strongest supporter, his longest time supporter, his first supporter amongst republicans in the u.s. senate, the person he probably talked to about becoming attorney general a long time ago is so disgusted with the way things are going that he offered to resign. the president rejected it. shepard: he didn t like that he recused himself. but by every legal standard, he had no choice. it s a decision only he can make. he can undo it today. there s no hard and fast recu recusal. shepard: interesting day. absolutely. shepard: thank you. he s new to this. that s what the house speaker paul ryan is saying about how president trump may have asked james comey to handle the michael flynn investigation. he s new to this. that s the new standard for a president. thanks, paul ryan. the democrats say they have serious concerns. more reaction coming up. details on instructions from president obama s attorney general. loretta lynch.
the white house pool will be playing out this tape and we ll watch it together. i ve been told that reporters asked him about comey. see how he responded as they begin the tape playback right now. thank you very much. thank you. is thanks. shepard: sounds like the audio the end of the audio. i can tell you that reporters asked him about this. he withheld he didn t speak. self-discipline at that moment. his lawyer did his speaking for him a short time ago. when news breaks out, we break in. the final bell is ringing on
is a very fine lawyer in my view did not adequately in three minutes rebut what james comey took three hours to convey to the country. that impression that he conveyed is still out there. shepard: then there s the matter of what some are calling the leak. and with us not a leak. for a number of reasons. when james comey gave his information to his friend at columbia law to pass along to the new york times so the word got out, that s not a leak. no, that is not a leak. it s not classified material. shepard: and he s not a government employee. he s not a government ploy year. the professor is not a government employee. it was an impression that i m holding up my iphone. it was on a loop top. shepard: so everybody is caught up in leaks now. to avoid the substance, one focuses on the leaks. in this case, you can t call it a leak because it wasn t a leak.
investigation, classified information, that was the catalyst for comey to go public with his recommendation against criminal charges. here s that exchange. probably the only other consideration i guess i can talk about in open setting is at 1 point the attorney general directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me. that is what happened after the tarmac meeting. that is important because the clinton team refused to call it an investigation. there s only one kind of investigation the fbi does, shep, and that is a criminal investigation. shepard: catherine herridge, thank you. you re welcome. shepard: more on the response from president trump s personal loyalty. the president never told mr. comey i need loyalty, i expect loyalty. he never said it in forum and he
he unilaterally made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president. ahead, complete coverage of the comey hearing and what we learned about what we need to find out. let s get to it. first on the fox news deck, lordy, i hope there s tapes. that s what the fired fbi director said today among other things about his meetings with president trump. comey testified he was worried the president might lie about their conversations. so he wrote them down, in detail. comey said the white house did indeed lie about why president trump fired him and about the fbi itself. although the law required no reason at all to fire an fbi director, the administration