as the briefing was wrapped up, trump asked everyone to leave the room except for coats and mike pompeo. the president started complaining about the investigation and officials familiar with the account gave to associates. is there anything you two can do to help me. into. you re going to have after today s session as we ve had with every step of this investigation republicans and democrats and the president take what they want from it. so the president certainly at some point will tweet, look they exonerated me there. as gloria said, keep in mind, the gop chairman of the senate intelligence committee who supported the president during the election and was supported by the president said in so many words they did not answer the question. a key question and they had no reason not to answer the question. not classified. the special counsel did not ask them to talk about it. and you even had dni coats in a remarkable moment say i m not sure i have a legal basis for it. that s a remark
senator wyden for one question on 702. thank you very much, mr. chairman. i appreciate the courtesy. this one, director coats, i d like a yes or no answer on. can the government use fisa acts, section 702, to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic? not to my knowledge. it would be against the law. thank you, mr. chairman. senator warner? again, i want to thank all the witnesses. but i come out of this had hearing with more questions than when i went in. gentlemen, you are both willing to somehow characterize your conversations with the president that you didn t feel pressure. but you wouldn t share the content. in the case of admiral rogers, we will have independent third
at one point the fact dan coats said i don t know if there s a legal basis. what? watch that back. you have to admire his candor if not the legal advice he s giving. the only reasonable inference is i don t want to say something public that would embarrass the president. right. and get hip in hot water with the president. john mccain s moment as he was sitting there with a copy of the washington post and he called it orwellian existence. that s a great point. he s the chairman of the armed services committee so he gets to sit in. at the end he was asking his friend dan coats about the washington post today and the director s refusal to talk about it. you know, it s just shows what kind of an orwellian existence that we live in. i mean, it s detailed as you know from reading the story as to when you met, what you discussed, et cetera, et cetera.
enforcement these were memos he didn t make up after the fact. early in the hearing mccabe was asked, what did jim comey tell you. director mccabe, did direct ker comey ever share details of his conversations with the president with you, in particular, did director comey say that the president had asked for his loyalty? sir, i m not going to comment on conversations that the director may have had with the president. i know he s here to testify in front of you tomorrow. you ll have an opportunity to ask him those things. i m asking you, did you have that conversation with director comey. i ve responded that i m not going to comment on those conversations. why not? because for two reasons. first, the as i mentioned, i m not in a position to talk about conversations that director comey may or may not have had with the president. i m not asking you about that. i m asking about conversations you had with director comey. those matters also begin to
it s a long question you posed senator. i appreciate the import of your question and i ll get to the answer. my quibble are you is, pat fitzgerald is a very principled very independent person. i have a lot of respect for him. pat fitzgerald could have been fired by the president because he was a united states attorney. robert mueller cannot because he s protected by those special counsel regulations. although it s theoretically true that there are circumstances where he could be remove by the acting attorney general for at this time is me, your assurance of his independence is robert be mueller s integrity and andy mccabe s integrity and my integrity. sir, if i may, the greater an insurance is not that you and i believe in director mueller s integrity which i have no question about his integrity. it is that you would put in writing an indication based on your authority as the acting attorney general that he has full independence in regards to