including once tweeting culture and demographics are our destiny. we can t restore our civilization with somebody else s babies. congressman king has for the most part gone unrebuked by his own party for all of this, even as he has moved from the fringe closer to his party s mainstream. but apparently now the gop has decided steve king is keeping it a little too real after he told the new york times, white nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive? why did i sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? you re saying the quiet part out loud again, congressman. and i m not sure exactly why this time is different, but this particular quote has unleashed quite a torrent of criticism of steve king from his fellow republicans, including support for his new 2020 primary challenger. tim scott, the senate s only black republican writes in the washington post, some in our party wonder why republicans
had these foreign adversaries into the oval office? why would he be so willing to do this? and also willing to tell them that by firing comey, he had alleviated pressure on himself. extraordinary reporting. new york times reporter michael schmidt, one of three reporters who broke this really blockbuster story. congratulations, michael. really appreciate your time tonight. thank you. thanks for having me. thank you very much. responses are pouring in to this breaking news. including from the white house. we just got this moments ago from white house press secretary sarah sanders. quote, this is absurd, she says. james comey was fired because he is a disgraced partisan hack and his deputy andrew mccabe who was in charge at the time is a known liar, fired by the fbi, unlike president obama who let russia and other foreign adversaries push america around, president trump has actually been tough on russia. that s the first official quote from the white house. joining us is barbara m
that testimony has not been publicly released, but in a portion of it that was read to the times, james baker said, quote, not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security. joining us now is congressman jim himes. so great to have you here tonight. good evening, joy. your reaction, first, to this reporting. well, it s extraordinary. i mean, this is one of those historical moments where we have been so accustomed to, you know, 20 weeks of headlines unone day that we now learn that apparently the fbi opened a counterintelligence investigation into the president of the united states. on the other hand, i m not hugely surprised. i remember that day, and i remember just this icy feeling of oh, my god. this is how some really awful
the fbi deciding to open a counterintelligence investigation into donald trump himself. to determine whether the president of the united states was secretly working on behalf of russia. quote, the decision to investigate mr. trump himself was an aggressive move by fbi officials who were confronting the chaotic aftermouth of the firing of mr. comey and during the president s verbal assaults on the russia investigation as a witch hunt. quote, a vigorous debate was taking shape among some former law enforcement officials outside the case over whether fbi investigators overreacted in opening the counterintelligence inquiry during a tumultuous period at the justice department. joining us now is frank figliuzzi, nbc contributor, national security contributor, and former assistant director of the fbi s counterintelligence department. thanks so much for being here. thank you, joy. i just want to start by asking you what jumps out to you
security concern. the times tonight also reports getting some access to the testimony of the top lawyer at the fbi at the time. fbi general counsel james baker. and then, from mr. baker s house testimony, quote, not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the russians had done. and that is what would be a threat to national security, mr. baker said. in his testimony, portions of which were read to the new york times. wow. what a story. joining us now is new york times reporter michael schmidt, part of a three-person team breaking this story tonight. michael, thank you for being here. thank you for having me. give us a little bit of the background on the story. how long have you been working up to it? well, in many ways we have been working on it for a year and a half, because since mueller was appointed, since comey was fired, we have been trying to understand what the fbi and the justice