The New York Times under the byline of reporter Michael Schmidt who will join us in just a moment is reporting tonight that the president of the United States asked the fbi director to make the mike Flynn Investigation go away. The fbi director since fired, went back to the office and put it all down in a memo, shared with the New York Times now matched by nbc news. The quote and the memo as read to the times is as follows. The president says to comey, quote, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. The president goes on to say, he is a good guy, i hope you can let this go. The white house is denying that version of events, calling it, quote, not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and mr. Comey. As you can imagine, democrats are understandably apoplectic, but many responsible people tonight in both parties are starting to use serious terms like obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and impeachment. In a week fu
Lady, melania trump, who visited with the president but went to a separate part of the wall, as is customary, inserted a prayer into the wall. The president also took part in another tradition, placing a note of written prayer, weve learned, in the wall. His greatest hope on this trip and overall, which hes been very vocal about, is trying to revive Israeli Palestinian peace talks, and perhaps, he hopes, be the president who can help broker a deal. Important to note, israeli officials did not accompany President Trump on this visit to the western wall because the area is disputed and the u. S. Did not want it to look like it was choosing sides. Lets go to sara murray, whos traveling with the president , also our jerusalem correspondent Oren Liebermann is there. Sara, let me begin with you. What stood out to you most as you watched this . Reporter well, i think, you know it was sort of interesting the way the president navigated this. The remarks hes made leading up to this visit at the
Trusts. End quote. All this adds up to some very tough questions for the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Hell be going to the lectern not that far from now. Within an hour or so. Less than an hour i should say. His first on camera Briefing Since President Trump returned from his overseas trip. We will of course have live coverage right here on cnn. But first lets bring in cnns chief National Security correspondent jim sciutto and our senior White House Correspondent jim acosta. I know youve got some breaking news, some new reporting on the president s personal attorneys now being asked to provide Sensitive Information to the u. S. Congress. What can you tell us . Thats right, wolf. Another person connected to President Trump being drawn into the russia investigation. This time it is President Trumps personal Attorney Michael Cohen who is a fixture of course throughout the Campaign Cycle frequently appearing on cnn and other networks as a surrogate to donald trump. He has been
Today, rosenstein refused to answer questions on who specifically asked him to write the letter. With me now, cnn political director David Chalian. David chalian, if he knew that comey was going to be fired before writing the memo, why write the memo . Well, remember, there was a meeting that weve previously reported on with rosenstein and sessions and the president before that final decision was made and so its not terribly surprising, i guess, that rosenstein knew beforehand. Heres the discrepancy. This is what is so odd about where we are, brooke. Yeah. Youll recall that initially, after the firing , everything that the white house did was hanging on this Rod Rosenstein memo but then the president completely walked away from that, told nbc news, no, no, no, i was going to fire comey regardless of the memo. That was after we learned that rosenstein, according to sources, was not very happy with the way that the rollout of the comey firing went and that everything was sort of being hu
Move to ease russian sanctions right from the start. The 11th hour begins now. Good evening once again from our headquarters here in new york. Day 133 of the still young Trump Administration, and the president today stunned many people around the globe, announcing americas withdrawal from the paris climate accords. We will cover that in depth in just a moment. We begin with yet another new report out tonight on this white house and russia. Washbased investigative journalist michael i could have been acknowledged and outlines President Trumps plan to ease sanctions on russia. It is a plan that reportedly fell short. I could have been says, there was quote there was serious he says he received several panicky calls from u. S. Government officials who told them they had been directed to develop a sanctions lifting package and imploring him please my god, cant you stop this. It was apparently stopped in large part thanks to pushback from veterans at the state department. But there is a Mic