unconstitutional? i believe if the president asks the attorney general to do something that he believes is unlawful or unconstitutional to say no. and that s what i did. let me ask you both a couple of questions. can we agree, director and counsellor, that the russians attempted to influence the outcome of the election? yes, sir, absolutely. yes. do you believe that the russians did in fact influence the outcome of the election, director? in our intelligence assessment we made the the point that we could not make that call. the intelligence community has neither the authority, the expertise or the resources to make that judgment. the only thing we said was we saw no evidence of influencing volter at all its in any of the 50 states, with you were not in a position to judge the actual outcome on the election. how but, miss yates snts.
was mentioned by senator durbin this order was was was after a lawsuit from the state of washington and minnesota, the court basically challenged the constitutionality of the order. the order is not taken effect, but what i want to get to right now is the fact that the administration then withdrew its request for an appeal of the court ruling, blocking implementation of the same order and then they changed the order that you would not implement. right, and there were a number of important distinctions between travel ban one and travel ban two. at the time i had to make my decision, for example, the executive order still applied to green card holders, lawful permanent resident and those who are visas. there were a number of other distinctions as well. look, let me say thank you. i want to get on to go ahead, very quickly. i understand that, you know, people of goodwill and who
i don t know the answer to that. i don t think we ll ever know. the russians have been doing this for years, have they not? i m not minimizing what they did. i think they did try to influence the election. that s absolutely true. as i mentioned in my opening statement, sir, they have been doing this since at least the 60s. okay. the difference, however, was this is unprecedented in terms of its aggressiveness and the multi-faceted campaign that they mounted. that s new. isn t it a fact that in 1968 the kremlin actually service a attempted to subsidize the campaign of hubert human gri? i don t know the specifics of that. i would want to research that, but, again, that certainly xo s comports with what the facts would be. didn t the kremlin try to stop ronald reagan from being re-elected in 1984?
and impose serious criminal fines and imprisonment for people and we know that the fbi is now investigating. the potential collusion of trump associates and trump campaign and administration officials, as director comey has told us and made public. there is no classified information here. the meeting that the fbi conducted on january 24 proceeded by one day approximately, the first meeting with mcgann. isn t it a fact that michael flynn lied to the fbi? i can t reveal the internal fbi investigation, senator, even
we ll never know. okay. have youered hea ereheard th have been doing this for years, i might minimize what they did. i think they did try to influence the election. it s absolutely true. as i pointed as i mentioned in my opening statement, sir, the they ve been doing this at least the 60s. okay. the difference, however, was this is unprecedented in terms of its aggressiveness and the multifaceted campaign that they mounted. that s new. isn t it a fact that in 1968, the kremlin actually, part of the agb, attempted to subsidize the campaign of hubert humphrey? i don t know the specifics of that. i want to research that. again, that certainly comports with what russian tactics would be. okay. isn t it a fact that in 1984, the kremlin tried to stop ronald reagan from being re-elected? again, i d have to do some research toify that, but,