions. What would you say to the public that might be concerned that with comey fired and with a new director coming in maybe the investigation into possible collusion between the trump team and russia might be hampered or maybe the investigation might even be ended by the new director . Well, unfortunately, we dont know who the nominee might be, but i can assure you, jake, and the American Public that the fbi is currently in good hands. Acting director andy mccabe is a consummate professional with a great represent owtation, and he is backed up by dave bowdich. These are both career agents who have the same integrity and bravery as director comby. And President Trumps firing letter to comey, he said that comey informed him on three separate occasions that he wasnt under investigation. That seems like an odd thing for an fbi director to tell anybody given that you wouldnt know where the investigation would lead. Are you skeptical of that . I was not privy to any of those conversations, and i must say that would seem out of character for the director to have done that. Do you agree, it stounds like you i dont, but i want to make sure i understand this. Do you understand with the rosenstein conclusion that comey made grievous mistakes during the clinton investigation . That was a complete and thorough investigation and it was handled professionally and it was handled objectively. There was absolutely no political influence with regard to the investigation and, unfortunately, because of the decision made by the attorney general and president clinton to have a private meeting, mr. Comey had absolutely no choice in fulfilling his role to the American Public other than announcing the result of that investigation. And we now know that there were subpoenas issued in this investigation, amayerthorpely having to do with Business Records and Michael Flynn. For most of us who wonder what that means, what does it mean, anything necessarily . It is actually business as usual. That is the type of investigation that is conducted by the fbi, and, again, usually that is not done in the public forum, but we have some certain circumstances here that have changed that. Ernie babcock, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Pleasure to be on tv also in politics today, a West Virginia reporter says he was arrested for asking members of the Trump Administration questions. Dan hyman of the Public News Service repeatedly asking health and Human Services tom price whether Domestic Violence is considered a preexisting can be under the new health care bill. The incident took place in a hallway as price and senior white houseni advisersco kellya conway arrived at the West Virginia State Capitol building. Here isnr cohymans;orninixd ac. ni phone, and i reached itni out t him, past his staffers and the otherni people who were with hi and i askednnpco him the questi repeatedly and he did not answer. n thinkw3 theyczond decided i was just tooninini persistent inco asking this question and trying to do my job and so they arrested me. According g hyman, the secret serviceni signaled thenr capitol por e ; removeninbzonid ni nr told policniok he was a causing a disturbance. n with will ful disrupting of governmental processes and posted a 5,000 bond. A cold reception for education secretary betsy devos at bethunecookman university. I am honored to become a wildcat. conit nrniqni devos gaventr thenr commencemen address in daytona beach,xd florida. As soon as shenrni startedninin some studentst stoodnr up and turned their backs on her and f8thenininr rowdy crowd settled toau herw3co speak fobrni 20 mi after warni oj from the yent in february when she said his forically black colleges and University Founders were the real pioneersni of schl choice and in reality many were not attende1 predominantly whit institutions. Devosconnrnr later tried to wal her comments bu co the backlash obviously continues. Obviously continues. Thats it for lead. Im jake tapper. Ill see you tonight at 11 00 p. M. On theni fallout from jame comeysnr firing. Jejuhko wolf blitzer. Thanks for watching. Happening now. 7nni news. The nalout. Shock andnr nioutrage over prest trumps sudden firing of fbini director James Connelly just as theni investigation intoni russ campaign meddling and its contacts with Trump Associates were picking up speed. Will the next fbi chief have any independence in the conflicting story. The white house says the in comey over several months, but just last weeknr itt xd said it confidence in the fbi chief, and theco president has
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