The first story was this was purely on the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney general and then the president reversed himself. I was always going to do it. Thats what the deputy said. So we got to really understand what went into this decision. For this decision, even though im on within of the committees questioning the russia hack and whether there were ties to the Trump Campaign, all of us on capitol hill in the committees relied on the fact with the f. B. I. , dozens of investigators, with the trained professionals in getting to the bottom of things, they were working in parallel so then when the president comes out of nowhere and fires the guy thats running that investigation, that sends first of all, it raises all kinds of questions. Why does the investigated fire the investigator . Why . It sends a tough signal to people in the f. B. I. , maybe your career isnt doing as quite as well as youd like it to. Host the president said in his statement when he fired the letterer to the former director, that he appreciated on three different occasions that the director told him he personally was not part of this investigation. Front page of the New York Times this morning said the president called him shortly after the election and said, when are you going to get federal authorities to say publicly that im not part of this investigation . Does your investigation can your investigation at this point clear the president personally . Guest our investigation cannot, of course. We are, you know, in the early stages. Remember, on the house side we had a twoweek period where we were kind of stalled and result in congressman mike conaway taking over that investigation. We have agreed with our republican counterparts on a witness list. Weve agreed on a schedule to get those witnesses in and were going to proceed deliberately and were going to proceed without prejudice to what the outcome might be which is you wont hear me or people like me characterize whag the outcome may be. This needs to be done fairly and, you know, we got a lot of work to do before we can Start Talking about what the likely outcome is. Host is your investigation a counterintelligence one or criminal . Guest remember, the congress doesnt do criminal investigations per se. Its different than an f. B. I. Investigation. The f. B. I. Is in charge of counterintelligence. Thats rooting out spies or possible agents of influence. That could lead to criminal investigations and criminal prosecutions. Thats what the f. B. I. Does. The congress is getting to deeper issues, speaking to the American People about all of the aspects that happened. I mean, think of the 9 11 commission which is quite frankly what we should have done on capitol hill. Even though ill tell you our investigation is going well, that commission didnt indict anybody. It just told a very, very detailed story of the many failures, the many problems and challenges and threats that led up to 9 11 so the American People could really see what happened and understand what the implications are. Thats more what congress does. Host the after the senators met with Rod Rosenstein, senator marco rubio tweeted this out, that the special counsel bob mueller is expected to ask congress to scale back public hearings with witnesses who might be part of his investigation. And you have lindsey graham, his subcommittee is doing their own investigation telling the Washington Post that his committee would probably have a hard time finding a link now and said muellers appointment probably well shuts it down. Guest i disagree. It doesnt shut it down in any sense. We talked about the difference of a congressional investigation and an f. B. I. Investigation. This happens a lot. Youll have at Times Congress investigating something and the f. B. I. Looking at a criminal investigation. Sometimes you have the f. B. I. Doing a criminal investigation and state authorities doing an investigation. Whenever you have that you want to coordinate it. I think while i think senator graham and senator rubio overstated it, what may happen is always what happens in situations like this. Youll try to deconflict. The f. B. I. , just to give you an abstract example. If the f. B. I. Wants to interview someone who they think is a key witness and they really want to structure that interview in the way they do to get to the answers, they might call up congress and say, hey, that open hearing you want to do next week with that guy, can you please put that off because we have that process up . Thats not a bad thing for the congressional hearing. Look, its a good thing the f. B. I. Is now going to proceed with a guy like bob mueller who is profoundly respected on both sides of the aisle but, yeah, theres going to be a need as we move along to make sure we dont step on each others investigations. Host does that mean the public wont get to hear from the former f. B. I. Director james comey anytime soon . Guest well, most of us have a bias. I know Ranking Member adam schiff does. We all have a bias to doing as much as this in the public arena as we can. You know, this is part of the problem here is that this is all happening in the murky world of, you know, ambassadors talking to this person and Intelligence Community and investigations. A lot of that by definition has to happen behind closed doors. But what we really need to do is we need to get to a place at the end of this not necessarily along the way but at the end of this that we can tell a story thats credible and the American People will understand. By the way, that story might be that, yeah, there were a whole bunch of conversations between the trump administration, Trump Campaign and the russians. That may not be a crime. That may be the scrout come or it may be more sinister. We need to do this as much as we can in the open so they see the process and outcome. Obviously there will be limitations because of the f. B. I. And because some of this deals with material that, you know, happens in a classified arena and we have to protect that. Host lets hear what the American Public has to say about it this morning. Betty in virginia beach, democrat, good morning to you, betty. Go ahead. Caller yes, good morning. And i can see representative himes lips moving but i cant hear what hes saying. Host are you being sarcastic, betty . Caller i am not a sarcastic person. Host do you have a question and a comment . Caller i just wanted to make sure i could hear you and you can hear me. I am originally from sandy hook, connecticut. D the connecticut representatives and senators are doing a great job. And we have two good senators down here. Anyway, my question is, number one, whether it sounds unfair or not, i really hope and pray that this investigation leads to trumps impeachment and conviction and i dont think that thats going to happen very fast. I understand that. But also, because even if there was no russian investigation, if russia had never happened, i think that theres other things that he does and im not a lawyer. Im a plain old person. That are conflicts of interest between all these businesses he has and overseas businesses and his family is in the white house and host ok, betty, understand those two points. Well have the congressman respond. Guest i thank you, also, for the point the words you said, i want to make sure you can hear me and i hear you. That should be our motto, republicans and democrats alike in washington. So thank you for that. And, betty, with all due respect, i would take issue. I understand politics and ive been a pretty harsh critic of this president for a whole bunch of reasons that we can get into if you want. When it comes to the question of the russian hack of our election, we as americans have to work really, really hard to keep that out of the partisan food fight. What i mean by that is, look, theres not much question, the Intelligence Community is very clear on this, the russians made an attack on the very core of our democracy, on the thing we are most proud of as americans, we get to choose our own leaders as citizens. They attacked that and i dont ever want citizens or anyone to say, well, this is a democratic and a republican way of looking at that, so really what this investigation needs to do and success will be when we really get into the guts and mechanics of how that happened, understood how it happened, when we figure out how to send the signal to the russians they got to stop this behavior because they havent it. They did it in france in a very big way. They released emails to the guy that ultimately won the president of france and as lock as we dont fully long as we dont fully understand what they do and dont make a strong stance against it, make Vladimir Putin feel it, hes going to keep doing it. We work really hard to not prejudge outcomes, to not saying i hope this president goes down. I hope this president this is all baloney. Benghazi all over again. Lets get to the truth here. Thats what we can do for our country. Host independent, youre next. Caller im from alaska. Host im sorry. Caller yes. Good morning, congressman. Thank you, cspan, for taking my call. My comment to the congressman is what do you think of mr. Saying that tement he has no evidence of donald rump and colluding with the russians . Guest thanks for the question. Again in the effort to for political reasons, partisan reasons to say, clearly this investigation is unwarranted or this investigation is clearly going to lead to the impeachment of the president , both instincts that should be far from all of our minds, one of the things the people are holding up is clappers, the former director of National Intelligence statement, that he had seen no evidence that shows collusion between the trumpp campaign and the russians. That doesnt mean that evidence doesnt exist. Clapper has not been the director of National Intelligence for three months while an investigation three investigations have proceeded. So what he said was that up to the point when he was involved in this stuff, he hadnt seen the evidence. Neither had any of the investigation that is are under way right now. People havent been interviewed. Were only now looking at documents. I think he made a factual statement, but we shouldnt read too much into that. That doesnt mean that that doesnt prejudge, that doesnt mean he knows what the conclusion of these many investigations is going to be host has your committee seen these memos put together by the former f. B. I. Director comey . Guest we have not yet seen those memos. Thats an area of real interest because director comey, as i guess he was known to do, whenever he had conversations with the president , would make a note. A contemporaneous note. I dont think anybody on capitol hill has seen them but im confident we will. A lot of us are interested in hearing what he says. Of course there is a really uncomfortable reality here where we have a couple of areas where jim comey and President Trump are directly contradicting each other. Directly contradicting each other. James comey apparently wrote a memo saying that the president asked me to stop the flynn. Ation of general trump says that never happens. When you have the director of , onebi and the president of them not telling the truth, we better find out who that is. Host danny, good morning. Well take you back live now to the majority leader talking o reporters. One of the questions, he already said it, he has no evidence that comey asked for any further resources. That all the resources were there. Thank you. Were live on the outside the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium where members of the house have been getting a briefly from Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein on the firing of former f. B. I. Director james comey. The appointment of former f. B. I. Director Robert Mueller on the russia investigation as a special counsel. We may hear from some more members. And the house coming back into session in about 10 minutes or so. Scheduled for 10 1 15 eastern. Well have live coverage when hat resumes. A couple tweets from erica warner, Associated Press tweeting, rosenstein briefing was a quote, complete waste of time, according to dave trot, a congressman from michigan. Ben siegel from abc saying house members broke into applause when rosenstein said the russia that russia is not a partisan issue. Yesterday attorney general Deputy Attorney general rosenstein briefed senators as well on the issue and the number the senators had comments afterward. You can see those on our website at cspan. Org. As you wait for possible comments from more members and the house to gavel whackback in at 11 15. Well go back to part of our program this morning on washington journal. Lets keep in mind, first of all, that this was a classified briefing. Mr. Cummings cant really talk about it. But i can tell you that as a result of the briefing i am again, vinced that this is not about the briefing but my feelings,