Washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay, and cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei with us. Were going to begin with the testimony from the former director of the Central Intelligence agency john brennan. Speaking yesterday before the house intelligence committee, he said under his watch investigators have uncovered troubling information about contacts between russian officials and americans in the Trump Campaign. By the time i left office on january 20th, i had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the russians had been successful in getting u. S. Persons involved in the campaign or not to work in their behalf, again, either in a witting or unwitting nafashion. Did evidence exist of collusion, coordination, conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and russian state actors at the time you learned of 2016 efforts . I encountered and am aware of information intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between russian officials and u. S. Persons invo
Prime way of communication. Those liberals make mistakes when they tweet, too. We begin with breaking news out of washington this hour. Sources are telling nbc news that former fbi director james comey could testify as early as next week. Those sources also saying he has been cleared to testify by special counsel robert mueller. Nbcs Kelly Odonnell is at the white house, msnbc justice correspondent Pete Williams is also in washington. Im also joined by New York Times reporter james savage and jonathan swann, correspondent anne thompson. Pete, lets start with you and that news about james comey. What do you know . Reporter i just know what others have reported, that its been worked out that he will testify, that hes talked to bob mueller, the new special counsel, and theyve worked it out. Im actually here, katy, to talk about the arrest of somebody at the trump hotel earlier today. This happened around midnight last night. Two things happened at the same time. The police got a tip from
This is hugely important. The president will make an impact will have an impact on everything from the economy to the environment. Well break that down for you. Ken, this is news of james comeys testimony. Ive got that tweet word stuck in my head. We knew he would testify after memorial day. What does this mean, that hes been cleared for takeoff, that donald trump did and him to back off the investigation . My source isnt going that far. But i did speak to a course that said he said whether it was okay for james comey to testify. There was some speculation that mueller wouldnt want him to testify at all to the extent that hes had this conversation with donald trump and trump has asked him to drop the investigation into michael flynn. There is some speculation who believe that could be obstruction of justice if mueller was investigating that, he may not have wanted comey to talk about that. Now we are made to believe he has cleared comey to talk. We dont know what he cleared him to say
Muellers probe has expanded to include an inquiry into whether or not President Trump tried to obstruct justice. This could be one of the biggest developments to date in this investigation. President trump, as you noted, lashing out on these reports hes being investigated for the possibility of obstruction of justice. He is being looked at, information is being gathered about him. It does not necessarily mean there will be any sort of prosecution. It does not mean that evidence will result in proof that he actually obstructed justice, but it is certainly the case he can no longer say, i am apart from this thing. Intent is probably the hardest part of the obstruction of justice statute to prove. The federal prosecutor is also reportedly seeking evidence of possible financial crimes vov involving trump aides. More on that in moments. We also have more details on the shooting of congressman Steve Scalise. For that we go to craig. Craig . Reporter washington authorities trying to piece to
And i want to make sure that im linked to him and sink oh patd with him in the way that he likes. But i dont want to waist his time and sit in the oval office unnecessarily. Thank you. Thank you. Obviously i would have been happy for him to stay up here all day and continue to exhaust all of your questions, but one, i figure i probably should answer a couple today and also, the president has an eept here shortly, so i want to try to work through as many as i can. And with that im actually going to start with jess mason sinceible it is maybe your last day and my first. So with that, jeff, take it away. Thank you, sarah. Can you talk a little bit about how this will affect, this change will affect the press office and and can you speak a little bit for scene about how hes feeling and how he took this news . How he made the decision to resign . You know, im not going to speak for sean in detail. Ic say that he understood that the president wanted to bring in and add new people to the team