The closeddoor briefing by Top Justice Department official. Chief White House Correspondent john roberts, its early saturday morning. Good evening, john. Good evening to you, james. The white house is responding to both of those stories. On the one where the president says firing comey took some pressure off of russia, calling comey a nut job. As it relates to syria, ukraine, defeating isis and other key issues making deals with russia is to the benefit of the american people. James comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to negotiate with russia. And on reports white house officials close to President Trump, sean spicer had said as the president has stated before, a thorough investigation shows that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity. Its another distraction for this president as he seeks a new fbi director and tries to turn his eyes towards his first foreign trip. President trump did not name a new fbi director but its on his flight to saudi
The closeddoor briefing by Top Justice Department official. Chief White House Correspondent john roberts, its early saturday morning. Good evening, john. Good evening t you, james. The white house is responding to both of those stories. On the one where the president says firing comey took some pressure off of russia, calling comey a nut job. As it relates to syria, ukraine, defeating isis and other key issues making deals with russia is to the benefit of the american people. James comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to negotiate with russia. And on reports white house officials close to President Trump, sean spicer had said as the president has stated before, a thorough investigation shows that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity. Its another distraction for this president as he seeks a new fbi director and tries to turn his eyes towards his first foreign trip. President trump did not name a new fbi director but its on his flight to saudi a
Coming. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. This is cnn breaking news. Breaking news tonight after days of increasingly troublesome headlines. Cnn learned that white house lawyers began researching impeachment procedures. Sources say the white house only considers impeachment a distant possibility at this point. Also, the noork times is reporting that President Trump bragged to Russian Foreign minister and Russian Ambassador of the oval office about his firing of fbi director james comey saying it removed great pressure from the russia investigation. The report also says mr. Trump called comey crazy and also, im quoting him now, a real nut job. Tonight, the white house is back tonight telling the story raising new question bets president s intent on firing comey at the same time. And speaking out about how the then fbi director tried to keep his distance from the president because comey was so disstushe
The New York Times reports, a russian banker. First, though, lets go to capitol hill. Manu raju is there. Devon nunes, the house intelligence chair, on white house grounds the day before that major announcement. Reporter thats right. Hes now confirming this, telling our colleague, jake tapper, in a phone interview that he was, in fact, on white house grounds. What hes actually saying now, john and poppy, is that he was reviewing this in a secure facility on white house grounds, reviewing this information that he revealed publicly the next day, that information that perhaps some communication, something involving the Trump Transition Team were swept up, inadvertently picked up, sdins incidentally in intelligence reports, so he wanted to review this document in a secure facility. Now he is telling jake tapper that he was not in communication with any white house staff that d day, he was not in the white house, but he was in the secure facility. And this comes with a lot of questions abou
This plan being formulated, more power for the generals to determine troops levels. Lets head immediate ly to the white house with hallie jackson, analysis with dana milbank and george will. Hans, let me start with you. Tell us about the plan and how it differs from president obamas strategy. Its namely a directional shift. Obama clearly was winding down the war. He wanted to end up with around 8,400 troops. Thats how many are there, now theres an indication that it will be winding up. Its not a drastic increase. He had a variety of policy reviews when president obama took office, they did more than 30,000 troops for the second surge. One thing we need to be clear, this is still very much in discussion. An Administration Official just told me this has not gone to the policy committee yet the princip Principles Committee at the National Security council so it gives you a sense theres deliberating over this and that gets into the second question. Theres so many numbers out there in terms