welcome to the next stage of the investigation into the trump russia affair, where apparently the administration gets its act together to the extent administration officials will stop answering questions about it from congress. whether or not those officials can explain the basis on which they are refusing to answer. i know there s a lot going on. this is new. this is being overshadowed today by the anticipation surrounding fbi director james comey s testimony tomorrow morning. what happened today, no, i won t answer and don t have a reason why, this is a really big turning point in the overall question whether we as citizens will get to the bottom of what happened here. if administration officials just start say, no, i m not going to answer, no, congress has no authority to learn this stuff, no, the american people don t get an answer to these questions not because they have any legal
president has confidence in jeff sessions. that is not a trick question. and they won t answer. i ll ask brian really without my partisan hat on but eric culver did resign. there had to be discussions about that. he stepped down after six and a half years. he was accused of contempt in congress. that was a partisan vote. well, still it was congress. i don t think it was a partisan vote. fast and furious. don t act like all right. your point, congressman? let me say this. in terms of white houses in governing, people do come and go in cabinets. and this discussion is unfortunately public, but there are public discussions that have happened with other administrations and other white houses. i think one of the questions that is going to come up today is because jeff sessions is recused, now rod rosenstein is
it has been 45 days since tax day, 45 days since millions of americans filed their tax returns or officially requested an extension from the irs. here s something really weird. we still don t know whether the president file his tax returns this year or whether he filed for an extension or whether he just did nothing at all on tax day. it s the sort of thing that past white houses have routinely confirmed for decades. we asked this white house last month and expected to hear something like yes, of course, the president filed his taxes or filed an extension, but instead they wouldn t answer. we asked the white house again today, and again they would not answer, again telling us you will need to contact sheri dillon, president trump s tax lawyer. here s the thing, we asked her last month and her law firm refu refused to answer. quote, we have no comment. to be clear, we re not talking about what s in president trump s tax returns.
action. too little and too late. i hope for america s sake you are right. eric: before he left obama lifted sanctions. eboni: it was a mess either way. michael cohen and him not coming forward. i i can t believe he was asked. privilege. certainly. this information will be privileged and no lawyer in his right mind ethically would breach that client confidentiality arrangement. kat: this whole thing is that way. people are asking sean spicer questions they know he can t answer. it s like a kind of conversation you have over drinks. like gossiping and chitchatting with friends than a kind of thing that can be televised. eric: it s all a charade. if you were a courtroom with
call him in and he probably won t answer. he hasn t been charged with anything yet. anything he does say might be used by the prosecutors against him. no one is saying he committed a crime. but he is vulnerable when he is under oath and they re asking him questions about his own financial documents. shannon: let s listen in. richard burr the republican and chairman of senate intelligence committee. our elections is a significant threat, the purpose of today s hearing is to review and highlight the extent to the extent possible the ranges of threats that we face as a nation. the national security threat picture has evolved significantly since 1995. what used to be a collection of mostly physical and state-based national security concerns has been replaced by something all together different. today our traditional focus on countries like north korea, russia and iran is complicated by new challenges like strategic threats posed by