Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Happening Now 20170608

There is another nugget that was slipped underneath, i dont think many people picked up on it. At one point, comey talks about attorney general Jeff Sessions and the recusal of all russia issues. He says he is not able to talk about that in open session. There might be more of an understanding from President Trump as to why Jeff Sessions that it was appropriate for him to recuse himself even though the president is very agitated that he made that decision. Thank you. George, good afternoon to you. At one moment, james comey talked about this Loretta Lynch matter. He said he considered calling for a special counsel to probe the matter. And then he decided he decided not to because he believed that clinton had not broken the law. Thats a rather declarative statement weve heard from him today. The one critical question that i dont believe was asked in a frank matter was whether or not there is evidence of a crime dealing with the president now. Before you answer that lets see if we can pick up a microphone. And thats that. What did today do in terms of proving if there was a crime or not . I dont know if today proved that there was a crime but today certainly advance the ball on the seriousness of this investigation and the breath of its scope. If you look, at the big picture and not at a few snippets here and there, you get a very credible and compelling argument that the president of the United States has not been truthful with the American People and ordered the director of the fbi to shut down an investigation. Did he order it because he wanted to conserve Justice Department resources or because he wanted to protect friend . The former would be a legitimate order, the latter is arguably a corrupt order or a corrupt intent. This will all be examined by Robert Mueller. It is very clear that the investigation is going to go on for a long time. And it is going to encompass all of this. The interrogation we just saw, Robert Mueller is going to conduct an interrogation like that under oath of donald trump. Not weather, but when is the only question. Would he have answered that . I dont know that he would have answered that, he might have answered that if he had still been the director of the fbi but he cautiously kept away from the legal significance of the evidence and stayed in the ballpark of here is the evidence i can bring to you, you decide if its of legal significance. Ive got a quick question for you, we find out today that the former fbi director admits he is the one who funneled the information that got out there, these memos that he was keeping throughout friend. Some other people outside the doj. So much has been made about leaks, the president had a disagreement with the fbi director, feeling like he wasnt handling them seriously enough. This would happen as he was a private citizen, a lot of people are arguing that those documents are federal government property, they were put together on government laptops, they were done on government time. What you say about those documents and the leaking of them . I think you could make both arguments, you could make the argument that the former director of the fbi improperly and unlawfully and to protect his own reputation leaked government document. You could also say he viewed it as his own notes to himself which he still possessed even though he had given a copy to his former employer. And he wanted to advance the ball of truth. I dont know where thats going to go, you could make both arguments. I was surprised when he acknowledged that, i dont know if we are supposed to reveal the name of the professor at columbia. Its out there. Im not going to use his name. We will hold off on that for now, there are some reports that he has acknowledged it. Do we have sound bite number 14 to go . This it deals with why he shared the contents of the memo and with whom, this is how that exchange went. Did you show copies of your memos to anyone outside of the department of justice . Yes. To whom did you show copies . My judgment was that i needed to get that out into the public square, i asked a friend of mine to share the contents of the memo with the reporter. I did not do it myself for a variety of reasons but i asked him to because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. I asked her for to not close friend of mine to do it. A good friend of mine who is a professor at columbia law schoo school. Catherine, where would you like to begin . To pick up on that testimony right there, i cant remember a time ever were a former fbi director has deliberately made the contents of a government document so it would get to a reporter in the hopes that it would prompt a special counsel an investigation. One of the problems for james comey right now is that in his last public testimony in capitol hill before the Senate Judiciary committee, right out of the gate and that hearin hearing, a significant question asked, whether he had ever been anonymous source for reporters about the Hillary Clinton email investigation or the russia case and james comey testified no. Any asked him whether he had ever authorized someone else to be an anonymous source on his behalf, on the clinton email case and the russia case and james comey said no. At the very least, what you can draw here from that testimony is that once he left the office of fbi director, he was not necessarily a person of principle. He made a decision to leak information on an anonymous basis in the hope of really changing the entire focus of the russia investigation going forward. Based on my reporting here over the last couple of months, specifically on that issue, this sets up a conflict or the need for a further explanation as to how he square to these elements here. Thank you. We continue our coverage here. You see the room, that is where the private attorney for the president will make a statement. We were given guidance for 1 30 eastern time, we will see if that stands. A group of religious leaders are in our nations capital. How do you characterize what the president s Attorney Says after this . Full disclosure, i know him, he is our friend and a superb litigator, he has represented the president for many years, probably never quite like this. He is articulate, fierce, very well respected. I dont know if he is going go through every allegation that james comey made under oath to try to recuse them. Quite frankly, i say this with deference and respect, the president was totally vindicated by the written statement that we all got yesterday, it was really not believable and i think you are going to see him a lot more combative and a couple of minutes. If i were him, i would get in the business of addressing the more serious allegations that james comey made because they are very, very starting with what . Whether or not the president tells the truth to the American Public about his communications with the director of the fbi, whether or not the president said whether the president asked for loyalty. He told our colleagues that he never made such a request. Whether the president intended his i hope you can go easy on mike flynn, hes a good guy to be in order to shut down the investigation because he was fearful that mike flynn, as Chris Wallace pointed out, might turn some evidence over to Robert Mueller that would be against the president himself. That would be a corrupt motivation. He needs to very quickly address these issues before the general impression of credibility and condemnation that i suggest james comey has created this morning sets and with the press and the American Public unanswered by the president. I want to bring you into talk about the meeting the judge was just talking about. About what exactly the president was or wasnt asking, what he was saying. When that came up, i want to play a little bit of this fact. Why didnt you stop and say it mr. President , this is wrong, i cannot discuss this with you. Its a great question, maybe if i were stronger i would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that i just took it in and the only thing i could think to say is i was playing in my mind, i could member everywhere he said. I was playing in my mind what my response should be. I very carefully chose the words. I have seen the tweet about tapes, lordy, i hope there are tapes. I think thats a perfect example of why james comey was such an effective witness today. Two aspects of that. Are there were times when he said he could have been stronger and stood up and done something. He was not painting himself as the hero, sometimes he was saying he may have taken the easy way out. The other thing is there were a bunch of times when the democrats were basically setting came up and wanting him to take a shot at donald trump and he refrained from doing it, he was very restrained, quite selfdeprecating and all it did was increase his credibility because he wasnt painting himself like he was the guy in the white hat and donald trump was the guy in the black hat. It does certainly raise a question, we will never know what happened in that meeting unless the president does have a tape because it will be a he said he said. His notes are only as good as what he decided to write down. We dont know if the president has a tape or not. We do have one piece of evidence, i thought comey was clearly putting it out there. Recently saying ask these other guys. Sitting in a room in the oval office, the president and comey and the attorney general, Vice President , chief of staff, the president asked them all to leave and he wants to be just with comey. The attorney general tries to hang around, he says i want you to leave. The president s soninlaw is hanging around, i want you to leave. It does raise the direct question that he asked before the hearing today, before the committee today, why did he ask everybody to leave the room and just want to be alone with james comey if it was simply an innocent conversation. Valentines day in the oval office. Give us a sense for what was happening there in the two hour and 45 minute hearing. The president was involved in a lot of meetings, none of his aides can say for sure if he saw any of the testimony that he was in a meeting about north korea before going out to face the Freedom Coalition meeting today to give an address. I think for the president and what we will see when Marc Kasowitz steps up to the microphone in a few minutes, last night was Marc Kasowitzs 20th anniversary. He was down here and she was in new york. Reports are that he was so confident he was handing out cigars at the Trump International hotel last night. I am told that he gave one cigar to a friend. In terms of what the white house is taking away from this, they have indicated that james comey did say on numerous occasions that he has prepared remarks as well as testimony that the president was not a subject of investigation. They still take issue with a couple of the things he said. They insist the president never demanded any kind of loyalty or fealty from the fbi director. They also quibble with the idea that he was asking comey to drop the Flynn Investigation altogether. I think in addition to taking issue of the couple of things that remain out there, they feel like this was a good day for them. The president came away as well as one could expect. They also may point to the idea that Loretta Lynch was trying to push comey towards a direction in terms of language at the very least when they were talking about the Hillary Clinton email investigation. I think you will see the white house making an issue of that. The only thing the white house would say on the record about all of this, pointing us all to Marc Kasowitz for any kind of comment. They took issue with the fact that comey called the president a liar, directly saying that the president is not a liar and to suggest such as insulting. I think those of the main takeaways. We were told before the hearing began that he would be watching most likely on a 60inch monitor in the oval office, did that happen or not . It doesnt sound like it happened the way it was initially described. We are initially told that he would be watching the hearing, we were told shortly after the hearing began that that was incorrect, he would be meeting with the National Security team. To the one other thing we did learn from the offcamera out with Sarah Huckabee sanders is that the present has full confidence in attorney general Jeff Sessions. There was reporting that he had offered her resignation, some other reporting that the president never saw a Resignation Letter that may or may not have been delivered to the white house. Sarah Huckabee Sanders top of the president last night specifically about Jeff Sessions. Yes, he does maintain the confidence of the president , know it hes not going to be fired. More to come the white house in a moment. We will bring a new face into the discussion here. You are down in washington, take us through your experience so far and whether or not there is a take away for you specificall specifically. Hi, bill. This is clearly a battle that has been a between the president and his former fbi director, i thought it was very interesting to watch a number of different instances where they were basically saying to him, regardless of what you went through, would you be fbi director today if you werent fired . And he said yes i would. They took them through a number of instances where he basically suggested that this was not as egregious as some of his other comments might point to. They also took him back to the John Ashcroft incident where he threatened to resign after that discussion about signing off on interrogation techniques. He detailed that he had written a letter of resignation, signed it and was prepared to give it to president bush at the time. Making that kind of comparison gives it her degree of how egregious he felt the behavior was. And all of these instances, he did not come up with a Resignation Letter, he said he would still be here if his job had not been taken away from him. All of that sort of points to a certain kind of timber in terms of how he felt about it. I thought it was very interesting, the selfpreservation move that he revealed for himself today. That moment when he woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to make sure that his memos got out to balance his side of the story, i thought that was a fascinating moment. It was not a discussion that he had had with a friend and a friend mentioned it to the press, this was a very intentional move on his part to get his side of the story out there. Its a fascinating look at these very powerful men, the president of the United States and the director of the fbi, both making a very big effort at self preservation. The degree of whether or not anyone stepped across the line is something that is not going away anytime soon. Something that this investigation will continue to determine. You think about the atmosphere in washington, d. C. , leaks have been a significant part of this administration. Trying to get a handle on that, i think just characterizing Opening Statements from the republican chair and the ranking democratic member. Tor burr went. Senator warner went right after obstruction charges. I think it is very important to point out again, the preservation of our democracy, is our Voting Rights sacred. Senator burr asked if russia succeeded in changing any votes. The answer, no evidence, i am confident. Thats a response from james comey. That is where we are in trying to keep electronic voting that will continue to multiply every two years, every four years. This is a very relevant and important point. Did russia change votes . Right now there is no evidence that happened. It is very interesting, sort of the question that everyone comes back to undermines themselves of. Oh, yeah, the larger issue here is whether or not russia is determined to upset our election system. And yet, evidence time and time again that there is such a Strong Political underpinning at the core of todays discussion was about President Trump, whether or not he acted inappropriately. One of the other questions that went to the point that you are making was whether james comey was asked if the president ever asked him other than these moments you discussed about the russia investigation. The larger implications of it, how concerned he was about the russians interfering in our election and james comey basically said no, he did not. We will see you tonight at 7 00. Good to have you here. Lets take it back to washington and check in with bret baier. A lot of talking behind closed doors. There is still so much for them to talk about in regards to the investigation, it is going to be juicy stuff but we will not hear about it. It is classified and behind closed doors, you heard a lot of the answers from james comey, saying he could answer it behind closed doors. To bill and marthas point here, the overall issue is russia. Remember that for all the leaks that we have seen, we have not seen leaks of substantial credible evidence of collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia, at least not yet. We dont know where the Robert Mueller investigation is going to go. I thought it was interesting in tom cottons investigation, did it direct to the investigation . And comey said he saw them as separate, touching but separate. Cotton asked if he came close and demand close to closing the investigation and he would not answer that question, he said he would answer behind closed doors. The opener with senator burr, no doubt that russia tried to interfere with our election is significant what russia is trying to do but not only here but around the world. That is the 30,000foot view of this and while it is obsessive and focused on what happened in the oval office and all these conversations, the big issue here is what russia has done and whether the Trump Campaign was aware of it. To that point, so many things we got flushed out more, and a bigger way today with this memo that we saw yesterday. We knew it spelled out a lot more than we expected, chairman burr wanting to make sure everybody knew what they were going to say. Obviously comey talked several times about the president being worried about the cloud over hi him. He wanted someone to come out and say publicly that he was not the subject of the investigatio investigation. He expressed frustration with a lot of people about the fact that no one would say that for him. In this memo, as part of a statement yesterday, mr. Comey said that they had that last conversation in march about this, i see what we could do, work on our investigative work, try to get it done well and as quickly as they could. Essentially called the acting Deputy Attorney general and left it there. We wondered why that there wasnt more to that. This is what we heard about that today. You told the president you would see what we could do, what did you mean . That was a cowardly way of trying to avoid telling him we are not going to do that, that i would see what we could do as a way of getting off the phone, frankly. I turned and handed it to the acting Deputy Attorney general. By his own admission many times today, he essentially says he didnt want to get into it with the president , didnt want to have to stand up to him. Even this was a cowardly way of getting out of it lately. That was the point of a lot of the questioning. If you had such a problem, why didnt you Say Something . Why didnt you step down, resign, step aside. Some of the questioning that we saw from republicans back to that point. I think the other thing is that you sought marco rubio asked the question, when the conversation between the president and comey is about its not investigating me, but if its my satellites, and he said so it was your understanding that he wanted that investigation into the russian collusion allegations to continue and if there were people who were doing something that they could be taken to justice and comey says yes, that was his understanding, he wanted that investigation to go but he wanted to be clear that he wasnt under investigation. For all of us who covered this president and candidate, that seems totally believable that this president wanted to make clear to everybody in the world that he personally was not under investigation. The fact that comey was not saying that was making this president upset. Thank you, stand by. We have this moment here that we want to remind you of. This is senator marco rubio towards the end of that hearing. He was asking why or why not did he share this information with others, report to a Higher Authority or to his own boss. This is the clip. If we have it, go ahead and roll it now. Did you say anything to the president about that being an appropriate request, did you tell the white House Counsel that that is not an appropriate request, someone needs to tell the president that he cant do these things . I didnt. Why . I dont know. I think the circumstances were such that i was a bit stunned and didnt have the presence of mind, i dont want to make it sound like i am captain courageous, i dont know even if i had the presence of mind if i would have said that was wrong. In the moment, it did not come to my mind. Will came to my mind is to be careful what i said. Chris wallace on this why or why not. Republicans in the white house are going to go after it and come back to a question such as this. One of the things that strikes me as we are talking about all of this, and i will say i dont think it turned out to be as explosive and dynamic, we have talked at the head and i have talked about mccarthy, watergate, Clarence Thomas is not going to go down in history as that by any means. I dont know if there was any magic moment that will be repeated. There were a lot of interesting aspects. It just to take one example of that, when the president was saying why dont you say that i am not under investigation and comey said that then we have a duty to correct and what he meant by that is if you go out and Tell Congress that the president is not under investigation and then there are subsequent events that put him under investigation, then he feels an obligation that he would have to correct his testimony and we know that all too well, that is exactly what happened with Hillary Clinton. The reason that he sent the letter to congress on october 28th saying that after his people had seen the laptop, that he felt he had to come forward with that and obviously with tremendous political ramifications, was because he told congress the investigation was concluded and now he felt the duty to correct. It so much of this is entwined with what happened with Hillary Clinton, the lessons he felt he had learned from Hillary Clinton, the mistakes he felt he had and he didnt want to repeat, and one thing that comes through loud and clear and everyone of these these conversations going back to the first one when he was alone with the president elect in the trump tower on january 6th was that he felt tremendously uncomfortable with donald trump and did not trust him. The fact that he said that he went down to his fbi suv immediately after the meeting and immediately got on his laptop and immediately started writing up an account was because he said in his hearing today, i thought he might lie about it. This happens in the context of a president elect who had been bashing the Intelligence Community, who had compared the kind of leaks coming out of the Intelligence Community to nazi germany. It to a certain degree you can understand the concerns he had about being honest and open with donald trump. This was a relationship as you look back on his testimony today that seemed it was doomed from the start. There is a classified reason we believe underway right now with james comey and the centers behind closed doors. Often times information leaks out of that, we will see it that case today. That microphone is reserved for the president s personal attorney. I am going to get you both to weigh in on the following exchange. This is comeys reaction to the valentines day meeting in the oval office where the president announced everyone to clear out essentially. That included the attorney general Jeff Sessions, he described both men as lingering. This is how that went. My impression was Something Big is about to happen, i need to remember every single word spoken. I could be wrong, ive seen a few things. My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldnt be leaving, which is why he was lingering. I knew something was about to happen and i needed to pay very close attention to it. That was february 14th, already we know based on the tweeting in early january that he was taking notes. This is not only one of the most extraordinary parts of the q a today but also one of the most credible. Again, our colleagues have pointed this out. Are the president of the United States asked the sitting Vice President to leave the sitting attorney general to leave. His chief of staff to leave. A so that he could Say Something to the fbi director, why the audience departs so there is plausible deniability that he said it. He didnt want witnesses for this exchange. I hope you can see it your way to let Michael Flynn go. He didnt want somebody to be able to say did the president just try to interfere with the prosecution or investigation, they didnt want james comey to have a witness to the conversation. I am speculating here, no one knows what went through the mind of donald trump but i am suggesting to you and our colleagues we will hear a different version of this in a few minutes, but james comeys explanation of what he saw, heard, said and did at that moment is credible and to the president. Perhaps this was donald trump thinking he could just charm the fbi director. The wall street journal has a very intriguing editorial about revealing a willful and naive narcissist who believes he can subtly intimidate the fbi director. Do you then chalk this up to a new president who did not quite understand the way washington works . Why is that not possible . A lot of his defenders are saying that, in fact Chris Christie said it yesterday on i think cnn, basically saying this is how new york guys talk to each other and he didnt really mean it. Im not sure if i buy that, frankly. Having been a government for 12 years and been in the white house for seven, i have never had an experience like this. I do remember when i was confirmed as the special assistant to the president , you raise your right hand and swear loyalty to the country. I remember the chief of staff saying to me to remember that i do not work for george w. Bush the president , you work for the people of the United States of america. If there is ever anything that makes you think you need to come to me because you are uncomfortable, let me know. Thankfully i never had to do that. But i understand for somebody is experienced as james comey, when you are in presence of the commander in chief, the leader of the free world and they are asking you to do something, maybe thats not what President Trump intended, to intimidate him, but i can understand feeling that way because i feel it now, i can imagine it. Remember the intent of the russian dossier that has not been proven true. He wanted to make sure the public knew that was not true. You can understand that. Let me get a little personal perspective, i agree entirely with what dana just said. I have been alone with him. He was not the president of the United States at the time. I was alone with him for 35 or 40 minutes. As soon as the door closed, secret service out of the door. Very charming, very compelling and a very high opinion of his ability to bend the will and the minds of people that are with him. He may very well have thought he couldnt do it with an audience. That is a road donald trump explanation of a typical way that donald trump does behave when he wants to achieve something. He was not the target of a Russian Investigation and he wanted that to be made public. What the former fbi director talked about was it being about Michael Flynn, that was not about the russian dossier. I think it flips back and forth, that is my reading of it. It could be that he was clear in his direction, im not a target and its not true, we need to get this information out. Heres the question for Robert Mueller. If this conversation did take place, if donald trump did ask him to lay off mike flynn, did he do so for a corrupt or an appropriate purpose. You know what donald trump will tell you so you infer what the purpose was from the manner which people behave at the time they do what they have done. He cleared the room, he only sent it to comey, only said it once and he carefully chose his words. Lets see how he characterizes this when the attorney comes out. Standby, both of you. As we wait we are going to back to washington, d. C. While we have been sitting here, all of the aftermath and all of the reaction is coming out. From another media outlet i have received this in my email inbox, you probably did too. Not everyone is convinced and that includes you i think. Heres a bit of his exchange. The president of the United States with me alone saying i hope this i took it as him wanting me to do that. I didnt obey that but thats what i thought he wanted me to do. You dont know of anyone that has ever been charged for i dont as i sit here. You want to talk about have you ever heard of anybody being charged on the basis of hoping for something . In the universe of fake lawyers that have come to populate washington, d. C. , to answer the constitutes obstruction. What i heard a comey very clearly saying was that he was not in a position to say whether or not trump obstructed justice. He pointed a long finger down at Robert Mueller and said if anybody was going to find obstruction, it was him. And if he was going to find obstruction it would be on the basis that trump knew he was concealing something. If nothing bad happened, if trump knew no wrong had been committed, if he was very certain of that than you could say yes, he was being a little claw in the action to try to protect a friend. If he finds wrongdoing, then yes, the whole tone of that changes. Working through that analysis, we heard several times that when pressed on this, the president never said he wanted him to stop the investigation, a number of senators pointed out that he wanted it to go away and he was angry about the investigation. He never said he got that kind of pressure privately. But he did get fired. There is that. Again, trump is totally within his Constitutional Authority to fire the fbi director. But your motive, your intent as you do it matters. What he ended up saying, when he couldnt find cause for criminal charges. Yes, he did something that was may be but there was no intent to do a wrong thing. Robert muellers investigation is what is in charge of that. We now look towards the special counsel, we have been led to understand that there has been some discussion between him and comey. They go way back, they know each other, they work together. At one point he was described as a mentor to comey. As a legal issue there has been some talk. You have to make sure there is not contamination across multiple tracks and the chairman of the Committee Talks about that. Does it say anything to you that comey was so quick to say if there is anything to it, thats obviously something Robert Mueller is handling, knowing they have talked about all this pretty extensively . I think what he did was to say he is not going to make the determination if there was a crime or not, i am going to tell you what i saw, what i heard and it is now in the court of Robert Mueller. We have been led to believe that all of this testimony was coordinated and kind of scrubbed over. Comey testified today that this was not the case that all of it had been shared. I think the Committee Really wants to get those actual memos and it sounds like they will get the memos. Not only did he leak them through a friend, but today authorized those memos to be going to that committee. I also think it is interesting to see the reaction from different quarters of the cable universe and tv universe. Commentators call this a disastrous day for the trump presidency. Clearly there were moments in this hearing that did not go well for the president at all. It looked very bad for him. If there are in this hearing where the questioning exonerates the fact that comey not only said the president was not under investigation, but also says that he does not have any evidence of this broader crime. There are moments in this hearing that the Trump Administration can point to. I think we are on balance. As chris said, it is rich. But it is not definitive. Chris wallace, if you are still there with us, we all know in washington having covered it that even as we have said there may not be a legal case and there may be involving the president , we will have to see how the special counsel it will probably take months, maybe years but right now, most people think there is not a legal case against the president when you look at the technical elements. But again, in washington, perception is everything. It can make or break people, legislative efforts. There is a lot of their plate right now because they have this to deal with. How did today help or hurt those efforts . I think it is done great damage. Take the simplest example. We have been on the air and i think all of our colleagues and competitors have been on the air since 9 00 a. M. This morning. We are now almost at 2 00. Thats five hours with walltowall coverage of comey. We werent talking about health care or infrastructure or tax reform, we didnt take the president s speech and obviously comey mania has been going on for the last few days. At the very least it has crowded out any intention to anything that anybody in the administration is wanting to say on any other subject. More importantly than that, the president s poll numbers continue to decline. A poll came out yesterday that showed him down to 34 , i believe that is the lowest of his presidency. That comes from a bunch of things, the investigation, the tweeting after the terror attack in britain over the weekend. All that hurts him in a practical sense. His popularity and standing is hurt, and therefore his influence this has a dramatic effect on his ability to push his agenda. Hes not getting airtime or oxygen to push his agenda and his political standing is declining and that has an impac impact. Regardless of whatever we are going to find or not find in terms of his legal jeopardy, the fact that this investigation has dominated coverage and has been pointed out. Though Mueller Investigation and the Senate Investigation and the health house investigation will go on for months if not years. He said repeatedly that it is a cloud and he wanted to lift the cloud. It is definitely a black cloud over his administration. As you know, this has been going on for hours. The president actually spoke during the time all this was going on and he is pushing back, we want to play a little bit of what he had to say. On another day it wouldve been covered alive, but not today. The entrenched interest and failed better voices in washington will do everything in their power to try and stop us from this righteous cause to try to stop all of you. They will lie, obstruct, they will spread their hatred and their prejudice. But we will not back down from doing what is right. We are going to fight and win and have an unbelievable future. Unbelievable future. It is going to be together. No mistake that the president would have this type of event with a very friendly crowd, good timing for him to be out there. He talks about trying to stop him and his agenda and that thinks he is working on. A good place to be instead of sitting around watching the analysis. No tweets from him this morning. Something Chris Wallace strongly disagreed with. Quite a moment before and a half hours ago, quite a moment to wake up to. Chris wallace is describing that republican agenda. I think the calendar runs through the end of this month, youve got a july 4th break and then in august recessed as well. I think this will by and large determine how much republicans are able to advance on their agenda. What is your view of that . One of the biggest issues i think is the cohesiveness of republicans on capitol hill and whether or not the president can hold that together. He has a lot of people secondguessing him right now in his own party. Can he hold it together in the face of what will be a continuing barrage . Most likely over the course of the entire stretch of these four years. The president is going to be up against that. They try very hard to continue to push his agenda. Treasury secretary today was on the hill talking about tax reform, the debt ceiling which they want to try to push through. Thats going to be where the metal meets the road on all of this. If they could get something accomplished, this could help this president to push through this difficult hearing. I want to mention one more thing about Robert Mueller. He believes that there is no way that Robert Mueller wouldve allowed this testimony, this open testimony to take place today with former director comey if he did not feel that there was no obstruction of justice. Lindsay graham believes that this has been a huge signal today that he did not believe it was going to be an obstruction of justice. If he did think that he never would have let him down there. However, as was mentioned, chairman burr asked that. He said did anyone help you with your testimony, did anyone look at your testimony before he came here and he said no. However, we know that he cleared him for this testimony and that they have had discussions. Or just some thing to in mind. We also point out that mueller pretty much approved his testimony today, that is the point you are making. He wanted comey to go ahead and have his afternoon to explain his experience. That is what we are taking in right now. Comey was very clear today. However, we know they have been in contact and that mueller and comey have discussed whether he could show up today at all. We will see if senator Lindsey Graham was right about that and if that means that mueller does not see any obstruction of justice. It doesnt matter in terms of the overall weight of all of this honor this presidency. Thank you. See you tonight, 7 00. Dana perino is here in studio. Speaker ryan was asked about this. He was emphatic about the fbi director from the fbi branch. He also said that President Trump is new to this. Thats what i took away from this, that was my interpretation of his comments earlier today. I pose the following issue to you. The former press secretary at the white house was talking about crisis management. He was talking about controlling the news cycle. Do you believe the white house is capable of talking about tha that . Its hard to control the news cycle. The white house has what it has. I do think the president not tweeting today, following the model that he shouldnt try to fan the flames helps. We will have commentary here in just a moment, we will bring that to you live. That should suffice for the white house if they can. You know they did not do an on camera briefing today, they want the only photograph to be Marc Kasowitz or the president today speaking with the religious leaders. I do think, going back to what i said about may be surprising that media and going to someplace like a construction site since it is infrastructure week. I know the media would ridicule it. The medias credibility is where it is. The most important thing is to think about the image and social media. The video of him out there with the religious leaders would definitely get to his supporters and i think when you are looking at trying to shore up that support not that it is eroding but the daytoday drumbeat that they are getting, the pounding they are getting from the press, that doesnt mean Senate Republicans are going to get a lot done. I truly believe that they are. They believe the Health Care Bill will be introduced and passed before the august recess. They will get some judges confirmed, that will be right up President Trumps alley. They have a little bit of a fight coming up on the debt ceiling, but that is one that i think the president wants to have with the democrats. If they can keep this with Marc Kasowitz, they are going to be in really good shape to get some policy winds before the fall. Very interesting. That was our topic earlier today. Thank you, stand by. Lets check in with john roberts down at the white house in washington. As you can see the empty podium there on one side of your screen, we are waiting to hear from President Trumps personal lawyer. I was told about 15 minutes ago that he was probably between 15 and 30 minutes away, we are being told that he is probably about 10 minutes away. The hearing went longer than they first expected when they booked it so they wanted to make sure that they had their talking points all in hand. I think what you will see here is Marc Kasowitz making a point that he said repeatedly that the president was not under investigation in connection with the russia hacking or the russian attempts to influence the election. He will likely say that they still take issue with james comey said in terms of the president asking him for some sort of pledge of loyalty and then that the president asked him to drop the Flynn Investigation. The only thing that we heard from the white house about the day directly, because they were referring all inquiries to Marc Kasowitz was the idea that comey in his Opening Statement called the president directly a liar. The white house said today, Sarah Huckabee sanders, the president is not a liar and is insulting to suggest the president is. Kasowitz im sure well have a lot to say. One of the things that i imagine will probably be this idea of how Loretta Lynch wanted to inject herself into the Hillary Clinton email investigation that the fbi was conducting. The reason why the fbi director came out last july and thats what he did, two reasons. Loretta lynch met on the tarmac of an airport with the formative president bill clinton and the fact that she had come to him to say the investigation of Hillary Clintons email, dont refer to that is an investigation, refer to it as a matter. He questioned his boss to ask why to refer to it as a matter rather than investigation. She said just refer to it as a matter and not an investigation. He was concerned that the attorney general was trying to shake the fbis language. Kasowitz will probably go off on that as well. Or the other think kasowitz may off on is this idea that anonymously sourced stories have turned out to be completely untrue. You will number back in february, there is a big kerfuffle over Reince Priebus it is interesting to see how history has been rewritten in this testimony. There are things that are completely different. The White House Press corps has been in a unique situation for the last couple of weeks because the white house has stopped taking questions on a lot of this activity connected to the russia investigation, saying they are only going to the president s outside counsel. Finally he goes before the press today, first time. We will get a statement here on camera. I think we have about four or 5 minutes left in this hour. It i will see if we can squeeze everybody in. As i do that, i am going to point out what marco rubio said. Comey said that is what he said. Marco rubio asked why the only thing not leaked was of the president was not under investigation. It was a pretty good question, we did not get a good answer. The lawyer is out in a moment. Quickly around the horn to Chris Wallace. Obviously Marc Kasowitz, if we are going to give him one piece of advice, dont keep reporters waiting for a half an hour because it ends up with People Like Us having to speculate at great length and replay all of the highlights and low lights from the testimony. This is going to continue on and will be continuing here with the house and the senate and most important will be what Robert Mueller does as special counsel. One point i want to make really quickly about special counsel, youve got somebody like Robert Mueller, patrick fitzgerald, highpowered lawyers who had to quit their law firm to do one thing to investigate something. Generally speaking they dont like to come up with nothing. To some degree, as james comey pointed out today, his tweets. What do you think . I think there is hope for the administration that this is going to come to an end. I think it is a hope that is not going to be realized as Robert Muellers investigation continues. The pushback will be significant. Remember people at home, a lot of stuff going on, north korea firing off missiles. A drone in southern syria, a lot of instability in the world. Concern about health care, jobs, tax reform, infrastructure. Big things of this administration would love to get done, but this investigation and this focus is to financially dy hampering their efforts on capitol hill. If anybody wanted to see this hearing, just a short little q a, i think instead of marco rubios questioning of james comey was illuminating in a fair way. It is worth going back to that. Excellent point. Dana, what do you want to leave us with . I think we have said all we can say. There is one followup that james comey or his surrogates will have to answer. He said he basically thought Loretta Lynch had a conflict of interest but he goes on to exonerate Hillary Clinton. When he thinks President Trump has a compliment of interest he pushes through the leaking of the memos to get a special counsel on that one. That i think is going to require some explanation. I have 30 seconds to squeeze and martha. It was a very interesting moment when james comey said he had to take it upon himself to handle the finishing off of the clinton investigation because i knew if i didnt, they would have to bring in a special counsel. And here we are with the special counsel, so why the different measures for each of those instances is a very good question that is going to be around for a while. Chris you have 15, 20 seconds. James comey inflicted a serious political blow to Hillary Clinton and her hopes of winning the white house. Today he did sounding very similar to donald trump. What trump has to hope was that he can get his head out of this, focus on trying to enact an agenda and be an effective president so that there will be another story other than this one in november of 2018. Thank you. We conclude our five hours of coverage. A very different place than where we were. We heard from the president s personal lawyer yesterday, we will see what they have to say it now. Thank you for being with us today. We wait on the statement from the president s lawyers coming up. This is a fox news alert, we harris we will pick up the coverage. Awaiting mark kasowitz, who the president has brought on to work with him, for him, as he faces a firestorm of information coming in from that hearing of james comey, the fired fbi director james comey. So what is coming out of that that this attorney feels he needs to respond to . It may be things like such. James comey saying he did feel like the president was asking him to back away from an investigation of his National Security adviser, but he did not feel pressured. Weve heard that before. He did not feel that he could stand strongly against the president and tell him