The president and Kellyanne Conway keep saying that this is about restoring confidence in the fbi. Does the firing of the fbi director whos leading the investigation into the white house, the firing of him by that white house, does that restore confidence . Not at all. And in fact, the way the firing was done was particularly striking. Director comey is a respected career Law Enforcement official, a Public Servant, and he was fired essentially through the press. He found out that he had been fired while he was speaking to fbi personnel in los angeles and there were press reports that a letter had been delivered to the fbi headquarters. Thats about as brazen and aggressive a way as you can fire somebody. And as you just referenced in the previous segment here, anderson, President Trumps letter saying you have told me three times im not under investigation just seems to protest too much the idea that there is nothing going on here other than a sort of clearing the decks. And ill remind y
But if the president was hoping that firing comey would somehow make everybody forget all about russia, this was not the best idea. Posing for pictures, tweeted by the russians, with ambassador Sergey Kislyak. There he is. Whose conversations with Michael Flynn got the former National Security adviser fired. Flynn, by the way, subpoenaed by the senate tonight. So, no, none of this is going away any time soon. And were going to report on it right now. Lets get right to cnns david chalian, chris cillizza, athena jones, pamela brown. Pamela, youre first. First on cnn now, the former fbi director james comey sent a farewell letter. What does it say . Yeah, he did, he sent this farewell letter today a day after he was fired by President Trump which was a shock and really sent shockwaves throughout the bureau and this is what he said in his letter. He said to all, i have long believed that a president can fire an fbi director for any reason or for no reason at all. Im not going to spend time
Side what happened with nunez about o and trying to unnature unmasking with the Serious Investigation into russias role, put more pressure on chairman burr or if he always would have handled himself that way. But i thought that the republican and the democrat chademocratchair mennen set a professional tone for the hearing. Are we just passed over 1 00 p. M. Eastern time. Weve had the morning session. What happens in the afternoon with Senate Intelligence committee and mr. Comey will stay in the room where he talks to members. Were supposed to hear from the president s personal attorney a bit of a rebuttal from his side as the president remains at an event in washington, d. C. We have a bit of a review prepared of some of the moments we witnessed in this hearing. And before we get there, ari melber, same question, who did you think kind of broke through among members of the committee . I thought senator widen broke through in the back and forth getting real details out there. I thought
Learned what was going on yesterday. Your thoughts, your reporting since then . Look, im still the same reaction, im just still stunned by the news. Although when it comes to donald trump, you learn no longer to be shocked. Theres not a lot of political sense this makes. You cannot figure out if this makes any sense unless the motivation is one thing delay or put off the Russian Investigation. You cant help but look at it through that prism under any other. Look, two things were true. James comey had lost credibility with democrats and republicans. 40 minutes before this news was announced, i had Richard Blumenthal on yesterday. I asked him if he had confidence in comey. He wouldnt say that he did. Diane feinstein last week walked the line. Frankly, democrats would have been more over the last two weeks, would have called for his resignation if they felt comfortable that donald trump would appoint somebody that they thought they would feel comfortable with at the fbi. So that is you th
Events under oath. No collusion, no obstruction. Hes a leaker. Reporter after initially restraining himself during james comeys testimony, today President Trump is lashing out. Frankly, james comey confirmed a lot of what i said and some of the things that he said just werent true. Reporter trump going on offense, accusing the former fbi director of lying under oath, but refusing to say whether he has tapes of his conversations with comey. Ill tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future. Reporter but trump did say hed be willing to testify to his version of events under oath. So he said those things under oath. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of 100 . Reporter this as trump and his allies adopt a questionable defense strategy, insisting trump is in the clear because comey said trump wasnt under investigation when comey led the fbi but arguing other parts of comeys testimony are a fraud. Today trump insisted he never asked comey to back off t