Brenon. I think if i think it is a mistake. We have both recognized several times since we agreed to the scope of our investigation that it was important to bring the public into the investigation as much as we could so the country would under what we were looking at, what progress we were making, what the issues were and why the American People should care about how russia intervened in our election and the seriousness of the issue and the challenge it poses for our own democracy and democracies around the world. We agreed many of the hearings would be done in open session. We invited five director, well four and sally yates to testify and they all agreed to testify in open session. We ended up breaking up the first hearing in two parts with the second place taking part wednesday. The three witnesses on tuesday agreed to come testify in open session to share with the public what they know about the investigation. There are many questions they may not be able to answer in open session but at the same time as we saw on monday there is a lot the public can and should learn about this and all the different methods the russians used to interfere in democracy and as we see in europe in that of our allies. It is a very important component. I think what we have seen this week is the following chronology. Monday we have the first open hearing and the count regets a glimpse of why we are concerned about so many things but particularly whether there were u. S. Persons involved, people involved in the Trump Campaign that were in any way as director comey said coordinating with the russian. We gave the public a real look at why this is so significant but we also heard for the first time the fbi is doing a counterintelligence investigation that involves associates of the campaign and that investigation has been going on since july and continues to this day. That was very significant information for the public. That was monday. On tuesday and wednesday, the chairman in a what appears to be a dead of night excursion reviewreview these. What was most concerning was taking that information to the white house. Now it is associates of the president who are potentially the subject of investigation into whether they colluded with the russians. So taking evidence that may or may not be related to the investigation to the white house was inappropriate and goes against running a credibility investigation. That was tuesdaywednesday. We are here now on friday. On thursday, we learned that the chairman wanted to close the hearing set for tuesday or cancel it all together. Of course, that was not an our view, in the public interest, and we resisted that. Today the chairman announced that hearing is canceled. He announced he wants to bring back directors comey and rogers for a closed session. We welcome any time bringing the directors back in closed session. We dont welcome cutting off the Public Access to information when we have witnesses as these three very important witnesses who are willing and schedule to testify in open session. We made the offer, rejected by the majority, we could are there three witnesses testify in open session and if there were question members wanted to ask in closed session we could go to a closed portion of the hearing. This is what we do often where we have open testimony followed by testimony in closed session. The reason why do that in the Worldwide Press hearing is because there are questions that can be answered in public. It is in the publics interest to know what the threat the country is facing. Of course the session that follows is important to the members and our oversight responsibility to understand more details, classified information behind those threats. The same is true in this investigation. Some of this should be done, needs to be done, in the public eye. So, we strongly object to the cancelation of this hearing. We would still urge the majority to reconsider. The witnesses made it clear they are available and we push for that meeting to go forward. With respect to the documents, the chair and i did request docdoc docume documents of the directors of the nsa and cia on unmasking procedures. That is a formal part of overnight and appropriate. Whether what the chairman saw as a subset or not none of us have any ideas. If is a subset of what we re quested and expected to be delivered it begs the question why it was necessary to take the documents to the white house before the committee did the work. The nsa responded to one of the five questions and told us they are working to respond to the others and we have every confidence they. We welcome mr. Manafors testimony and welcome it in an open session. Similarly, if it is necessary to have any in a closed session that can be arranged. With that, i am happy to answer questions the hearing will be closed and classified. Will you urge him to make that a public hearing . We had a public hearing with directors comey and rogers already. So i have no objection to bringing them back in and having a closed hearing. If there is Additional Information we can make public, that would certainly be welcome also. But i dont think anyone should be should have questions about what is going on. It isnt a conflict with witnesses who have scheduled and agreed to appear. We welcome them coming back at any time but the cancelation of the open hearing is what is involved here. He said that was canceled because you know, i think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the white house about the nature mondays hearing. It is hard to come to any other conclusion about why an agreed upon meeting would be canceled. The chairman himself said the cancelization had nothing to do with the documents he saw. What other explanation can there be . There is none when the witnesses are ready and available. Do you believe the dead of night excursion was orchestrated by the wohite house . I am concerned the care is ruling out the documents came from the white house or sponsored by the white house. Are you there . Do you believe you can still run this committee or should he step aside . Ultimately that is the decision that the speaker needs to make and i think the speaker has to decide just as the chairman of whether they want a credible investigation done. The events of this week are not encouraging them. I think anyone watching has legit, profound concerns about whether this congress can do a credible investigation. I think one of the profound takeaways is we really need an independent commission. The public at the end of the day needs to have confidence that someone has done a thorough investigation untainted by political consideration. It had been my hope, it is still my hope, and may be hope against hope that there is some way we can do that. But i have to say i am deeply discouraged by this weeks events and i think the public is deeply discouraged. I think what would give the public more confidence is if we didnt stop what we were doing but established a truly independent body, separate from the Congress Just like after 9 11, that the public can say we can be confidant someone is doing an investigation untampered and uninterferinter with by the white house. [inaudible question] i certainly havent had any conversations with the president. The president has a huge staff so i dont want to represent whether i have heard from anyone affiliated with the president S Administration but i will say one thing that is abundantly clear from this week and it began with director comeys and rogers testimony and what they represented on behalf of the Justice Department and that is there is no basis for what the president accused his predecessor of. That was pure nonsense. I think people need to understand what is going on is the following. The president made a slanderous acquisition against his predecessor that his predecessor engaged in felony crimes and illegally wiretapped him. Republican chairs of the house and senate committee, one after another, and senators on other committees, and the speaker himself said, we see no evidence to support the president s statements. Then we heard testimony from directors this week saying there is no evidence of this. And then we had this peculiar excursion that said there is still no evidence his predecessor wiretapped him and that midnight run caused confusion, and still does, but the bottom run is still the same. That has damaged our relationship with the british allies. I think the comments President Trump made against Angela Merkal were distastefull and only damaging to the that relationship. Now to further justify the unjustifiable he is interfering in this investigation. I think the fact the chairmans press conference was at the white house is not only symbolically important but important in terms of understanding what is really going on. That effort to defend the indefensible led us down this terrible rabbit hole and threatens the only investigation authorized in the house. Congressman, how do you explain the incidental collection on the Trump Associates . Do you believe the white house is interfering with the investigation . Can you elaborate on the night excursion . Democrats feel if we are not engaged in this investigation, no one will be. There are some i am sure who would like nothing more than this investigation to go away. In the minority the only power we have this power of public persuasion and i hope people who are watching will contact the members of the House Intelligence Committee and urge them to go forward with an opening hearing and it may be more important for you to reach out to republican members and say you dont want this hearing cancelled. You want to be informed. And youre going to demand that of all the representatives, regardless of party. What is your underring of the nature of how these names were released . Is it your understanding that Trump Associates were party to these communications or simply unmasked in the course of other conversations . Let me make this the last question. This deals with the issue of unmasking. Again, because of the extraordinary way that the chairman has introduced this issue, that is by viewing something and telling the press and the white house about it without telling his own committee or sharing with his own committee, what is really involved, and we dont have it so we cant say. I have to read between the lines. And reading between the lines of what the chair has said, i would assume again, this is just an assumption that this is subset of what we requested from the nsa, and significant question about what this would be done in this manner if wore going the documents from the nsa. What we asked the nsa for is documents that are the result of incidental collection, collection not as the president suggested, that was targeted the president , because theres no evidence of that. But surveillance that maybe targeted at foreign spies, and in the midst of looking at foreign spies, it could be a simple matter of a foreign spy mentioning the name of an american. You imagine they might mention the name of an american running for president. That would be considered incidental collection, so i assume without knowing any better that what the chairman is talking about is he looked at communications that were incidentally collected, that is not targeted the president. So, no defense for the president. Not a full validation or vindication of the president , not a partial sad addition of the president , a zero validation of the president even if you accept what the chairman said. Thank you. Saturday, booktv is live from the 23 annual virginia festival of the book. The programming includes a Panel Discussion on the english language. Followed bay panel on nuclear war at noon. Then at 2 00 p. M. , a discussion on civil protests. Followed bay Panel Discussion at 4 00 p. M. On the media