Donald trump. Jeff sessions, attorney general for donald trump. Members of the trump family itself. This matters. Its serious. Our battle ships werent sunk and our towers didnt collapse, ala 2011, but make no mistake, 2016 is a year that we should mark on our calendars. And its still going on. The attack didnt end on election day. It will continue, as you have suggested, unless all of us in this room will stop it. Admiral rogers, youve proudly worn that uniform your entire career. I am proud of your service and grateful for it. But i would i would ask you, sir, not even with respect to this specific investigation, to use your own words, as someone who no doubt has been in theater, whos lost brothers and sisters in combat, to explain to me, more importantly to the American People, dont assume they know the answer, tell them in your words why we should care about russias active measures campaign aimed at destabilizing our democracy and that of our allies. In your words, sure, why should they care . I dont think its in the best interest of our nation for any external entity to attempt to manipulate outcomes, to shape choices. That should be the inherent role of a democracy. The investigation were going through is a positive in a sense it will help illuminate to all of us, regardless of party, what are the implications here and what does it mean for us, because i think our conclusion and that of the Intelligence Community broadly here is this absent some change, this behavior is not likely to stop. Absent some change in the dynamic, this is not likely to be the last time well be having these discussions about this kind of activity. And i dont think thats in anybodys best interest for us as a nation. Director comey. Parallel question. Again in general terms. Not with respect to the specific investigation you have revealed here today. Im not asking to you go into specifics on any individuals. But, please, explain briefly to me, and more importantly to the american public, why we should care about russias use of u. S. Persons, of americans, helping russia destabilize our democracy. Well, like admiral rogers, i truly belief we are a shining city on a hill, to quote a great american, and one thing to radiate to the world is the importance of our wonderful, often messy, but free and fair democratic system and the elections that undergird it. So when theres an effort by a foreign nation state to mess with that, to destroy that, to corrupt that, its very, very serious. Threatens what is america. And if any americans are part of that effort, its a very serious matter. So, you would expect the fbi to want to understand, is that so . And if so, who did what . Again, i want to be very careful that people dont overinterpret my words, to preserve the ability to answer those questions. Im not talking about our work. Im not here voluntarily. I would rather not be talking about this at all but we thought it was important to share at least that much with the committee and the American People. Now were going to close our mouths and do our work to find the answers, because those answers matter. They do, indeed. I thank you both for your answers and service to our country. I would like to think we can turn this from a sad event into a positive one. This country has stood up and fought on behalf of its own health and welfare and that of its citizens and met any number of challenges throughout our nations history. The worse thing we could do is underestimate the nature of this challenge before us today. With that, Ranking Member, i would appreciate it if i could yield to my friend from texas, mr. Castro, briefly. Mr. Castro. Thank you. One more question with respect to leaks. I know thats been a big topic of the line of questioning. Of course, is of concern to all of us regardless of political party. But i want to ask you, director, is it possible that some of those leaks could come from not the Intelligence Community but from members of the white house staff, for example . Sure. It could come from lots of different places. And its often one of the things thats challenging about a leak investigation. You think its going to be a small circle but turns out a lot of people either knew about it or heard echoes of it and stories to tell to journalists about it. So, in my experience, trying to figure these things out for decades, its often coming from places you didnt anticipate. And the reason i ask the question is because the president has berated the fbi and the Intelligence Community on the issue of leaks and others have berated the Intelligence Community and the press because of these leaks. But i think its worth considering its quite possible that there are folks who have a kind of political monday chausen by proxy syndrome because they leak information because they want be the savior once it blows up. There are all sorts of individuals that serve on political staff. And inc. We ought to consider the possibility that, perhaps, it is somebody at the white house. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Chairman yields back. Mr. Hurd. Thank you, chairman. Gentlemen, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your continued service to your country. Ive learned recently the value of sitting in one place for a long period of time and listening. And today has added to that understanding. And im going to try to ask questions that yall can answer in this format and are within your areas of expertise. Director rogers, my first question to you, the addition the exploit that was used by the russians to penetrate the dnc, was it sophisticated . Was it a zero exploit . Zero day being for those that are watching an exploit that has never been used before . In an open, unclassified forum im not going to talk about russian tactics, techniques or procedures in how they execute their hacks. If members of the dnc had let me rephrase this. Can we talk about spear fishing . In general terms, yes. Spear phishing when someone sends an email and somebody clicks theyre receiving an email from interest or legitimate user, they open it up and they often click, if you will, on a link, an attachment. Was that type of tactic used in the again, im not in an unclassified forum. I apologize. Director comey, when was the first time the fbi notified the dnc of the hack . Roughly . I think august of 2015. And was that prior to any of the information being leaked, being sent on additi put on wikileaks . Yes. The first russiandirected releases were middle of june of the next year by dc leaks and this 2. 0 persona so there was about a year between the fbis first notification of some potential problems with the dnc network and the information getting on getting on wikileaks . Yes. When did the dnc provide access for to the fbi for your your technical folks to review what happened . We never got direct access to the machines themselves. The dnc in spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system. Director rogers, did the nsa ever get access to the dnc hardware . The nsa didnt ask for access. Thats not in our job. Good copy. So, director, fbi notified the dnc early, before any information was put on wikileaks, and when you have still never been given access to any of the technical or physical machines that were addition that were addition that were hacked by the russians . Thats correct. Although we got the forensics from the pros they hired, which, again, best practice always to get access to the machines themselves, but this, my folks tell me, was an appropriate substitute. The at what point did the company, the dnc use, share that forensic information to you . I dont remember for sure. I think june. I could be wrong about that. The company went public in june of 16 with their conclusions. Yeah, about the time i think it was a little before the announcement, but ill say approximately june. So, that was how long after the first notification that the fbi did of the dnc . Ten months. Ten months. So, the fbi notified the dnc of the hack and it was not until ten months later that you had any details about what was actually going on forensically on their network . Thats correct. Assuming i have the dates about right, but it was some months later. Knowing what we know now, would the fbi have done anything different in trying to notify the dnc of what happened . Oh, sure. What measures would you have done differently . We would have sent up a much larger flare. We would have kept banging on the door. Knowing what i know now, we would have made extensive efforts to notify, i would have walked over there myself knowing what we know now. But i think the efforts we made, our agents made, were good at the time. Good copy. Do you have a ballpark of the number of private sector entities that you have to notify of these types of breaches . Hundreds and thousands. In this particular case we had to notify hundreds, more than 1,000 empty stis that the russians were hitting at the same time. Admiral rogers, do you have anything to add to that . No. What started all of this was a pretty massive effort on the part of our russian counterparts. Ive said this many times. The outcome of what the Russian Community reefrdz to as russian hacking has been the wedge, whether real or perceived, between it is executive branch, the Intelligence Community and the public, and this is an asymmetrical tool that the russians are using in order to destabilize liberal Democratic Institutions. And i think it is important that we do everything we can to review this, which i fully believe federal Law Enforcement is doing, as you talked to here. Id like to end before yielding back to the chairman that my colleague from california, the Ranking Member said in his opening statement, the question most people have is whether we can really conduct this investigation in the kind of thorough and nonpartisan manner that the seriousness of the issues merit or whether the enormous political consequences of our work will make that impossible. And he adds, the truth is, i dont know the answer. I do. We must. The American People demand this. The future of our Democratic Institutions demand it. And im glad we have two people like yall involved in this. Mr. Chairman, i yield back my time to you. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Gowdy has a followup. I think to thank you you, Ranking Member and mr. Schiff for having this. Director, you were talking about russia before it became fashionable to talk about russia. You referred to russia as possibly our greatest National Security threat post9 11. And as you know, chairman, i come from a state with a fellow named graham, who is also no fan of russia. So, director comey, admiral rogers, people in your line of work are incredibly respected. Both your current line of work and the work that you came from. And people in my line of work are not. And theres a reason. The Justice System is respected and the political process is not. So, this is while this hearing is important, whats really important is what you do after this hearing. And i want you to go find every single witness who may have information about interference, influence, motive, our response, collusion, coordination, whatever your jurisdiction is, wherever the facts may take you, though the heavens may fall, go do your jobs, because nature abhors a vacuum. Right now you cant answer most of the questions, either by policy, by law or because the investigation has not been complete. Therefore, a vacuum exists, which people in my line of work are more than happy to fill. So, i need you to fill. I need you to do it with all deliberate speed. The director comey, i think its important that the system you come from and that im in and this system now is not. What is hearsay . Information you dont know of your own personal knowledge but learn from someone else. So, to prove the truth unasserted. I was trying to be a little less lawyerly. Well go with your answer. It is almost never admissible in court. How about anonymous sources. When you were in the southern district, cue call an anonymous source to testify in your proceedings . No. You couldnt even use hearsay unless there was some widely accepted exception, and what identify heard this morning is quadruple hearsay. It would never a newspaper article would never, ever be admitted as evidence in a courtroom. So, the system we respect would laugh you out of court if you came in armed with a newspaper article. But in the political process, thats enough. Let me ask you this. Crossexamination. Why are you why are you able to crossexamine witnesses in trial . Why do we have a right to confront witnesses . Its imbedded in our constitution. The reason it makes great sense is, its the crucible out of which you get the truth. To test and to probe and to challenge and test someones personal exposure to the facts. Crossexamination is the best tool that we have. How do you crossexamine an anonymous source . How do you crossexamine hearsay . I hope that you go find every single witness that you need to talk to and examine of single document. People are counting on you two and your line of work to find the facts. And people are welcome to draw whatever conclusions they want from the facts. But when i hear the word evidence, as ive heard lots and lots this morning let me ask you this, director comey. Are you familiar with any trials where one witness said the light was red and one witness may have said the light was green . Has that ever happened . Yes, thats why you have a trial. Does it ever happen where one bank teller said the assay atlanta was 510 and one was he was 62 . Sure. Thats evidence. You got evidence hes 62 and evidence hes 511. He cant be both. The light cant be red and green. So, the word evidence, while fancy and legal, the reality is you find facts and you draw inference from those facts. I wish you luck as you begin this process. It is allimportant. The fact someone may have had a line of questions about leaks does not mean theyre not interested in all aspects of russia. Vice versa. The fact they may not have asked questions about leaks doesnt mean theyre not interested in them. You have jurisdiction over all of it. So, god bless you as you go on this journey for the facts. People can draw whatever conclusions they want. I hope that you will feel the vacuum that is created when yall are not able to answer questions. With that ill yield back to the chairman. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Comey, i want to make sure we get this on the record. Do you have any evidence that any Current Trump white house or Administration Official coordinated with the Russian Intelligence Services . Not a question i can answer. I figured you were going to say that, but i just wanted to make sure we got it on the record. How about consequenunselor to pt Kellyanne Conway . Same answer. I constantly say, dont overinterpret i cant comment. Im not going to comment on anybody. I understand that but heres the challenge. Youve announced you have this big investigation but now youve got people involved in our government. The secretary of state, for example. These are important players. The longer this hangs out here, the bigger the cloud is. I know that youre not going to tell me whether or not you have any evidence, but i can tell you that we dont have any evidence. And were conducting our own investigation here. If you have some if you have evidence, id especially as it relates to people in the white house, working in the white house or administration, i mean, that would be something that we really should know about and we should know about quickly. So, if you cant give it to the entire committee, i hope you can at least give it to myself and mr. Schiff because, you know, there is a big gray cloud that you have now put over people who have very important work to do to lead this country. So, the faster you can get to the bottom of this, its going to be its going to be better for all americans. I understand. Thank you. With that, i want to thank the members today. Especially our witnesses. It was a long day, but inc. A good discussion. 10 00 a. M. Eastern, its now 3 20 in the afternoon eastern time as the photographers briefly take over the frame where director comey was sitting. Interesting day of testimony, viewed differently on opposite ends of pennsylvania avenue. But hear this, factually where the Trump Administration is concerned, it was not a day of positive developments. We heard that not only was there no evidence by way of the nsa or fbi to substantiate the president s tweets about a wiretap by the former president , we heard the fbi in no uncertain terms, the fbi director, confirm an investigation under way to possible ties between the Trump Administration and russia. Katy tur joins us in our studio, who has covered the Trump Administration since the start. What do you make of today . Well, i think its very important to point out that this probe began in jushlly, around time that donald trump said at that Infamous Press conference said, russia, if youre listening, i would love you to find Hillary Clintons emails. We didnt know about that probe until after that. There will be questions why the fbi didnt come out much sooner they had this probe, given the fact they were talking the probe into Hillary Clintons emails. That will be a contention for those on the lefthand side of the aisle, especially those involved in the clinton campaign. I i want to point out something our colleague, our National Security reporter is pointing out. Representative schiff in his 15minute introduction mixed in a lot of what we knew publicly and a lot of information that was in that trump dossier. And its interesting he did so because it doesnt seem like he would do so unless parts of it were known to be confirmed, at least among intelligence circles. We dont know that right now. The fact he mentioned it is something worth noting. Again, this was like listening to two different hearings. There were those on the right, republicans who focused on the leaks, the leakers and those who published the leaks. At one point representative gowdy seeming to imply reporters should be prosecuted for publishing the leaks. On the lefthand side of the aisle, trying to find out what the fbi knows about any coordination between the Trump Campaign and those who might know donald trump, work with donald trump, have worked on the campaign and with any russian intelligence officials. We learned a few things today, but there are still a lot of open questions. Lets try the impossible, asking a lawyer what he made of what weve just witnessed over the past several hours, ari melber. Again, we live in a politics of culture of exaggeration but this was truly an historic and unusual hearing given what was previously public reports of russia meddling in the election. But no confirmation until today, in this hearing that we watched by the fbi director that this is being investigated for the Trump Campaign and russian side. The banner up on your broadcast, brian, the fbi director saying if he knew now what he knew then, he might have walked over to the dnc himself and walked on the door. Thats essentially a statement of hindsight. Jim comey is a steely prosecutor. He testifies with great care. By my count that was the only time today in these hours of hearings where i heard him say he might have done something differently. Not because of error but because of hindsight information. The final point ill make, this was a hearing that began with the fbi director, and of course, the intelligence director there shooting down claims made by donald trump on twitter, falsely accusing, by all accounts, the former president of the crime of political wiretapping. And in another, i think, historic first, ended, wound down, with basically the same individuals factchecking and shooting down live tweeting of this hearing, donald trump. Some people welcome it, some find it bold and refreshing but it was clear he was on the losing end at the beginning and end of the hearing by these folks in charge of gathering the facts. Lets remind our viewers how it did happen that the fbi and dnc spoke about the hack of John Podestas emails. With regard to the way this first arose . It regard to what comey said today. It was an fbi agent calling the i. T. Guy over yes, a a lowerlevel contact after a lot of political noise and a lot of rumor, it was a lowerlevel contact, basically what we would call a tech or investigative help, stafftostaff. The fbi director saying, i would walk over there myself is the difference between what we might consider a consumerbased hack and something of National Security proportion. Malcolm nance has been watching with us. We often call on him when the subject turns to the intelligence business. Malcolm, we spoke at the break. Your assessment of what you heard today. Well, katy tur put it baexacy as you saw. There were two hearings going on today. I found it fascinating. The democrats were on the offensive today. Even though a lot of their questions couldnt be answered because they knew, you know, director comey was just going to say, no comment or answer the question the same way, they laid out sequentially the entire case of the russian hacking, how it impacted the nation, and they called it, an attack on the United States. And i thought that was fascinating. That just left the republicans to constantly discuss the addition you know, the leaks or the leaks illegal. That looked rather weak compared to systematic laying out of circumstantial evidence. People say its all smoke and no fire. Its smoke that kills you in a situation like that. I felt the evidence they laid out was overwhelming. The large majority of it was verified by director comey and admiral rogers as far as they could in a nonclassified setting. I want to share with our viewers part of the action at the white house briefing, which was concurrent of this hearing. Heres about a minute of that. Sean, does the president still have complete confidence in fbi director comey . Theres no reason to believe he doesnt at this time. Is the president prepared to withdraw that accusation, apologize to the president . No, were we started a hearing. Its still ongoing. And then as chairman nunes mentioned, this is one in a series of hearings that will be happening. Does the president , now that we know theres an Ongoing Investigation by the fbi, does the president stand by his comments that hes not aware of any contacts that his Campaign Associates had with russia during the election . Yes. The second one is, has anyone from the white house well, can i just amend . Obviously, just with just to be clear, i know that im trying to think through this for a second. Obviously, general flynn again during the campaign. Right. And im not aware of any at this time. Even general flynn was a volunteer of the campaign. Obviously, theres been discussion of Paul Manafort, who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time. Beyond are you on jonathan, can you hold on. Can you stop interrupting other peoples questions . Jonathan, someone else is asking a question. Its not your press briefing. Julie is asking a question. Please calm down. That lecture was for Jonathan Karl who interrupted spicer upon hearing manafort played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time. We have a number of people to talk to, but katy tur, you were around for the manafort that is a remarkable statement by the White House Press sect. Manafort was the campaign chairman, Default Campaign manager. He was hired in march. Spicer said he was hired in june. Thats not correct. He was effectively part of the reason Corey Lewandowski got sidelined in that campaign. They wanted somebody who knew what he was doing, with experience, an adult to take over this campaign and make sure the convention went off without a hitch. The convention was Paul Manaforts baby. Thats what he worked on. To say that he was a played a very limited voluntarily disingenuous to say the least. You could make that argument for carter page. But you cannot make that argument for Paul Manafort. Hans nichols was inside the Briefing Room today. Hans, what else did we miss in terms of drama or the lovefest we just sampled there . Well, its very clear that the white house thinks theres a lot more going on between president obama, Michael Flynn and jim comey. The president tweeted himself that question that nonanswer comey had on whether or not comey directly informed president barack obama about Michael Flynn being investigated by the russians. It seems as though the white house is getting tripped up and is convinced theres a lot of backdoor surveillance going on. Surveillance of people like Michael Flynn, but they didnt do it directly under a fisa warrant, they somehow reached them through other means. That seems to be the line that theyre parroting at the white house. Thats the indication they still think that the Obama White House potentially directed some of this surveillance of their team, which tells us, donald trump is not going to stand down from his claim about wiretapping in a lot of ways. We heard today doubling down. Just real quickly on katy turs point. Perhaps the most revealing part of this briefing is the most untruthful is Paul Manafort was only involved in the campaign a limited role. Spicer was given an opportunity to correct that. He issued a further untruth saying he was here from june or ran the campaign from june to august. As katy just said. He was there for five to six months, depending on how you count the weeks. Thats a good fourth of the duration of the campaign. It gives you an indication they may potentially be worried about what Paul Manafort and his contact with the russians as this now is in part of a formal investigation. The first time its confirmed from comey on the hill. And now the white house is saying, well, we always knew that. Well, how do we know that . Anonymous sourcing. Guys . Hans nichols in the white house Briefing Room. Katy, one more bite at this. Well have ample chance to look back on the contemporaneous coverage of the arrival of manafort, you and others, but he was painted in the moment as being the pro from dover, the veteran gop hand. Absolutely. And this was a time when the campaign did not well, having its act together is an argument that would be hard to make across the campaign, but it was a time when the campaign was just being run essentially by a very small group of people who had very limited experience in president ial campaigns. Corey lewandowski, who was a New Hampshire operative for the koch brothers, you had hope hicks who used to work for ivanka as a pr person and she was Donald Trumps communications director. Then a couple other advanced staffers and some Smaller Group of people who were advising donald trump on a daytoday basis. Their main strategy was let trump be trump. Thats what corey allowed him to do. There was a feeling behind the scenes that negative headlines were spiraling out of control. Remember at this time corey was accused of assaulting a reporter, he was arrested for that, eventually released. Paul manafort was seen as someone who would add professionalism to this campaign. They needed to do that going into the convention. Not just to make sure they had all their ducks in a row for the convention, but to pacify the republicans, pacify the republican party, to tell them, no, listen, we are taking this seriously. We do belief we can run a campaign that does have the ability to beat Hillary Clinton. So, manafort was somebody seen as someone who could take over and do that and deliver them a successful convention. There are arguments to be made that he did just that. Ultimately, though, what sunk manafort, and its certainly relevant right now, was negative headlines piling up around him about his connections to russia, about his connections to the former president of ukraine, what exactly was going on there. Donald trump eventually moved him out and brought in steve bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But Paul Manafort played a big role for quite some time. He and donald trump didnt always get along. They were said to have screaming matches at times. There was a guide between him. He didnt have Donald Trumps ear in the way Corey Lewandowski did because he didnt allow trump to be trump. He was trying to introduce teleprompter to trumps rallies, trying to keep him on message. Oftentimes saying things in public that donald trump didnt agree with. Saying, no, dont worry, well back off the muslim ban, well step away from it. Donald trump coming out and saying, Paul Manafort doesnt know what hes talking about. There were disagreements. It was not a peaceful relationship between the two of them. But he did have quite a bit of influence. Were about to as we excuse me. As we approach the top of the hour, Steve Kornacki will take his shift. Hes here with us. Steef, the wiretapping argument now gets thinner. Yeah, well, theres the wiretapping aspect of it and then also just where do things go in terms of our politics from here . The thing that struck me is, we live through a version of what were about to enter during the campaign. What i mean is you heard devin nunes at the end expressing sort of exasperation with the fbi director saying youve put a cloud over this administration, you put a cloud over some people in very important positions in our government, youve gwynn us no timetable for when this investigation is going to end. We would like answers. We would like something definitive as soon as possible. It takes me back to the campaign and Hillary Clinton, in the email investigation in the campaign. That is something that hung over the narrative of the 2016 president ial election, 2015, 2016, you heard it all the time. It was in the background. The email story was there. The prospect of, hey, is she going to be indicted . Is somebody close to her going to be indicted . That was there certainly. That was something per opponents thats something donald trump was constantly talking about. Hey, there is an active fbi investigation going on here into Hillary Clinton, into the people around her. It could lead to an indictment. It could lead to something big. Then you had disappointment among republicans when the ultimate announcement came out that, hey, shes not going to be charged. Then it was revisited in the final days of the campaign. I think we now have a version of that and it really started before this, but this accelerates it. That cloud just got bigger and thicker. Its going to be indefinite. That was more than a year, in the 2016 campaign, that that was just there. The presence of this fbi investigation. And now its sort of just going to be there for the indefinite future for this administration. This is a far more complex investigation, to steves point. Ari melber, there is a white House Counsel in place. Sure. Part of that job is to advise the president. The white house today is still going down this path of wiretapping. Thats right. Even live tweeting the hearing as we were discussing before, and the exasperation here cuts both ways. There is, of course, the understandable concern of anyone caught in the crosshairs of an open inquiry about how they can conduct their job and their life. The flipside is, it is a fair statement that donald trump is operating against the advice of counsel in live tweeting rebuttals to this, which then drew a second factual rebuke from the fbi director and the intelligence folks. So, he is not doing himself any favors legally or from an investigative perspective. And then what katy tur was so clearly ashtic lating, the counterfactual, also known as false arguments made by the white house about who worked where when and what they were paid seems to be, again, a very hamhanded attempt of rebuttal about people who may or may not be the subject of the inquiry. The problem i would say, legally and politically, it makes them look like they are the subject of the inquiry or they are suspicious at a time when that hasnt even been raised by the fbi. Its doubling down on a conspiracy or fear rather than putting out factual information. This is what they do with all of the all the negative headlines set to come out against them. Its exactly what they did with the Congressional Budget Office before the Health Care Law was scored. They said, you cant trust it. Its what they do with reporters when reporters have stories that maybe undercut Donald Trumps message or factcheck Donald Trumps message. They call reporters liars. They call reporters scum. If no one is to be trusted other than those at the podium, they create this aura of uncertainty. It is the definition of gaslighting. You dont know where the truth is. There were folks in the hearing just now trying to describe the way russia operates and there are folks now who might say, we are living in the same sort of uncertain times. That they do over there. You dont know what the facts are because the facts are to be theyre subject to anyones opinion. It depends on which side of the aaisle youre on. The biggest takeaway from this hearing right now is the need for an independent investigation because what you saw right there was just very partisan. And i dont understand i dont understand how we got to this point. Yeah. When in doubt, bring in another lawyer, and not just any lawyer in this case, lets bring Alan Dershowitz into this conversation. Harvard law school investigation. He happened to be at maralago last night where he was with the president. We checked in with you this morning before director comeys hearing. Professor, what did you make of the testimony today . Well, i thought it was very significant. I think there should be an independent investigation, i agree. I think its not healthy when you see democrats and republicans each taking a narrative that supports their partisan views. It would be so much better if congress pointed, you know, five distinguished independent people with histories of good investigative tactics looking into all the facts because all americans are involved in this. This is not a republican democrat issue. The russians tried to tamper with our election. By the way, they committed crimes. They are crimes punishable in the United States because under federal criminal statutes actions taken abroad that impact america in this way can be prosecuted. Doesnt mean we can get our hands on the people, but we request certainly indict them. We can issue interpol arrest warrants. We can impose sanctions if they come into the country. We can put them on trial. Were hearing about a very serious series of crimes of conspiracy to try to influence the outcome of an american election. We dont know whether it had any impact or not. Thats not the point. The point is not to look back to see whether or not this election may have come out differently. The point is to make sure it doesnt happen again. Both the directors indicated the russians are determined to do it again. They think it worked. And were expecting this again in 2018 and 2020. So, we have to have an independent investigation to get to the bottom of this. Professor, if you were white House Counsel, what would you be telling your client about continuing to argue that you were wiretapped by your predecessor . Well, you know, thats one of the issues i discussed with President Trump when he came over and just schmoozed with us at a dinner i was having with my wife and my friend. Look, no one will ever know for sure whether the nsa or anybody ever tried to in any way have any kind of eefz dropping of any kind. Liberals who generally distrust the nsa, they say if there was no eavesdropping, we have to belief them. The quefshtives are saying, no, no we cant belief them. If i was the white House Counsel, i would tell the president to back away from these assertions and wait until the evidence comes to an absolute conclusion. Well never know for absolute certainty but well know more than we now know. On the whole, your assessment of this day where we saw the fbi director, head of the nsa, knock down any known confirmation of this wiretapping. We heard the head of the fbi confirm the investigation thats been going on into months into the russian ties. I think it is most important part is the confirmation that there is an Ongoing Investigation. Comeys refusal to mention names or to confirm there are particular people being involved. And the question i wish he had been asked is, he doesnt want to tell us now whos under investigation because hes following the guidelines of the Justice Department. Why didnt he follow the guidelines of the Justice Department about the investigation of Hillary Clinton . Why was he so free to disclose that during an Election Campaign when he didnt feel free to disclose this election, which was going on as well . That really does raise some questions, not about his apartmenpar shallties. Thank you for joining us twice in one day. Lets go to kasie hunt outside the hearing room. Kasie, what was the activity like while we were under way . Reporter it was like you could hear a pin drop, which is unusual for running around in these hall ways outside because i think this is something where every kind of deliberate set of words from comey mattered very much. To the point that adam schiff wouldnt even tell us what it was he learned in this hearing that was new or interesting or that we should focus on. But i do want to pick up on one thing you all were just discussing around the table is that, yes, we clearly saw some partisanship on display in that hearing room. But i will also just point out to you that i think for this white house this is a lesson in the power of another equal branch of government, and thats the congress. Congress is controlled by republicans. They control the house. They control the senate. And the fact that comey was under such intense pressure to come out and acknowledge the existence of this investigation, and i know ari had an explanation of exactly which Justice Department policies kind of got us to this point where he felt he could come out and say that, yes, this investigation is ongoing, that has come because there has been increasing anger and frustration among people in both Political Parties up here on capitol hill. The chairman of this committee, yes, gave the Trump Administration some covering in his questioning here. He had been giving them cover in what have become regular news conferences. Last week he came out and said on the wiretapping allegation, the president is wrong. That was a key turning point here. It was the moment when comey started collaborating more closely with members of congress because he was coming under intense pressure from them to say more about whats going on. The result here is now the Trump Administration does have to grapple with what devin nunes, again a republican, said is a big cloud hanging over the administration, with no end in sight at this point, brian. So, remember, well have more hearings. Well have dni clapper and brennan from the Obama Administration coming up next week, testifying before this committee. We expect the Senate Intelligence committee to have the fbi director back again to testify on these matters. You know, this is just something that i think is going to continue to be an open wound and i think give some of these members of Congress Power over an administration they may have felt powerless from front of otherwise, from a political perspective. Go further into the argument youre making. The Central Point is, words have impact. And words matter. And weve seen that today. I think thats absolutely right. This president clearly learned the question, and katy tur can speak to this as well, through the campaign he could say whatever he wanted without consequences. Even if there were consequence, they were positive. He has found himself as the occupant of the oval office. And the reality is, what he said himself, at this point selfinflicted may be the right description for it on a saturday morning, i remember we were scrambling down around in maralago a few minutes before air, these allegations out of nowhere turned out from media reports, the result is suddenly weeks later his fbi director is up on capitol hill confirming an investigation into his aides and creating, frankly, problems for him that im not sure we would have gotten to this point with wiretapping and the investigation. That created the intense political and very public pressure for comey to come out and do this here today. I think you have to ascribe some of that to the president s actions and words. Kasie hunt up on capitol hill, thank you very much. We want to bring in another one of our contributors who has been listening this long, long day of testimony. Naveed jamali is with us, author of the book how to catch a russian spy, a reserve Intelligence Officer for the u. S. Navy and an expert on all things russia and u. S. Naveed, as you listened to what we just listened to, as you witness what we just witnessed, your thoughts . As a u. S. Person who was, in fact, recruited by russians to spy, it appears this russian front really had two silos. The first was to retrieve data and use sort of Information Warfare attack against us. The second one seems to have been this simple thing that i dealt with, which is to make contact with people within trumps inner circle. And if that is, in fact, the case, you know, that seems like thats an attack that may be ongoing. We heard them taum about sf86s, documents one submits to get a background clearance, in fact. What concerns me, brian, is that if there was contact, if there was foreign ties did the people now in the administration with top secret clearances disclose that . We saw with general flynn last week hes now registered as a foreign agent. Conceivably he should have done that on his sf86. My sense listening to it is the focus of the investigation will be on the binary question that relates to sf86s and foreign contact and foreign disclosure. It is such an important one. I cant stress enough that just because you had contact with a foreign even foreign Intelligence Officer, that may not be illegal, not sdloegs to the u. S. Government with top secret clearance, may be. Are you struck by the wording weve heard, even in our own discussion people saying the russian attempt to affect the election. Seems to me we can move that to past tense. Thats ball game. Absolutely. I think at this point clearly the russians, you know, this wasnt this was a very planned and, you know, malcolm nance has written a definitive book about this. This was a clear, deliberate attack. This was an attempt to undermine our very core of democracy. I think its the second part which is this foreign contact now which is where the investigation is going to focus. You know, it was said about 9 11 that the cash expenditure to pull off such a han noeinous attack on this country was not that much. It was in part lowtech where it came down to carrying it out. This couldnt have been simpler in the plethora of kinds of attacks we have been raised to expect from first the soviet union, then russia. This was pretty low budget. Yeah, i mean, look, i can put myself out there. Dy this for four years, working for the fbi. The total expenditure the russians paid me was under 100,000 and i was a nobody. You have to think about that the expenditure the russians would probably put towards this is probably very low. Look, at its core, intelligence operation is seeks one basic thing, besides being successful s nonattribution. This idea if your mission is compromised the ability to trace it back to the host country. As these thoughts become more and more connected well seal a more definitive points back to russia. Thank you very much for being part of our coverage and for being so patient. Katy tur, take on that point we just left off. The fact that we really should turn this to past tense language. You know, i, i think that this this cloud is something that is not going to go away. I mean, there are too many questions out there. There are too many answers that seem elusive. Our various institutions have all been undercut. Now everything is viewed in this country through partisan eyes. You have fbi director comey being the hero of the left one day, and then the hero of the right the next day. I had somebody on my twitter feed describe their relationship with comey as love hate, love hate, depending on whether he was going after Hillary Clinton or donald trump. So right now, there just seems to be its hard its hard to figure out where we go from here. Without a public hearing of everything that our intelligence agencies know. And that seems to be something that seems to be impossible given the classified nature of much of this information. Steve kornacki, katy just touched on this, the attack on zsht destruction of institutions. Whether its the bureau of labor statistics or the Congressional Budget Office. The pat certain emerging. Attack the source of the numbers, and then see what the numbers look like. Yeah, again, i think on this one we have an investigation right now. We will see, will it be months, years, before we get a definitive read out from the fbi about what theyve actually found here, if theyve found anything. There is a political aspect. If you take a poll and ask the democrats, did the russian interference affect the election outcome . Is it the reason or a major reason why donald trump is president right now . Democrats overwhelmingly are going to say yes. Republicans are going to say no to that. There are obviously its not the reason were having this investigation right now, but i think it hangs in the air, and its an unanswerable question. You can paint a very compelling political theory for why the emails, the wikileaks, the news coverage, all of this effected the outcome and made donald trump president and you could point you could paint a compelling theory for why hey look, votes down the stretch broke against Hillary Clinton because maybe she was the face of the establishment. Its an unanswerable question, but its a major part of this story because i think there is a part of democrats all across this country that very much believe or want to believe that there is collusion here. There was collusion between the Trump Campaign and the russians, and it is the reason why somebody they do not like is president and i think theres a large aspect the republican voters, republicans across the country who dont even want to go down that road because they dont to want believe thats even possible. And ari, we heard ellen say, you know, relitigating it at that point is a waste of time. Its over and done with. And certainly a lot of heat in both directions. The difference here though is, even setting all of that to the side, it is still unusual for us to be sitting here having witnessed an fbi director completely rebutting the factual claims of a president that are based on what the fbi does. This is not a debate about Global Warming and sometimes the facts and the politics get infused. This was a very factual discussion about whether this type of wiretap took place and donald trump doubling down and sean spicer doubling down on something the fbi director said under oath. This isnt a close call. The other point i want to raise about what role did Paul Manafort play. This limited time only defense, katy tur and i have been tracking this and my legal unit folks have been looking through the fec filings and remind people that not being paid on the donald Trump Campaign was the norm rather than the exception for top aids by our account and according to to the monthly reports required under federal law of the top 12 aids, people like Paul Manafort, people like basically Jared Kushner of course who plays an important role, and Steven Miller of the top 12, only three were drawing some sort of payment or traditional salary. So as we now hear the white house say some were there for a limited time and unpaid. Its not a fair reflection of that campaign to say that didnt mean they didnt have an important role. Were going to hear more about this and katy can add because some of these people are wrapped up. That we know of. Were not entirely sure if there was type of other form of payment that just was not listed on the fec filings. Compensation is no measure of closeness. In the nixon years, his best friend famously was a guy named bb reboso. He was a sounding board to the president of the yiegts as any other single individual. And donald trump, thats the way he works. He makes phone calls to friends, to political associates, to business partners, to employees, to reporters, he calls everybody, and he uses them as a sounding board to make his positions. So just because you were paid by him doesnt necessarily mean you have no influence over him. Chris jansing was monitoring the other story that was going on on capitol hill today. And that was the start of the hearings for judge gorsuch. And chris, i know the real q a gets down to business tomorrow. Tell us about todays session. Reporter well its interesting you mention nixon, that actually came up here. Dont think that the senators here werent watching what was going on with the comey hearing. Senator bloomen that will said were at a constitutional crisis now, or a looming constitutional crisis and suggested that as with nixon, there could be a Supreme Court subpoena of President Trump. So that was kind of slipped in there amid Everything Else which was really just a chance for the senators to show their great divide on one hand you have the republicans who are saying, this is a great, great nomination. In fact they called it super legitimacy that the name came out before the election and people by voting for trump were actually voting to have neil gorsuch nominated to the Supreme Court. On the other hand, the democrats talked more about merck garland. But finally we heard from neil gorsuch himself, a very personal opening statement. Let me play part of it for you. My mom was one of the first women graduates of the university of colorado law school. As a first female assistant District Attorney in denver, she helped a program to pursue deadbeat dads. And her idea of day care sometimes meant i got to spend a day wandering the halls or tagging along behind the police officers. She taught me that headlines are fleeting. Courage lasts. When i put on the robe, im also reminded that under our constitution, its for this body, the peoples representatives, to make new laws. For the executive to ensure those laws are faithfully executed. And for neutral and independent judges to apply the law and the peoples disputes. Alexander hamilton said, liberty can have nothing to fear from judges that apply the law. Reporter he was talking about a close ung who will died recently, its that kind of personal warmth that we saw today that help people when they had their hearings, but we are expecting tomorrow to be extremely contentious, many already laying out the problems that they see, the kinds of questions that they are going to pursue so this will get under way in earnest tomorrow morning. Live coverage on this kneltwork. Chris jansing, thank you very much. As we watch todays house hearing, while there wasnt always the chance to take a step back and describe all of the members, we saw participating in the questioning, what an interesting bunch of personalities. We had a podiatrist in congressman whos also an iraq war veteran. We had the current world record holder, fastest flight time around the world at 36 13, quite obviously at supersonic speeds in a b 1 bomber and congressman stewart. Congressman rooney, grandson of the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers and congresswoman spooer survived five gunshot wounds as part of the jonestown massacre. Years and years ago as a young congressional aid now serving, of course, as a member of congress from california. Just some of the stories behind the personalities behind the names we saw leading the questioning in the house intelligence committee. Remember, committee that does most of its business behind closed doors. As is the case with their senate counterparts. Thats just one of the big headlines out of fbi director james comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence committee. Another one, the confirmation of an investigation. The fbi as part of our Counterintelligence Mission is investigating the russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 president ial