he knows that the russians are involved in this project if you will. what does this do to your investigation and and i m assuming donald trump jr. has earned himself a seat at the witness table across from you. there is no question that we want to talk to him as soon as possible. and i think the other piece is we need to understand what more is there? is this the tip of an information iceberg or is this ice laid? one of the other disturbing things about this was the sort of casual nature of these emails back and forth referring to a russian guy that they had a connection with by his first name. and they mention in lawyer as a russian government lawyer. and for the last three or four days we ve gotten all this these denials saying we don t know who she was or who she represented. we didn t know her name. but in the email she was referred to as a government
again and welcome to our special live coverage today of the confirmation hearing in the u.s. senate for christopher wray, age 50, to run the fbi. if confirmed, he ll be known here after as donald trump s man to run the fbi, the man who followed james comey at the top of the fbi. we ll be talking about this and watching this hearing all day. senate judiciary committee, you see the camera crews and still photographers and reporters awaiting his arrival at the witness table. kasie hunt is on capitol hill for us, part of our huge group of correspondents and analysts to cover this story today. she will lead us off for this part of our coverage. kasie, set the stakes for everything we ll be seeing today. well, brian, i think the stakes really are centered around everything we ve been talking about, about donald trump jr., the latest news about
interesting to me, the previous two standard bearers are the party were mitt romney and john mccain who is a hero for standing up to russia, so i think there is a larger body of substance the senators should seek understanding and clarity on whether jeff sessions was involved and whether those two to three contacts with the russians include policy discussions. you re right, that has been the underreported part of this, and that is the platform at the convention. there is the attorney general. going to come around and take his seat behind the witness table. let s open up some of the audio in the room.
colluding with russia. miss yates, do you have any evidence, are you aware of any evidence that would subject that in the 2016 campaign anybody in the trump campaign colluded with the russian government or intelligence services in an improper fashion? and senator, my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information. sally yates wasn t the only one testifying today. she shared the witness table with the former director of national intelligence james clapper. during his opening remarks, clapper underscored, as fbi director comey did in his capitol hill testimony last week, the urgency and the depth of the threat posed by russia. and this got our attention. he said, quote, if there has ever been a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundation of our democratic political system,
to be fair to mr. mcgahn, i think the issue he raised, that he wasn t clear on was why we cared that michael flynn had lied to the vice president and others. why that was a matter essentially i think that s clear. within d.o.j. jurisdiction. i think that s so clear. and we have mcgahn doesn t understand what s wrong with this? yates was also asked about any evidence she may have seen that the trump campaign was colluding with russia. miss yates, do you have any evidence, are you aware of any evidence that would subject that in the 2016 campaign anybody in the trump campaign colluded with the russian government or intelligence services in an improper fashion? and senator, my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information. sally yates wasn t the only one testifying today. she shared the witness table with the former director of