investigation was based entirely on this steele dossier. on that issue, the democratic memo attempts to rebut it by noting the time line. the fbi opened its counterintelligence investigation seven weeks before the fbi team got access to that steele dossier. so it is a credible rebuttal on that point. the other key point of the republican memo was that when the fbi was seeking a memo to surveil, that it did not reveal to the court that the dossier had democratic money backing it. the democratic memo says that is not true. look at the warrant. in fact they made the court aware that the dossier had partisan backing. if you talk to republicans they will say not all the details are in there. but taken together it certainly raises questions about the central claims.
purchasing assault weapons. the president tweeted about it, and you notice on friday in a cpac speech. and that lead to questions about this issue. the white house press secretary said he supports the idea as a concept and tonight we are hearing from sources that he appears to be backing away from that. the president said he is willing to fight the nra on some issues and apparently that is not one of them. if a soldier can carry an assault rifle on the battlefield, why can t that soldier also defend his family in his home with an assault rifle, that is a key talking point of the national rifle association. it appears the direct, the president is heading in tonight.
is he trained in firing a weapon? is he trained in using a hand gun or firearm at some point. i don t think that was the point he was making. he was saying he would be a leader and would want to take a courageous action and a lot of individuals that helped protect others that day weren t carrying firearms which shows that you can be helpful in that process without it. reporter: and we should point out that she never asked the question whether the president is trained to use a firearm. our sources are telling us ton the that the president and this white house are committed to doing something on this issue and we should see some movements toward strengthening the background system. i talked to a source on capitol hill this evening who said they feel that is something that can get done and one idea that was floated which i thought was interesting is there is some talk among lawmakers that they
able to help as a number of the individuals that were in the schools, the coach and other adults and even a lot of the students stepped up and helped protect other students. i think the point he was making is that he would have wanted to play a role on that as well. is he trained in firing a weapon? is he trained in using a hand gun or firearm at some point. i don t think that was the point he was making. he was saying he would be a leader and would want to take a courageous action and a lot of individuals that helped protect others that day weren t carrying firearms which shows that you can be helpful in that process without it. reporter: and we should point out that she never asked the question whether the president is trained to use a firearm. our sources are telling us ton the that the president and this white house are committed to doing something on this issue and we should see some movements toward strengthening the background system.
time at the white house. joining me now is jim sciutto. she is a key witness. with the president during the campaign. and able to in theory answer questions on a whole host of aspects of robert mueller and the house intelligence committee s investigation. the key question is what questions is she going to be willing to answer tomorrow because that point, that issue that you raised still has not been settled. it is not clear. we spoke to the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee today adam schiff and he isn t certain she is going to answer questions. steve bannon refused to answer many questions citing in effect white house claim of executive privilege of giving leeway from answering questions about that. so we don t know what will happen tomorrow. will she go there, will she