russia probe and attacking comey, himself. no collusion, no obstruction. he s a leaker. he s saying he never asked for comey s loyalty at that now infamous dinner meeting. i hardly know the man. i m not going to say, i want you to pledge allegiance. so, dangling the possibility out there of tapes. refusing to say if he has recordings of conversations in the oval office. a lot to discuss now. i want to get straight to white house correspondent athena jones, political analyst carl bernstein, political commentator david swerdlick, national political reporter, mave reston. good evening to all of you. athena, i m going to start with you because this is a day after the former fbi director comey, his bombshell testimony, president trump is fighting back. he certainly is punching back, don. after comey repeatedly called the president a liar during his testimony yesterday, the president now saying the former fbi director is the one who s
counsel which would happen. the white house now targeting comey about the leak, does he face anything for this? well, he ll certainly face criticism from some, secretly leaking to a friend, to the new york times. legally it s not crime if it wasn t classified. comey made it clear today that he specifically wrote these mental knows in a way they would be unclassified in case he ended up in this exact situation in front of this exact committee. dan, thank you. here on capitol hill, reaction pouring in at this hour. senators on both sides, who say after comey s testimony they re now demanding answers from president trump. here s abc s mary bruce. reporter: james comey walking away from his explosive testimony confident. they re saying it vindicated the president. lawmakers retreating to their partisan quarters. democrats saying they heard evidence that the president tried to torpedo the russia investigation. i m not a criminal lawyer, but that certainly sounds like
i m learning. love it. have a great night. we ll sigh you later. see you at 6:00 tonight, washington.at 6:00 tonight, the fallout. new reaction coming in after fired fbi director james comey testifies before the american people about his meetings with president trump. what he says about the president and the white house. those were lies, plain and simple. and tonight, comey on the president s alleged request, in the middle of the michael flynn investigation. the moment he said the president asked everyone in the oval office to leave the room. and on the president s threat that there could be tapes. oh, lordy, i hope there are tapes. also tonight, firing back. the white house saying the president is not a liar and the president s personal lawyer attacking comey for leaking details from their meetings. comey tonight, admitting it. the new surveillance just released.
the investigation, or is it just going to be reading partisan talking points to support trump? because republicans are sticking by trump out of pure primal tribalism, he will be okay in the short term. but if they begin to turn, this could change quickly. we had congressma congressma hour and said absolutely, the president should invoke executive privilege. does he have the right. he never said the president should not do this. and he said, you know, it s, you know, a one-sided story otherwise. james comey just gets to say his bit. but has the president not already told at least part of his side of the story on multiple mediums, on twitter, in these network interviews? well, yes, by labelling it fake news and attacking comey, but he still hasn t answered and detailing his conversations with comey, in part. to a certain extent. but look, i think that transparency here is the friend of the trump administration.
i was there as you know. i was felt that lee harvey oswald have been put on trial, a lot of the conspiracy theories that are circulating today would have been put at rest them. this is the kind of thing that goes on and non- democracies. i have not seen anything like this since october 20, 1973 when president nixon fired the watergate special prosecutor. the only winner tonight are sitting in the kremlin. i have a width of fascism tonight. jesse: remember a few months ago when both the media and democrats were attacking comey. something his investigation into hillary clinton s e-mails cost for the election. let s listen to the democrats than. we are all disturbed, first of all by the letter which really broke precedent and was over the advice of the leaders of the justice department. he has a big burden of proof so to speak on him for why he did what he did that is such a