him is to clear up a couple of misconceptions and distortions if you will about what he has said and done in the past. starting with the number of times that he had encounters with the soviet ambassador, with the russian ambassador. he was asked during his confirmation in a question that mentioned people acting as surrogates who had contact with the russian ambassador whether he had had a contact with the russian ambassador. that was the context of the question. there was no reason for him at that point to recall this other meeting that he had in his office that was set up by the way by the obama state department. it was one of about 20 or 30 meetings that they arranged with foreign diplomats including the russian ambassador and many others. bill: may i pause you for a moment. at the confirmation january 10th you were there. this is how the answer came out after the question. i m not aware of any of
bill: a busy day. house speaker paul ryan now live on the hill. i won t get into i just said i think the best thing to do is let robert mueller do his job. the best vindication let the investigation go on thoroughly. the best thing to do and that s what i think hopefully will happen. [inaudible question]. the question is about the budget. with a new president in the first year you always have an abbreviated budget season. that s just the way budgeting with a new administration works. we knew we had a constricted season. we re having a debate now about
considering dismissing the special investigator for the russia matter, bob mueller. and rosenstein would be the guy to ask about that. bob mueller was appointed by rod rosenstein who is expected to start speaking any minute behind us. shannon: he has taken a seat there. what do we expect to hear from the attorney general this afternoon? that s a good question. we don t expect to see his remarks ahead of time, which is very unusual for something as high profile as this. we don t know this morning a few hours ahead how hard he may plan to push back against these reports about his involvement or not involvement with the russia investigation. but the bulk of that hearing is going to be questions. the chairman and ranking member will get 10 minutes and the rest will get 5 minutes a pop. it is not expected to be one of those hearings where there will be a wild question and the attorney general may have to tell lawmakers that s something we can talk about in a classified setting, in a clo
i think it s a reasonable question. if, as the president said, i was fired because of the russia investigation, why was the attorney general involved in that chain? i don t know. i don t have an answer for the question. session supporters say he will set the record straight after comey s testimony last week. we ll hear from the deputy attorney general. a routine funding hearing but we expect the questions to turn to russia, bill. bill: nothing is routine, right? rosenstein and especially sessions have an opportunity here to set the record straight. we re waiting on all that. thanks, catherine herridge on capitol hill. shannon: let s bring in one of the lawmakers who will ask some questions on the hill, senator james lankford. i want to save plenty of time for a religious freedom issue that s getting lost in some headlines. what will be your question, what is your key inquiry you
office. what if they come from the oval office? i don t know how they would get there. it could be my lack of a law degree and maybe there are a couple of lawyers on this panel who can help me to understand the most basic question here which is that the attorney general had a press conference and said given all of these challenges, given all this controversy i m out. i am recused from these matters. now the question becomes what matters? which matters? i ll ask one final time if you can just try to describe for the public, for the lay person, for the person who is following this but may not possess a law degree, what is the attorney general allowed to be involved in and what he is not allowed to be involved in and who makes that determination and how do we know whether he is complying or not? i appreciate that sincere question, senator. i want to try to explain. you re right. i spent 27 years in the