Any better. Craig, thank you. Thank you. And thanks very much to all of you for joining us, dont forget, you can watch out front any time, anywhere. Just go to cnngo, a. C. 360 s. T. A. R. T. Starts right now. And good evening, thank you for joining us. Were waiting to hear from fbi director james comey whos going to speak at a dinner for the Intelligence Community. Well bring you those answers to questions live when they happen. Earlier today, the top two members, the Senate Intelligence committee spoke to reporters in advance of their first public hearing tomorrow into all things russia. And while its obviously too soon to draw any conclusions as to the shape of their investigations, the shape its going to take, its hard to miss the sharp contrast between todays rollout between straight
forward, devoid of policy, a train wreck over on the house side. Both the house and the Senate Intelligence committees are supposed to investigate russian meddling in the last election as well as poli
Or prove hes been putting out false information about his predecessor. How is the white house preparing . Reporter hi, ana. They seem to be preparing by standing ground, not backing down from the president s allegations made two weeks ago. We heard the president himself do so just yesterday at that Press Conference with germanys chancellor Angela Merkel and in an interview last week. Shown sho White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has said that the president is confident evidenced will come out that will vindicate him. But spicer also claimed that the British Intelligence service helped President Obama spy on tencandidate trump in trump tower. That claim has been denied vehemently by the british, also by a top u. S. National security official. And so, but the white house doesnt seem to be showing any outward concern about what the fbi director and set to say on monday. And as you noted, he is expected
really tough position, trying to substantiate this tweet. There doesnt seem to be a
Second, the second, to study evidence actually exist . Today the top democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says he doesnt think so. I dont expect well see any evidence of this either. I agree with timecard. One of two possibilities here. The president quite deliberately for some reason made up this charge are perhaps more disturbing the president really believes this. Reporter the charges former president barack obama ordered the wiretapping of trump tower during the election. The former president has led the charge. So as the current fbi director reportedly asked the Justice Department to publicly reject the president s claims. Congressman schiff plans to ask about it directly when he testifies before the full Committee Later this month. Republicans have also been very critical of President Trump on this issue. Just today, john mccain said thursday road need for congress
to investigate these wiretapping allegations. Here is why. Ive no reason to believe the charge is true, but
standard operating procedure is they word they used. they were looking into a foreign adversary attacking the american electoral process, american democracy and in so doing they wanted they were trying to get information from somebody who was having contact with some people who may be the russians were utilizing to try and infiltrate the campaign. seems like a pretty normal of events here when you re investigating a foreign adversary meddling in the u.s. election. it s certainly an abnormal situation, russian meddling and all these things and that s playing into the narrative as is the president s giving himself a very low bar of satisfaction. it s like the wiretapping claim. there was some surveillance and maybe some of my people were picked up on lines where there was surveillance of someone else, that s good enough. the downside is that how do we know or we ll know soon enough, that the fbi or the doj is going to say what this confidential source was told and what kinds of i
evidence to support the president s wiretapping claim. so, erica, i m kind of hung up on this. paul ryan was a key force in this memo coming out. i think it s safe to say that this would not have come out without his kind of blessing and work behind the scenes. absolutely. i was a little bit surprised by that having covered ryan so long. considering he s out there saying this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the mueller investigation, it shouldn t cast any doubt when in reality that is how the president himself is viewing it. that s how thousands of americans are looking at this. right, yeah. i agree that ryan s position is a little bit contradictory. and despite what he says, as you re saying, clearly the memo coming out is affecting the public view of law enforcement at large, and therefore of the mueller investigation. and the result inevitably will be that when mueller comes out with his findings there will be substantial doubt about them. i think ryan bears reall