we ll be more than happy to support general mattis in a bipartisan way. the trump administration did not have him come speak to the house, which is not required by light. we feel slighted. i would feel i do feel the same way that the ranking member feels in terms of what the administration, how they re treating the house of representatives in this body. it s times like this that we need to rise above the future trump administration. shepard, sources say that they believe that general mattis will receive the waiver but it s closer than it needs to be because of the anger of the democrats and the republicans because the transition team would not allow mattis to brief and take questions from the house armed services committee about this whole issue of civilian control of the military. shepard: in the bigger picture, this should be let s about slights and more about
civilian control of the military. by eliminating that discussion, the house got revenge and it was a narrow vote out of the armed services committee. he only received 34 votes to 28 votes. now the debate is being led by adam smith, a democrat from washington who is on the house armed services committee. he s really he says he will vote against mattis because he s upset that the trump transition team did not provide him to speak to congress about civilian control of the military. here s what he and duncan humner said moments ago on the house floor. i don t want to set that precedent. so as passionate as the previous speaker was, please understand and i ve expressed this to general mattis, this is not a vote against general mattis. i said if we have our opportunity to do our job, if we don t roll over for the presidential transition team,
russian meddling in the u.s. election. we know that included in the briefing was again that two-page synopsis of those unsubstantiated allegations. yes, it was indeed. thank you very much, jim sciutto. evan perez, justice correspondent, is here. you re getting new information, as well. what are you learning? reporter: we re told that at friday s briefing between the intelligence chiefs and the president-elect there was a private one-on-one conversation between the director of the fbi, james comey, and the president-elect trump. it was during that discussion that the president-elect was informed about the details of this two-page synopsis of this dossier which contained all these allegations based on these russian sources. all four intelligence chiefs who were at this briefing with the president-elect agreed that comey would be the one to handle this very, very sensitive discussion with the president-elect. we re told that this discussion was very cordial, and that donald trump was
need also to inform congress because we play a role in national security policy also. but i m very confident that he will make the judgments that are necessary to properly inform the president, and if necessary inform the congress. you also asked general mattis about russia specifically. said it s important to recognize reality, his words, when it comes to what russia is up to. do you think he could change president-elect trump s mind when it comes to russia and putin? i think he will make the case based on the facts, based upon the realities that he sees. and again, based i hope on accurate intelligence of the threats that russia poses. and also as he indicated, maybe a handful, but some opportunities for collaboration. but i think he s going to approach the issue of russia with a much more hard-nosed, much more pragmatic view of what they re about and what we could
inauguration. that he he felt that this was serious. he understood why the president and president-elect were briefed. he also if anything, he encouraged sort of encouraged president-elect trump to be circumspect about speaking out about this. what was impressive, david, was that these nominees who were before these committees today, when mattis or pompeo, they made it clear they re willing to speak to donald trump and tell him, you know what, mr. president, when he s the president, you re wrong, here s what we believe. they weren t shy, distancing themselves from their confirmation hearings from statements that donald trump would make often during the campaign. yeah. clearly. if you re congressman pompeo, you re going to be leading the cia. on one hand, president-elect trump will be your boss. on the other hand, you re going to be leading all these other intelligence officials who to a degree have been impugned the last couple of weeks. jackie, all of this concern from trump i