they do not inherently include a prohibition of the intelligence community. >> yes, sir. >> mr. comey, are you aware whether or not the director of national intelligence, director clapper, ever briefed the president of the united states, then president obama, concern ing the possible collection of communication between the incoming administration or officials? >> i cannot comment on that. >> why not, mr. comey? >> because it may involve classified information that i can't talk about here. >> i can't remember with the full committee. >> we'll have to refresh your memory on those conversations then. mr. comey, did president obama ever acknowledge to you being briefed of possible inadvertent or incidental collection by the intelligence community of any communications of members of the incoming trump administration? >> i'll have to give you the same answer, mr. turner. >> mr. comey, the first question related to whether or not mr. clapper had briefed the president of the united states. he will be appearing before us next week and we'll certainly be directing the question to him also. mr. comey, are you aware of any evidence that general flynn prior to the election ever related to russian government or russian government official that the trump administration, in the future, would release, rescind or reverse u.s. sanctions against russia or ever made any offer of a quid pro quo for releasing, rescinding or reversing u.n. sanctions against russia? are you aware of any evidence? >> that's not something i can comment on, mr. turner. >> why is that? >> i'm trying very hard not to talk about anything that relates to a u.s. person or might rule in or rule out things that we might be investigating. i'm trying to be studiously vague to protect the integrity of the investigation. please don't interpret my no comment as meaning this or meaning that. i just can't comment. >> mr. comey, there are statutes, guidelines and procedures concerning what does it take for the fbi to open up a counterintelligence investigation into a u.s. citizen. you can't say let's go look at somebody. you have to have a basis. you opened the investigation into members of the trump campaign concerning russia in july of 2006. we're trying to get a picture of what does it take to tip over for an investigation. now, previously people have said that there have been individuals who attended a meeting with russian officials, individuals who -- a member who is paid to attend a conference, a picture that was taken. travel to a foreign place. there are many people both in all of our administrations and sometimes certainly members who left congress who would qualify for that. what is the tipping point? don't you need some action rather than just attending a meeting where a picture was taken or you traveled to a country before you're open for investigation for counterintelligence by the fbi? >> the standard is -- there's a couple different at play. credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe that an american may be acting as an agent of a foreign power. >> the reason we're struggling with this, mr. comey, obviously we have the statements of mr. clapper that there's no evidence of collusion with russia. he just left the intelligence community. and as you were aware, we now sit -- because as you said, admiral rogers, the russians wanted to put a cloud over our system. and mr. comey by your announcement today, there is now a cloud that undermines our system. there is a cloud that where we're sitting with mr. clapper, who was obviously in a very important position to know who stated to us that there's no evidence of collusion and you will not give us evidence or any substantive evaluation of it. we now sit with this cloud. and it's important. mr. chairman, i have a few more additional questions if i might. >> we'll get back to you, mr. turner. >> thanks, mr. chairman. i recognize jackie spear. >> thank you, mr. schiff. >> mr. tillerson in 2014 started to lobby the united states government, asking them to shift or lift the sanctions. in his confirmation, as he said, i have never lobbied against sanctions personally. to my knowledge exxonmobil never directly lobbied against sanctions. yet there is lobbying reporting that shows exxonmobil actually paid over $300,000 to lobbyists in 2014 and that mr. tillerson visited the white house five times in 2014 and treasury with secretary lew seven times. is there something disconcerting about a u.s. ceo attempting to undermine the sanctions imposed by our government against another country for acts that we find to be disadvantageous to the world order? director comey? >> that's not a question i can answer for a variety of reasons. i'm not qualified to answer and i shouldn't be answering questions like that. >> okay. how about this then? is it disconcerting to you as director of the fbi that a u.s. ceo would say publicly that he is very close friends with president putin and has had a 17-year relationship with him? >> that's not a question i can answer. >> would it raise any red flags? >> that's not a question i can answer. >> admiral rogers? >> lots of american corporations do business in russia. i have no knowledge of the specifics we're talking about. i'm in no way qualified or knowledgeable enough to comment on this. >> all right. let's move on to someone else in that web. his name is michael caputo. he is a pr professional, conservative radio talk show host. he moved to russia and was working for the agency for international development. he was fired from that job because he refused to follow a state department position. he then opened a pr firm in moscow and married a russian woman. he subsequently divorced her and in 1999, his business failed. roger stone, a mentor to him, urged him to move to florida and open his pr firm in miami, which is exactly what mr. caputo did. then in 2000 he worked with media to improve putin's image in the united states. do we know who gas chrome media is? do you know anything about gas chrome, director? >> i don't. >> well, it's an oil company. in 2007, he began his campaign and met his second wife. my question is, what possible reason is there for the trump campaign to hire putin's image consultant? any thoughts on that, director comey? >> no thoughts. >> admiral rogers? >> likewise, ma'am. >> all right. do either of you know what michael caputo is doing for trump effort today? >> i have no idea. >> and i'm not going to talk about u.s. persons. >> all right. let's move on now to carter page. carter page was the founder of global energy. it's an investment fund. he has only one partner and that partner is sergey lasenko, firmer executive of gas prom oil company. before that from 2004 to 2007 he worked for merrill lynch in moscow. in march of 2016, then candidate trump referred to carter page as his foreign policy adviser to the washington post. the next day page asserts his -- that is an adviser on russia and energy. and then subsequently candidate trump says he doesn't know him. on september 26 he takes a leave of absence from the campaign, page criticizes u.n. sanctions and nato's approach to russia, saying -- and then subsequently says he is his stake in gas prom in august. he writes an article criticizing u.s. sanctions in an article in global policy and then rebuked the west for focusing on so-called an ex-ation of crimea. in july of 2016 he gives a graduation speech at the new economic school, denies meeting with the prime minister for steel and his dossier says he met with, again, igor session, offering a 19% interest in rosneft, the biggest transfer of public property to private ownership. now carter page is a national security adviser to donald trump. do you believe that -- why do we -- i guess, again, here is another company that has had sanctions opposed upon it. could you again clarify why we impose sanctions on companies? >> admiral rogers did a better job than i did. >> i'm sorry, i don't remember my response but i'll stand by it. >> it was excellent. >> all right. at that point i'll yield back, mr. chair. >> i now yield to mr. quigley. >> thank you, mr. ranking member. thank you for service. thank you for being here. we've talked a little bit about the russian playbook, right, extortion, bribery, false news, disinformation. russian playbook how it's worked in eastern europa central eur e europe, a lot of it involves trying to influence individuals in that country. correct? >> yes. >> so it seems to be a black and white notion of whether there was collusion but does a russian active measure trying to attempt at succeeding in collusion, does the person involve actually have to know? does it have to involve knowing collusion for there to be damage? >> generally in the world of intelligence often times there are people who are called co-optees who don't realize they're dealing with agents for a foreign power and they're doing things for someone that they think is a friend, a business associate, not realizing it's for the foreign government. it can happen. it's actually quite a frequent technique. >> and is it beyond that sometimes to include things where the actor doesn't necessarily know what they're doing is helping that other government? >> exactly. >> what are instances, examples of what that might include in a generic sense? >> often times a researcher here in the united states may think they're dealing with a peer researcher in a foreign government,er, not knowing that that researcher is either knowingly or unwittingly passing information to a foreign adversary of the united states. >> can you explain and elaborate the differences with implicit or explicit collusion? >> collusion is not a legal term of art. i have not used it here today. we're investigating to see if there's any coordination. >> explicit or implicit coordination. >> i guess implicit -- i would think of it as knowing or unknowing. you can do things to help a foreign nation state, as i said, without realizing you're dealing with -- you think you're helping a buddy, a researcher at a university in china. what you're actually doing is passing information that ends up at the chinese government. that's unwitting. and implicit would be i'm doing this because i want to help the chinese government and i know he's hooked up with the chinese government. >> admiral rogers, can you give examples of what you've witnessed in your career? >> sometimes u.s. individuals will be approached by other individuals connected with foreign governments who will misrepresent their identity, if you will. think i'm working for a business, commercial interest, create a relationship. then it turns out there really is no commercial interest. it's a direct extension of a foreign government. >> romance can be a feature. somebody dating someone, create a close relationship and the u.s. government person thinks they're in love with this person and vice versa. and the other person is actually an agent of a foreign power. >> would you describe this as naive acquiesence? >> you're being naive about the issue. >> you see that at times. >> okay. >> going on to thing that you probably can't comment upon, which is of equal concern, we're all, at this point, very familiar with mr. sessions' testimony before the united states senate in which he specifically said he didn't have this contact with the russian and then amended testimony in which he acknowledged, i believe, two such testimonies. first was in july during the convention. and then later in september, afterwards, all the while while the hacking and dumping of materials were taking place and certainly someone in the position of senator sessions would have been aware of this, perhaps would have remembered these conversations or might have mention ed asked the russin ambassador to knock it off. apparently none of those things happened or at least he doesn't remember they happened. what we're reading now is that there was a third meeting as early as april of last year in washington, d.c. a meeting in which candidate trump was present and the russian ambassador was present. at some point in time this goes well beyond an innocent -- under the best of circumstances, oh, i forgot sort of thing or that doesn't count. when you correct your testimony in front of the united states senate you're still under oath. you're swearing to the american people that what you're saying is true. the third time is well beyond that. and is quite simply perjury. as we look at this, as we go forward, gentlemen, i ask that you take that into consideration. this is far more than what we have talked about just in the general sense did the russians hack or not in the scope of this to a concerted effort and plan to lie to the american public about what took place and what the motivations were beyond this process. again, thank you for your service. i yield back to the ranking member. >> i yield to mr.. >> if you decide a witness deliberately lied about something significant in this case you should consider not believing anything that witness says. >> that's familiar to me. >> and your testimony at the beginning of this hearing was that president trump's claims that former president obama had wiretapped him is false. >> i said we have no information that supports it. >> with respect to donald trump, do you remember the other instruction relating to the truthfulne truthfulness? if a defendant makes a false statement knowing the statement was false or intending to mislead, that conduct may also show he or she were aware of their guilt. >> that sounds familiar to me, from my distant past. >> i want to talk about the russian playbook. and financial can be one? >> yes. >> compromise? >> yes. >> setting up a compromise. >> yes. >> how about inadvertently captured in a compromise, meaning they have vast surveillance and you stumble into that surveillance and are caught in a compromise. >> and then take that information, try to use it to coerce you, yeah, that's part of the playbook. >> i'll yield back, chair, and continue. >> gentleman's time has expired. we'll go back to mr. turner. >> thank you. gentlemen, i want to go back to the issue of admiral rogers indicated that the goal of the russians is to put a cloud on our system, to undermine our system. and i would think certainly today, mr. comey, with your announcement of an investigation that the russians would be very happy with that as an outcome, because the cloud of their actions and activities continues and will continue to undermine until you're finished with whatever your investigation is currently in the scope of. i want to go back to the issue of how does one open an investigation. again, i'm a little confused by some of the things that we hear as to the basis of an investigation. mr. comey, if an individual attends a meeting with a foreign leader, is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation? >> more than somebody met with somebody? >> yeah. >> no. >> without more than -- if they had their picture taken with a foreign leader, is that enough? >> would depend upon where they were, who took the picture. >> assume that they're in the foreign country and in that foreign leader's government offices or facilities, if they're having a picture taken with them, is that enough to a counterintelligence investigation? >> it would depend. >> on what? because i'm saying if there's just a picture. i can tell you certainly lots of people have had lots of pictures. is it enough that a person has just had their picture taken with a foreign leader at the foreign leader's government official offices or place of residence? >> the reason i say it depends, it depends. did the person sneak over to the foreign country and meet them clandest clandestinely? >> let's say it's not clandestine, that faes open. a person has attended an event, gone over to meet with the foreign government official, is at their foreign government official facility or their official residence and has a picture taken. and has no intention of being covertly with that person. is that enough to open an investigation? >> tricky to answer hypotheticals but that doesn't strike me enough. your next question is going to get deeper into h wrchlt pos. >> no, no, these are pretty straightforward. what if you're paid to attend a conference in a foreign country and you're paid to attend that conference not directly by the foreign government, but nonetheless payment does occur for you to attend a conference. president bill clinton attended many such conferences and spoke and received payment. is receiving payment by attending to speak in conference -- it's not covert. it's open. they're attending to speak at a conference, received payment for purposes of speaking. is that enough to open a counterintelligence investigation? >> i can't say as i sit here. it would depend upon a lot of different things. >> if you had no other information or evidence other than the fact that they attended, is that enough for you, for the fbi, to open a counterintelligence investigation of a private u.s. citizen? >> i can't answer the hypothetical. because it would depend upon a number of other things. >> i limited it. there would be no other things, mr. comey. i said only. the only information you had was that they attended an event in which they were paid, a conference, and it was not covert. is that only sufficient information to open an investigation against a private u.s. citizen? >> who paid them? did they disclose it? what did they discuss when they were there? who else was sitting with them? there's lots of other circumstances that make that even that simple seeming hypo difficult to answer. >> let's say that they traveled to a foreign country and they openly traveled. it wasn't covert. is traveling there enough? >> just traveling around the world? n no. >> i'm very concerned, mr. comey about the issue of how an investigation is opened and how we end up at this situation once again where mr. clap per directr of national intelligence just said when he left there was no evidence of collusion. yet as admiral rogers said, we're sitting now where the russians' goal is being achieved of causing a cloud or undermining our electoral process. i know if i attend a classified briefing and i receive classified information and i go and tell someone that classified information, if i leak it or i release it, i've committed a crime. but what if someone goes to a classified briefing, walks out of that briefing and openly lies about the content of that briefing? it's unclear to me what happens then. and it's important because, as you know, this committee and certainly both of you gentlemen have handled a lot of classified information and recently, more recently, the reported classified information is put out in the press. and you know and i know that some of that information is not true. if they come out and lie about the content of classified information, have they committed a crime? >> it's a really interesting question. i don't think so. if all they've done is lie to a reporter, that's not against the law. if they've done it -- i don't want to break anybody's hearts with that but that is not against the law. i can imagine a circumstance where it's part of some broader conspiracy or something. but just that false statement to a reporter is not a crime. >> and i want to underscore this for a second. i agree with you. i think it's no crime. and so every reporter out there that has someone standing in front of them and saying i'm taking this great risk of sharing with you u.s. secrets, besides them purporting to be a traitor, are committing no crime if they lie to them? all these news articles that contain this information that we know is not the case are being done so at damage to the united states but without the risk of a crime. and my next aspects of your question to you, mr. comey is this. what is the obligation of the intelligence committee to correct such falsehoods? some of this information that we read in the washington post and "new york times" is extremely false and extremely incendiary and extremely condemning of individuals and certainly our whole system. what is your obligation, mr. comey, to be that source to say i can't release classified information but i can tell you it's not that. >> that's a great question, mr. turner. there's a whole lot out there that is false. and i suppose some of it could be people lying to reporters. i think that probably happens. more often than not it's people who act like they know when they really don't know. they're not the people who actually know the secrets. they're one or two hops out and are passed along things they think they know. there is -- we not only have no obligation to correct that, we can't. because if we start calling reporters and saying, hey, this thing you said about this new aircraft we've developed, that's inaccurate, actually. it's got two engines. we just can't do that. we'll give information to our adversaries that way. it's very, very frustrating by the way bu we can't start down that road. if it's unclassified information and a reporter misreports the contents of a bill we can call them and say hey, you need to read it more carefully. you missed this or or that. we can't do that with classified information. i've read a whole lot of stuff in the past two months which is just wrong and i can't say which is wrong and i can't say it to those reporters. >> if you could help us on this issue, i would appreciate it. what happens is that you come into a classified briefing with us and you tell us, perhaps, something that is absolutely false. it really shouldn't be classified because you're telling us it's not true. but yet we can't go tell it's not true because you told us in a classified setting. is there a way we can at least have some exchange as to what's not true so that the american people don't listen to false stories in the washington post and "new york times" that we all know are not true? that would be helpful. if you could think about how you could help us. >> i would love to invent that machine. we can't. where do you stop on that slope? >> false is false. >> i don't call "the new york times" and say you got that one wrong, bingo, they got that one right. it's an enormously complicated endeavor for us. we have to stay clear of it entirely. >> thank you, mr. comey. we all read in the press vice president pence denied that general flynn denied talking with russia. did the fbi take any action in response to the vice president's statements? >> i can't comment on that, mr. turner. >> "the new york times" reported on february 14th flynn was interviewed by fbi personnel. is that correct? >> i can't comment on that, mr. turner. >> mr. comey, i do not have any additional questions but i thank you both for your participation. and, again, i thank the chairman of the ranking member for the bipartisan aspect of this investigation. >> dr. wentstrup is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you, gentlemen, for being here. i appreciate your endurance in this effort today. how long has russia and the soviet union been interfering or attempting to interfere with our election process? >> in the report we previously talked about, we had seen this kind of behavior to some degree, attempting to influence outcomes for decades. >> going back to the soviet union? >> right. not to the same level necessarily. >> i'm curious also what triggers counterintelligence investigation of a government official. and in some ways i'm asking for myself. example, last week i spoke at an event on foreign policy with atlanta council. unbeknownsted to me iraqi ambassador to the united states was there. he comes up to me acid, introduces himself and says he would like to meet with me at some time. this isn't a theatrical. this is real. this is why i'm asking this. would i be in trouble or under investigation if i meet with him? >> this is the slope i tried to avoid going down with mr. turner, dr. wentstrup. i don't think i should be answering hypotheticals. >> it's not a hypothetical. i'm asking you in advance. because i want to know if i can meet with him and be under investigation or not. and i don't think that's an unrealistic question. this is real. this is right now. >> i get that. the fbi does not give advisory opinions. and so if you're asking me about your particular case, i can't do that. >> so you'll tell me afterwards? >> no, i'll never tell you. >> well, you might. somebody might. somebody might tell the press. right? that's where i'm going next. i want to know, what can i discuss? what am i allowed to discuss? what triggers the investigation is really what we're trying to get to, in general. maybe not with the iraqi ambassador, but what about with the russian ambassador? what are my obligations? do i need to advise someone that i'm meeting with them? do i have to discuss the agenda before i meet with them? just so we're clear. this is really what it's coming down to, what we're talking about. so, i don't think it's unnecessary or ridiculous for me to ask that. in intelligence reporting, if the identity of a u.s. official is disseminated to those on an as-needed basis or those that need-to-know basis does that generally lead to a counterintelligence investigation of that individual? so in general, if a u.s. official is in this report and it's disseminated, does that lead to an investigation of the individual? >> not general. not as a rule, no. >> okay. >> it would depend upon lots of other circumstances. >> next i want to go to the article from february 14th in the "new york times," which i believe we're all familiar. you may not be answer to any of these. the article cites four current and former american officials. do you know the identity of those four officials? >> i'm not going to comment on an article. >> okay. well it's not necessarily on the article but okay. do you know for a fact that the four current and former american officials provided information for the story? >> i have to give you the same answer. >> okay. with or without an investigation going on, has anyone told you that they know who leaked the information or who leaked any information on russian involvement in the u.s. elections or russian involvement with the trump election team? >> not going to comment on that. >> okay. is it possible that the "new york times" misrepresented its sourcing for this february 14th article? possible? >> i can't comment on that. >> is it possible that "the new york times" was misled by individuals claiming to be current or former american officials? >> give you the same answer, dr. wentstrup. >> can i ask you why you can't comment on that? >> a number of reasons. i'm not confirming that the information in that article is accurate or inaccurate. i'm not going to get into the business that we talked about earlier. >> okay. is it then -- let me ask you this. >> and there are other reasons. >> sure. >> i'm also not going to confirm whether we're investigating things. so if i start talking about what i know about a particular article, i run the risk of stepping on both of those land mines. >> one more question before the time is up. i am curious, is it possible and nothing to do with this article -- is it possible that a so-called source to a media outlet may actually be a russian advoca advocate? nothing to do with this story per se. just is it possible that a russian surrogate could actually be the source that the newspaper is relying on? >> in general, sure, somebody could always be pretending to be something they're not. >> i yield back at this time. >> mr. schiff is recognized for 15 minutes. >> just a couple of follow-up questions and i'll pass it to mr. quigley for reading something into the record. >> chairman, can i ask you estimated time? i'm not made of steel. i might need to take a quick break. >> would you like to do that now? >> if you can. i didn't know how much longer you planned to go. >> i think we want to keep going until the members have asked all their questions. >> just a quick rest stop? >> we'll break for about ten minutes? >> that's plenty. >> okay. ten-minute break there. welcome to "power lunch." i'm michelle caruso-cabrera, along with melissa lee, tyler mathisen and brian sullivan. three hours of testimony from fbi director james comey who maybe wants to get something to eat, go to the bathroom. he asked to take a break along with nsa director michael rogers. they are being grilled on russia, wiretaps, classified leaks, president trump. we've got it all covered for you. eamon javers, what are the headlines? >> dramatic revelations from the hearing so far this morning. we asked whether we were going to get aens from two major questions here. the first one was whether or not comey would say anything about whether president obama had ordered wiretapping of president trump during the campaign. we got an answer to that question. the other one was whether or not comey would say anything at all about an fbi investigation. will he confirm the existence of that investigation? he did so. here is that moment on tape from earlier in the hearing. take a listen. >> the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. as with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. >> beyond that, though, comey wouldn't give any specifics about who was under investigation, what specifically they're looking at or how they're conducting this investigation. in terms of the wiretap issue, michelle, here is what comey had to say. >> with respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, i have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the fbi. the department of justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the department of justice and all its components. the department has no information that supports those tweets. >> so what we've seen over the course of this hearing is that democrats have been very eager to dive into subject areas that comey can't really give any information on, who is involved, names of various officials who might be connected with the trump campaign. comey very much pushing back here saying look, i can't give you anything more than i gave you in those two statements. republicans, by contrast, have been very focused on the idea of leaking of classified information, very concerned that classified information appears to have been showing up in the press, particularly the new york times and washington post over the past several months. comey himself saying that discussion of classified information in the media appears to be at a relatively high point in his career historically. so there is some concern by republicans that somebody in the u.s. intelligence community is using their access to this information to spin the media and push the narrative out there. both sides digging in very hard here today on what has been a surprising and dramatic hearing. >> leaking is a long tradition in washington. we've seen intelligence information leaked before, eamon. i think it's the degree, when a newspaper can cite nine different sources has been the focus. let me ask you, the fact that comey was willing to acknowledge, yes, there is an investigation between the trump campaign and russia led to calls by hipoypocrisy by the republic. >> hillary clinton and her e-mail situation. ultimately, he did talk about that. that's what made democrats so angry during the campaign. here is comey, talking about hillary clinton. why won't he tell us anything about donald trump? now he says that he is conducting an investigation into russian interference in the election but he won't say today whether or not he is conducting these leak investigations. once you go down this road as an fbi director of confirming the existence of any investigation, you will be asked to confirm all of those investigations. and that's the box that comey is in, logically. >> he had gotten permission from the justice department to say exactly what he said about that investigation into russian influence of the elections. correct? >> yes. a really important point here is the way comey phrased this at the top of the hearing. i have been authorized by the department of justice to disclose this. clearly, there have been a lot of conversations behind the scenes today or in recent days about what exactly comey should say. >> maybe he was not authorized to talk about any other investigations pertaining to the leaks. and brian i'll get over to you, i promise. director rogers of the nsa refuted the story that had been published or presented on fox news that alleged that british intelligence had been engaged as a way to surveil the president-elect or candidate trump, correct? he knocked that down. >> he was asked if that had happened and said no, it didn't happen. he was asked if that was, in fact, ridiculous. his response to that was, yes, sir. so he pushed back very aggressively on that, said it would be a violation of what's called the five eyes agreement to share intelligence. it would be a violation of that agreement that's been in place for decades. >> to sort of frame it for people who may not have been able to listen the last few hours -- by the way, guys, it will continue. is it fair to say, eamon, the headlines will be very different, once again, depending on the political party you are affiliated with? many democrats are trying to tie tillerson to gas prom, to russia and many republicans are saying just knowing somebody and taking a photograph with them does not necessarily mean you are, quote, friendly. once again, we'll come out of this with each side saying this is how we view it. >> i think that's right. we live in a partisan world and you have red or blue glasses on, depending on how you look at this hearing today. if you're in the trump white house, you probably are having a bad day today with these disclosures but are heartened by the fact that republicans seem to be stay iing on message, focusing on this issue of leaks and not probing into who said what to whom, which comey has said he cannot talk about. iliana russ left knee leighten did say that there is bipartisan support to get to the bottom of this. they are saying we want these answers but are highlighting to the idea that they want to get to the issue of leaking first. >> the president has either been listening or watching as evidenced by several tweets he has sent out during the course of the hearings, which will resume, eamon, in a few minutes. we're waiting for the white house press secretary sean spicer to begin his daily briefing. how will the white house react to mr. comey and admiral rogers' testimony? we will carry the spicer briefing live. stay with us. welcome back to "power lunch." we want to go straight to the daily briefing held by press secretary sean spicer. >> proven commitment to the constitution. tuesday and wednesday, judge gorsuch will be questioned by each member of the panel. thursday we expect things to conclude with the panel of witnesses. the president was glad to see so many people convey their support in the last few days for judge gorsuch. senator grassley, former new york mayor bloomberg, editorial boards from across the country and several former colleagues and classmates either penned op-eds or provided comments in one way or another, stating his impeccable qualifications for the bench. they add to the long list of juri jurists, politicians and elected officials from both sides of the aisle who have already given the judge their support. the president looks forward to watching gorsuch continue to show the senate what a benefit he will be to the bench. speak ryan, director of health and human services, tom price and dr. zeke emanuel, who has helped to craft the health care policy since his work on obamacare. he and the president have differing views on the best way to make health care affordable and accessible, but the president also believes that the health and well-being of the american people shouldn't always be a partisan issue and will continue to reach across party lines and listen to voices on this issue. last week, he heard from individuals and families who suffered from the disastrous results of obamacare, spoken to health care policy groups, republican congressional leadership and health insurance companies. this week he and his staff will have discussions on women and health care while continuing an open dialogue with members of congress. and he will be hosting even more meetings and listening sessions in the coming weeks as he works with congress to bring common sense forms. he is interested in listening to all stake holders in the health care field and will be in the process as it moves along. this afternoon, the president had lunch with the vice president and, as we speak, is meeting with secretary of state tillerson. the secretary just returned from an important trip to asia. he made it clear that america is committed to our allies, japan and the republic of korea and we expect china to increase influence in north korea. this trip set the stage for future leader level engagement between the u.s. and china. during this meeting he will debrief the president on his trip. later this afternoon, the president will welcome the prime minister al-abadi of iraq. iraqi people have been a brave and steadfast partner in our shared fight against isis, al qaeda and terrorism. forge an era where iraq is stability for peace. the president will depart the white house for louisville, kentucky for a make america great again rally before returning to the white house later this evening. few notes before i take some questions. yesterday, treasury secretary mnuchin returned from a very successful trip to europe where he stopped in the uk for a bilateral with the chancellor and later met with 18 of his counterparts during the g20 ministrial in baden baden. microeconomic policy, financial regulation, international tax and elicit finance. during the meetings the secretary and his counterparts submitted a platform on steps to promote growth and financial stability. in terms of the schedule for the rest of the week, tomorrow the president will sign s-442, the national air naughtaeronautics remarks at the republican national committee dinner in the evening. he will meet with the congressional black caucus. thursday he will hold an event with truck drivers and representatives from the trucking companies and industry on health care and its negative impacts on their industry and livelihood. which happens to be the largest employer in 29 states. and on friday, the president will hold a brief independence day celebration. further updates on all those events later. finally i want to address the house intelligence committee hearing that is currently happening in which the fbi director and nsa director are currently testifying and comment to the extent i can at this time. this hearing, as chairman nunez noted is the first of several that the house intelligence committee is engaged in. the president is happy that they're pursuing the facts in this. as has been previously reported, director comey confirmed that they are investigating russia's role in regards to interference with the election. it's clear nothing has changed. senior obama intelligence officials have gone on record to confirm no evidence of a trump/russia collusion. obama's director of national intelligence said so and we take them at their word. however, there was some new information that came -- >> quick programming update. the hearing on capitol hill with james comey, the director of the fbi, has, indeed, resumed. they took a ten-minute break. we'll go back to the press conference with sean spicer. the dow was up 40 points. it is now negative, down 10 points right now. of course, we are still monitoring the markets for you as well. right now, let us go back to white house press secretary, sean spicer. >> before president obama left office, michael flynn was unmasked and information was illegally leaked. unmasking and revealing individuals endangers national security. not only was general flynn's identity made available, director comey refused to answer the question on whether or not he briefed president obama on his phone calls and activities. director comey called these types of disclosures of classified information a threat to national security and said he will investigate and pursue these matters to the full extent of law. he also said that the leaking of classified information had become, quote, unusually active in the timeframe in question. it's also important to note that both directors comey and rogers told the committee that there's no evidence that votes were changed in the swing states the president had won. i think that pretty much, until we get to the ending of this hearing, i don't know that i want to comment too much further. with that, i'm glad to take a few questions. jonathan? >> sean, does the president still have complete confidence in fbi director comey? >> there's no reason to believe he didn't at this time. john? >> wait a second. >> i answered. >> no information to support the allegations that the president made against president obama. >> at this time. >> so is the president prepared to withdraw that accusation, apologize to the president? >> no. we started a hearing. it's still ongoing. this is one in a series of hearings that will be happening. as i noted last week, there's also a lot of interesting news coming out of that in terms of the activities that have gone on to reveal the information on american citizens that have been part of this, particularly general flynn. a lot of things aren't being covered in this hearing that i think are interesting. that since it's ongoing, i'll leave that for now. there are still a lot of areas that need to be covered and information that needs to be discussed. >> investigating the leaks and the possibility of coordination between the trump campaign and the russians. given that the president said the doctors made up the russian story, why would the fbi director -- >> i don't think that's what he said. >> investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and russian government and whether or not there was any coordination. >> correct. again, investigating it and having proof of it are two different things. you look at the acting obama cia director said that there is smoke but there's no fire. senator tom cotton, not that i've seen, not that i'm aware of. director clapper, not to my knowledge. senator chris coons, democrat from delaware, i have no evidence of collusion. there's a point you continue to search for something that everybody who has been briefed hasn't seen or found. i think it's fine to look into it. at the end of the day, they're going to come to the same conclusion that everybody else has had. so you can continue to look for something but continuing to look for something that doesn't exist doesn't matter. there is a discussion -- i heard some names thrown around before that were hangers-on around the campaign. at some point, people that thrown around at the beginning of this hearing, some of those people have had cease and desist letters to them. the carter pages, yes. the greatest amount of interaction they had with the campaign was the campaign apparently sending them a series of cease and desist letters. so, again, when you read a lot of this activity about associates, there is a fine line between people who want to be part of something that they never had an official role in and people who actually played a role in either the campaign or the transition. julie? >> some questions on the hearing today. does the president -- now that we know there is an ongoing investigation by the fbi, does the president stand by his comments that he's not aware of any contacts that his campaign associates had with russia during the election? >> yes. >> secondly, has anyone from the -- >> can i amend the first one? obviously, to be clear, i know that -- i'm trying to think through this for a second. obviously, general flynn. but again -- >> before the election. >> and i'm not aware of any at this time. even general flynn was a volunteer of the campaign. and then, obviously, there's been discussion of paul manneforte, who played a very limited role for a very limited time. hey, john, hold on. can you stop interrupting other people's questions? jonathan? somebody is asking a question. it's not your press briefing. julie is asking a question. please calm down. julie? >> are you saying that the president is aware of contacts? >> nothing that's not been previously discussed. i just don't want it to look like we're not aware of -- >> and then as part of this investigation? >> not that i'm aware of. mara? >> you made a point of saying that comey refused to say whether he had briefed obama about the investigation and also the president on his official account tweeted the same thing today. comey made a point of saying please do not draw any conclusions from my ability to confirm or deny anything but you are drawing a conclusion. >> i think we're pointing it out. we're making a point that it is not known. and i think there's further -- to everyone who is looking for a conclusion today, i think there's a lot more that needs to be discussed and looked at before we can jump to a conclusion about -- hold on. the point is that in the same token, you've got individuals that want an answer and at the same time there's clearly a lot of information that hasn't come out or been discussed. >> so you're looking forward to the -- >> i think that we are -- there is a lot more to come is the answer. >> the reason i'm asking the questions, you said that they are going to come to the same conclusion of everybody else. >> my point is that -- >> if you already know what the conclusion is -- >> no, no, no. what i'm getting at is that there is this media narrative that continues to talk about collusion that exists. yet every person who has been briefed, nunez, tom cotton, clapper, the obama appointee, have all said nothing they've seen makes them believe there wasny collusion. there's difference about talking about an investigation into the 2016 election, which we all know, and any evidence of collusion. there is no evidence, according to the people who have been briefed, of any collusion or activity that leads them to believe that that exists. that is an important point that gets overlooked. >> they look into it, they are going to come to the same conclusion that this collusion doesn't exist. >> that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying every single person -- what the director said today is that there's an ongoing investigation. my point is to say that everybody who has been briefed on that investigation -- it doesn't -- there is an assumption because there's an investigation it's about something. my point to you is that there's an assumption on behalf of most people in the media about what that investigation must mean. my point to you is that despite the narrative that gets played over and over again with respect to what the investigation might mean in terms of collusion, every person, republican and democrat, that has been briefed on it has come to the same conclusion, that there is no collusion. we can talk about an investigation, big picture holistically, the fact that so many people are trying to jump to a conclusion seems very misguided. zeke? >> do you expect the invitation to president xi to the summit, was that extended on that trip, do you expect that to be taking place in early -- >> i'll try to have more of a readout afterwards. i know they're going to talk extensively about what he accomplished in japan, south korea and, obviously, in beijing. i'll let the secretary of state debrief the president before i get ahead of deciding what was discussed in beijing. >> you said in the case of the president's tweets that this ongoing investigation that more things will come out. the collusion charge list dead shall why in one case is that sufficient versus the other case there will be more information coming out? >> because, again, i think there's a difference. i'm not ruling anything out. i'm merely explaining to you that every person, republican, democrat, obama administration across a broad section -- [ inaudible ] >> in terms of what? [ inaudible ] >> but i think on the investigation itself we know from the people who have been briefed. on the other piece of it, we know it's an ongoing thing. even according to the department of justice, in terms of the information that's been provided and chairman nunez that they are still at the beginning of this process. that is a very different thing than a group of people saying there is an ongoing investigation. from what we've been brief there had is no evidence to suggest any type of conclusion. that's the difference. >> slightly different topic, in his first eight weeks in office, president trump has made at least ten trips to the golf course. he regularly used to criticize president obama for spending time on the course. how is his golf game any different? >> i think two things. one is you saw him utilize this as an opportunity with prime minister abe to help foster relations with asia. secondly, we went down to -- he had a mini cabinet meeting the other day or two weekends ago down at his club in virginia. and i remember so many people jumping to the conclusion that he was going down, playing golf. just because you go somewhere doesn't necessarily mean you did it. on a couple of oaks he has conducted meetings there, has actually had phone calls. just because he heads there doesn't mean that's what's happening. >> i know he did meet with prime minister abe on the course. but we're not getting a lot of details on other high-level meetings that are taking place. if he is having these productive meetings on the course, why isn't the president and his aides becoming more forthcoming? >> the same reason he can have dinner and lunch with somebody and mot -- the president is entitled to a bit of privacy at some point, which we always agreed to. we bring the press protective pool to be there, but the president is also entitled to a bit of privacy as well. trey? >> the president believe the fbi will do a fair job of investigating any sort of links to russia during the election? then i have one more. >> a variety of institutes are looking at t when you get to the bottom of it, i think thist will continue to vindicate him. >> follow-up, the president tweeted the question about a potential dnc connection to russia during the election. >> right. >> is he under the impression that the clinton campaign had inappropriate contact with the russian government in the election? >> that's an interesting aspect that's not being covered. number one, from everything that had been publicly available on several occasions, the dnc was asked by the fbi to investigate -- or to allow their servers to be looked at, despite all the claims of their concerns about leaking. yet the question still doesn't come up, why wouldn't the dnc, on multiple occasions, rebuff the fbi? if they were so concerned about hacks and leaking, why did the dnc not ask the fbi to come look? not only did they not ask them, they rebuffed them on multiple occasions. why? what are they hiding? what were they concerned of? there's a serious question. they're very clear about the concerns that they have as well as all the leadership in the democratic party. and yet when it came to hacks and haeks out of the dnc and they're quick to jump to the conclusion about who did it. yet they wouldn't allow the fbi to investigate it. there's a whole second set of concerns. what was hillary clinton's role? you look at the obama history, the obama administration and the clintons involvement with russia in terms of donations that the clintons received from russian entities, the idea that they sold off tremendous amount of uranium to the russian government. yet where was the concern for that? what are we doing to look into that? the obama administration 2009 who talked about a reset with russia and a desire to reset relationships. it was hillary clinton who signed off on the deal that gav a russian company one-fifth of the u.s. uranium supply. where is the questioning about that? what did they get? there was discussion the other day about a russian official noting that both campaigns sought to do it. where are their concerns about the hillary clinton side? they are quick to point fingers. yet when it comes to discussing their own collusion or questions involving their involvement with russian officials or biops to the russians, where is the parody when it comes to these investigations? margaret? [ inaudible ] >> the fbi director president's tweets about wiretapping, former head of the dni, house intelligence committees. a series of officials. when does this end for the president? >> it's not a question of a date. it's a question of where we get answers. look at someone like michael flynn. how does an american citizen, who should be protected by law from having their identity unmasked -- how does that happen? think about it like this. the fbi and all the relevant intelligence agencies have access to this document. they can figure out who it was. >> the wiretapping of the president. >> i understand that. what i'm getting at is that there's a lot of information that we've come to learn about what happened with surveillance throughout the 2016 election and the transition. you look at somebody like michael flynn and realize while they might have been looking at somebody else during that time how does somebody's name that is protected by law from being disclosed get out in public? why was it put out in the public? because the people in the intelligence community would have had access to that information. they could have found out who it was. yet you've got to question why was a name that should have been protected by law from being put out into the public domain put out there? what were the motives behind that? what else do we need to know? who was behind that unmasking? >> are you saying that the president has evidence that -- >> no, no. i'm saying a lot more questions need to get asked about the involvement, what was being done in terms of surveillance, who was being surveiled, why, why are being people sort of unmasked and having their identity known? there's a lot more questions that need to get asked. >> who does the president trust to get the answers of all the heads of those agencies? >> we talked about this ad nauseum. today is the first of several hearings that chairman nunez intends to call. senator burr has already at alled about it. there's a way to go. i get that you want to know the end of the book right now but we're on the first chapter. >> so chairman nunez, he does trust him? >> yes. we put out a statement as much that we asked him to look into it. we have noted multiple times that that's where the president believes the appropriate place and process for all these documents to go through. steve? >> the president said he had a lot of meetings on north korea over the weekend. who were those meetings with and what was his reaction to north korea's test of this rocket? >> we continue to be concern ed with north korea's activity. we continue to have discussions with japan and officials in south korea and urge china to step in, play a larger role in deterring both the ballistic and other missile threats that the north korea plays. i'm not -- i will try to have a further readout on those conversations. i think there is growing concern about north korea. that's part of what secretary tillerson will be discussing with him during their meeting. >> get a promise from china to weigh in more on north korea? >> i think he sent a very clear signal that our policy of strategic patience is over. president and the secretary of state have an expectation that china employ multiple points of pressure on north korea. we know that we don't agree 100% of the time with china. as the state department noted yesterday, president xi and secretary tillerson agreed that there are opportunities for greater cooperation between china and the united states and acknowledge that there are and will be differences in the future between the two countries. i think that secretary tillerson's trip continues to -- or help set us down that path and i think that the follow-on meetings with the leaders intend to have will be helpful in that vain. >> given the talk last week about the budget, priorities for the american tax dollars that need to cut programs like -- or make cuts to programs like meals and wheels and the arts, will the president consider curbing some of his trips to mar-a-lago? is he planning to cut those back at all, given his feelings about priorities for the americans tax dollars? >> i think that's a vast reach to suggest. presidents always travel. the president, wherever he goes, carries the apparatus of the white house with us. that's just something that happens. the president will continue to go and travel around the country. and have meetings to solve the nation's problems. just with -- because i know you took a little bit of a shot there. even the washington post, which is no friend to conservatives, even they sided with us that these false sort of narratives on meals on wheels, it's not a federal program. 3% of their total budget comes from a block grant. it's a state-run program. apparently they had a phenomenal weekend this week. i get that's a key program to point at but it's false and misleading to try to make that narrative stick. >> to your point that all presidents travel, no president has traveled so often and so early to their own private residence. >> president bush went to crawford. i mean, there are places -- i get it. i get t at the same time, the president is very clearly that he works seven days a week. this is where he goes to see his family. he brings people down there. this is part of being president. john? >> thank you, sean. turning back to the meeting with chancellor merkel on friday, did the president and the chancellor discuss the economic crisis in greece at all? and given the appointment of two officials to the treasury department who have been critical of the international monetary fund, does the administration see new or different role for the imf in resolving the greek economic crisis? >> let me refer you to the treasury department. the readout we provided on the chancellor's visit speaks for itself. they spoke at length as far as what they discussed and what they meant. i'm not going to step on that. frances francesca? >> thank you. are you aware of any white house officials under investigation by the fbi? >> no. >> and you mentioned the hangers-on in the campaign earlier, and carter page. there was also a question about roger stone. was he also in that category? is he someone that the president is still in frequent contact with? he's often called an informal adviser to the president. >> right. >> and a confidante. >> mr. stone is somebody the president has known for a long time. he worked briefly on the campaign, i think, until about august 2015 from recollection. but they have talked from time to time but i don't think any time recently. but they had a long relationship going back years where they provide counsel and played a role in the campaign but ended that role in august 2015. i don't know at all when the last time they even spoke was. >> sean, in the meeting this morning, did the president's cut in nih funding come up? how does he square meeting with gates and sort of focusing on this whole need to continue medical research and then at the same time want to cut medical research funding? >> i know they talked about cures and health. he applauds a lot of the work they've done overseas in particular. i don't have a full read on that yet. i'll try to get you more on t we discussed the nih in particular. there's this assumption in washington that if you don't spend more on a subject that you're not caring as much. when you look at some of the agencies and departments and programs we've seen, many cases they're not meeting their mission. and i think there are cost savings that can be achieved so that you can focus the dollars that are being allocated to a more effective use of the mission at hand. but, you know, it's interesting. only in washington do you literally judge the success of something by how much money you throw at the problem, not whether it's actually solving the problem or coming up with anything. april? >> sean, a couple of topics. one, back on wiretapping, comey said no information supported that president obama wiretapped president trump. so with that, he has said things like there's half truths coming from this president, this is dangerous. we're alienating allies. we need to trust our president. with that, i'm going to ask you -- and i need an answer. >> if you're citing adam schiff's political diatribe at the beginning as some sort of -- hold on. hold on. you want to talk about mistruths and misdirection, you look at that opening statement, it was filled with those. i don't need to use that as some basis for having to respond to. i was watching a lot of reporter response on twitter initially to his sort of diatribe. there were several folks that talked about how he's mischaracterizing and taking things way out of context. to use that as a basis as -- [ inaudible ] >> april, i addressed this multiple times. at this point, we are at the beginning phases of this and we have a ways to go. >> one question. >> yeah? >> and this is kind of going back -- >> this is number three now. >> no, it's number two. thank you. how is the president contributing to his own goal of reducing spending, deficit in the debt in his management of spending here at the white house? >> well, there's a lot -- we've used -- the white house, when it looks at a total percentage of the budget is minuscule. to ask that question is somewhat ironic after seeing director mulvaney sit up here and talk about the savings and the cost cutting measures we've seen across the entire budget. he sat up here and got grilled on that and answered effectively how the president is looking at efficiencies and duplicity in all programs throughout government. it's not just a question of here the athe white house but wholistically throughout all of government. you look at the activities that the president is personally engaged in, f-35, next generation of air force one, personally getting and look at ways in which we can create a more effective and efficient procurement process. that's one area where you'll see the president engage on more and more, look at all the stuff that the government buys and how we're doing it, our bidding process. in so many ways, especially the department of defense. >> three people here are not taking salaries. >> right. >> i'm talking about since he's making these massive cuts -- >> multiple people here who are not taking salaries. that is -- huh? no, way more than three, april. >> how many? >> i'll get back to you but several individuals are not taking a salary here. when you talk about commitment to helping to come serve this government, serve the president and actually help a lot of people have sacrificed tremendously in saying i've done very well for myself. this country has benefited me. this is an opportunity for me to give back. that there are people well through this organization who have done that. john? >> the president is probably one of the fiercest critics of anybody out there, made it quite clear that he believes this will take us back to worse than we were before the affordable care act came in. what did the president hope to gain by meeting with dr. emanuel? >> he wants to hear ideas not just of him but of a lot of people. we've brought in people on both sides of the aisle, from both houses, from industry. the idea is to try to make this the best possible -- he talked to elijah cummings a couple of weeks ago about drug prices. it's not about ideology or party but instituting a patient centric policy where they can get health care and coverage. hearing ideas, listening to his suggestions and figuring out if we can make it better. part of the amendments that speaker ryan talked about is, in large part, because we've been listening and making it better and making it better. and as it continues to work through the process, it's not just the current bill but also the additional legislation that's part of this overall three-pronged process we've talked about. making sure we do this right and give the american people the best possible outcome is what this has always been about. >> he wants to get this in front of the house maybe by thursday. how much will the plan change between now and then compared to what we saw voted on? >> three. ways and means. >> and is the president going on the hill tomorrow morning? >> no announcements on the schedule at this time. he will continue to make sure we do everything we can. i'll leave the legislative piece up to speaker ryan. >> how much does he think he's going to change between what we saw voted on ways & means and -- >> it depends. speaker ryan detailed some additions and ideas and suggestions on your network with chris wallace yesterday that he is considering. as we continue to meet with folks, there are staff-level discussions that occurred over the weekend. there will be more later this afternoon. to the extent we can can make changes that thabl us to maintain 218 votes we'll do it. sarah? >> sean, there are a number of president's orders on the hill and elsewhere who worry that the president's refusal to drop the whole wiretapping issue will eclipse some of his other accomplishments. what message does the president have for his supporters who worry that this could be a rabbit hole that might diminish other things he's trying to do, like health care? >> i think there will be a lot of accomplishments so they don't need to worry. a lot of things are coming down the pike, health care, tax reform, immigration, reforming government. a lot of things to be very proud of that people on both sides of the aisle are going to be excited to see. enacted. in due time there will be plenty to be proud of. sarah? >> a number of pivotal decisions. i'm wondering how is that insignificant? is the white house aware of any communications between paul manneforte and suspected russian operatives and is that a concern? >> to be clear i'm not dismissing paul manneforte -- with respect to paul, though, i believe -- i'm not looking to relitigate the election. i believe he was brought on some time in june and by the middle of august he was no longer with the campaign. for the final stretch of the swren election, he was not involved. just start to look at some individual there for a short period of time or separately individuals who really didn't play any role in the campaign and suggest that's the basis for anything is ridiculous. >> would it be cause for concern if we found out he was in contact with russian operatives? >> no, no, but to intimate that somebody was there for eight weeks and seventhly not there in the final three months of the campaign played some lasting role that influenced -- again, you realize somewhere between august 12th and 15th was when he ended his affiliation with the campaign. to suggest now if you look at the final three months of the campaign where none of the individuals in question that democrats brought up over and over again today were affiliated with the campaign to suggest that that somehow shows high-level collusion is a bit of a stretch to say the least. >> any contacts between paul manneforte and suspected russian operatives? >> no. >> sean you've been really critical of reports based on sources in the past. today the two headlines we got out of the committee were, one, an official confirmation from the fbi and justice department th there is an ongoing investigation of whether affiliates of a sitting president had contacts with russian operatives and you had questioned in the past a couple of weeks ago when there were reports in our paper and others that the fbi director was indicating there was no support for the president's tweets. you said those are just reports not coming from his mouth. we now got it from his mouth directly in open testimony that there's no evidence that he has to support the president's tweets. i guess the question is, you know, does that -- do those two facts, which are now on the record and not attributed to anonymous sourcing, does that cause this white house any concern? and how come you treat the one, the latter, the one about wiretapping you want to say that's in the early stages but on the former one you want to sort of come to the conclusion that the investigation is sort of gotten to the point where you don't have to worry about that because that's all said and done and everybody has come to a conclusion on that? seems like you're treating both of those pieces of news differently. >> first, i think your headlines are bad. i'm glad to rewrite -- no, i would be glad to if you're looking for some help. >> for a job? >> our services are at "the new york times" disposal when it comes to writing headlines and could probably do a couple of things on stories, too, if you're willing to go there. i think because there's a big difference. one is, literally, talking -- there's a big difference. everybody keeps conflating there's an investigation into the 2016 election. got it. no disagreement there. right? but i think there's a question about collusion between anybody. my point has been to say over and over again, to the dismay of every one of you guys, when the people who have been briefed by the fbi about collusion between individuals, the answer continues to be no. and at some point, take no for an answer. when these people, both sides of the aisle, obama appointees, elected democrats, elected republicans, say no evidence suggested. at some point it's not just about me. it's about you. take no for an answer. and realize that the people, while you can have an investigation, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to jump to the conclusion that, aha, it must be about the collusion between those two things. they've talked about this for a long time. 17 intelligence agencies have talked about an ongoing investigation into russia's involvement in the election. that's vastly different than juching to the conclusion and saying there must be somehow, therefore, a collusion between individuals on one side. they don't talk about all the hillary clinton collusion that may or may not have occurred. that was a subject that came up with a russian official and that has not gotten pursued once. zero minutes paid on the evening news when that russian official said they attempted to reach out to both campaigns. zero minutes. see, i'm an equal opportunity -- >> but does the president need to take no for an answer in the same way you're urging me? >> no. a bunch of people have been briefed saying we haven't seen anything. and one is an ongoing -- when you ask them, they're getting it. the president is very clear. there's continuing to be a very literal interpretation of his tweet which is whether or not there was wiretapping. the president understands you don't literally wiretap people the same way you did in the '70s and '80s with wires and the things on the top of the phone. >> but director comey didn't just say wiretapping. >> we are still at the beginning phase as to what kind of surveillance occurred and why. and there's a question about what leaks occurred, why they're happening and, again, you know, director comey -- one of the big headlines that should come out of today he talks about the unusually high amount of leaks coming out of this and classified information leaked that in itself should be a question. why is so much information being leaked out now? what are the motives behind it? who is doing it? and is it threatening our national security, which i do believe the answer is yes. there are a lot of other stories. with all due respect, i believe there's a who the of headlines coming out. the only headlines people want to write are the ones that support a narrative against this administration and not one that actually looks into how many times do people say that there was no evidence of something happening? how many times or how much classified information is being leaked? there's a lot of headlines that should be written today about a lot of stuff that's ongoing. we have an ongoing hearing but a lot of other things need to be discussed. why did the dnc not let the fbi look at their servers? why is that story not getting -- if somebody was a victim of something, which they've yelled from the rooftops -- hold on. hold on. hold on. >> i'm curious. the implication of that is that -- >> no, no, the question is why is none of that being looked at? i don't know what the -- but my point is that not to draw an implication, but merely to ask a question. all i'm getting at is that suddenly none of the questions regarding any of this seem to get asked or answered or explore explored. >> you won. >> i'm trying to give you the same treatment jonathan does, that means you don't get to jump in. why are none of those questions being asked? why is no one taking no for an answer when it comes to all these individuals saying they see nothing? there are a series of headlines i would suggest need to get written and, frankly, stories. i'm glad to do that, as i offered. george? >> i would like to clarify two things. in the future, when you, from that podium, cite those news articles we assume you're vouching for the facts? >> it's not vouching for it. it's reading the story. >> it doesn't put a white house -- >> no. reading a series of things when asked a question, where is this narrative coming from, citing a multitude of stories that are in the public domain is not necessarily endorsing everything. i read -- that's a silly assertion. reading stories that you and your colleagues -- not necessarily you -- have put out but several people here whose publication has put something out. simply reciting those things is not an endorsement. >> second thing, when you talk to the british about the gchq, did you tell them that the white house would not raise that again or can you talk about that conversation? >> there was merely an explanation of what we did and why we did it, which is what i just said to you. that was it. thank you for that. we'll see you tomorrow. hopefully, some of you have a chance to -- >> taking place as the intelligence committee on the hill is still talking to fbi director comey about some of the matters that were the heart of the press briefing today. we're monitoring mr. comey, obviously. if there's more newsworthy information that comes out of there, we'll get back to you on that. mr. spicer picking up a variety of the threads there, also talking about secretary tulerson's visit over the weekend and last week to south korea, japan and beijing. a very fertile area for conversation with really direct implications, potentially, for global business as that hot spot seems to get nothing but hotter. michelle? >> white house press secretary sean spicer talking at length about the house hearing on russia, developing threats from north korea, as tyler just highlighted. we'll talk all about that and more with admiral james cerides next. fbi director james comey still testifying in front of the house intelligence committee. sean spicer also talking at length about the hearing, plus developing threats from north korea. it's all on the table. now for admiral james cerides, former supreme allied commander at nato. i want to pivot to north korea in a moment, admiral. i want to begin with the hearings this morning. i don't -- and we in the media always love to pick a winner and a loser here. it seems to me, is the winner truth, is the winner the white house? is the winner the gop on the hill, the democrats? it seems to me that the winner is mr. putin. agree or disagree? >> i completely agree with that. i watch these hearings unfold and think how remarkable is that to see an fbi director directly contradict, not exactly call the president a liar but really blow his tweets out of the water. that's kind of theater within the united states. frankly the larger theater, tyler, is the world. here, mr. putin is going right down the game plan that started with the interference in the elections and undermining the u.s. globally. because at the end of the day, deterrence, which equals peace, is composed of two things. capability. we've got a great military. the other is credibility. our credibility is shredding in front of us. >> i thought it was interesting when one of the members asked both mr. comey and admiral rogers about whether russia was an adversary. they both immediately said yes. then the question is does russia intend to do us harm? their answers were a little more nuanced. i would like to get your response to that question. does russia really mean us harm? and what does russia want more broadly in its part of the world? >> well, let's start by observing that mr. putin is many things, but he is also a politician. he has an internal audience. so, his number one goal is to appear strong and powerful inside of russia. to do that, he has a tendency to try to push the united states. and that causes harm to us by hurting the international system. the reason the director and the admiral were nuanced, i think they're walking around the fact that russia is not going to attack the united states. they're not going to blow a u.s. aircraft out of the air. but i think over time they're going to try to crack the nato alliance. that's the ultimate strategic objective in europe. and i think putin is making real progress on that. exhibit a would be the very, very luke warm visit of angela merkel to the white house last week. >> in your opinion, was the republican line of questioning justified in any way to continually ask about the question why was it that appears that an american citizen was spied on with general flynn and that there were so many leaks? i mean, it was obviously two different hearings, right, democratic version and republican version? >> absolutely. a tale of two hearings, as is often the case. it's always appropriate to hit the bell of leaks and those plague both sides of the aisle relatively equally. in terms of the real main ball of this hearing, in my view, it has to be the degree to which russian has interfered with our electoral process. that is not going to go away. if there is collusion between the trump campaign and russia, that's an enormous, enormous -- >> i understand that, but a lot of outlets have made a very big point about asking whether or not it was legally justifiable to spy on an american citizen. and that question probably needs to be answered at some point. no? >> yes. i agree with that as well. so, there are separate narratives in progress here. and each side, of course, wants to distract from the one that they would less favor. >> let me turn you to north korea where important changes, as it were, would in narrative. strategic patience. some in the u.s. military, i would imagine, are worried about an imminent threat and a war between us and the allies and the north. of all the things that could destabilize our markets, which have been doing very, very well, this might come at the top of the list. >> it certainly comes at the top of the list. and for several reasons. one is it's right at the heart of an enormous amount of global trade. secondly, because once you're into a hot war, it's very difficult to disengage. thirdly, because of the long-range implications to several enormous economies. so, i would put it absolutely at the top of the threat list for us all. i am more worried than i was a week ago. no, i don't think we're about to see a hot war launch. >> i'm going to ask you the same question i asked ambassador burns last week. people on wall street understand leverage and think north decrey's only leverage is having the weapons, not using them. they're doubtful it would happen. the minute they use them there would be all kinds of retaliation. if you assume he's rational, he would lose his position in power. is it right for wall street to think that way about north korea? >> i think that's fairly accurate. i would say that he will, kim jong-un, leader of north rowa, will reach first for cyber and special forces, second if he wants to go hot it will probably be chemical or bio. thirdly, he might use long-range ballistic missiles but not with nuclear weapons. i think it's unclear that he actually has that technology to merge those two. so, again, to my previous point i'm more worried than i was but, no, i don't think we're looking at a nuclear apocalypse. >> you're more worried today than you were a week ago because? >> the more aggressive stance of the u.s. administration, which is actually correct at this point. and more worried because i see china continuing to kind of play both sides of the fence in that they sign up to sanctions, main sanctions but they don't actually do the secondary sanctions that are necessary to hurt the korean economy. >> we appreciate you joining us today and hope we can count on you soon. admiral stavridis, thank you. >> any time. >> a big shift. coming up after the break, we'll talk about snap chat. and the first analyst making a buy rating on the company's stock. stick around. when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad... liberty did what? 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'a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly. ♪ guyhey nicole, happening here? this is my new alert system for whenever anything happens in the market. kid's a natural. but thinkorswim already lets you create custom alerts for all the things that are important to you. shhh. alerts on anything at all? not only that, you can act on that opportunity with just one tap right from the alert. wow, i guess we don't need the kid anymore. custom alerts on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade. >> welcome back. records are falling across the entire tech sector, nasdaq hitting a second intra-day high. i'll address this apple bullishness here. so many analyst since the earnings report have actually raised apple's price target. you also like apple. some people might say the valuation is approach iing rich historic valuations compared to apple's own valuations in the past. an analyst makes a point you have to compare it to the relative valuation of s&p 500. how do you soothe the concerns of the bears at this point? >> 16 times is not aggressive. ultimately this will be more predictable. we think this is still low valuation and probably should get closer to 20 times. >> 20 times at that point? some might say this is the valuation that is almost the same multiple when it peaked mid2014 ahead of the iphone 6 launch. that's a scary stat, gene. >> it is but service is 10% of revenue. could be 25%. that's really going to stabilize the revenue over the few years and is something that apple didn't have a few years ago. separately, and importantly, this next version of the iphone. iphone 10 will have augmented reality built into it, not something that will be a catalyst for apple sales over the next year per se. but that's going to lay the foundation of the next computing paradigm, this ar. in other words, we think apple has a lead in terms of the paradigm shift in computing. when you think about a multiple higher than that 16 times you start to get more comfortable. you putting to the serves side of the business on top of the augmented reality side. >> thanks for joining us here. why don't you like apple at this point? you seem to be the only one out there who tonight have any love for this one. >> $141 a share, i think it's a bit rich. you have to know that on the cell side, wall street analysts are told by their research directors once a stock reaches a price target they either have to reach the price target or downgrade the stock. no one ever wants to downgrade what's been a winner. until further notice -- when i say further notice i'm looking as far as the eye can see. this is a phone company. even though they do have a growing services business, i think it's too far out to the future to make it that relevant. when i take a look at and peel back the onion on the services business, i need to see more cloud and i need to see more content. i think those are very important and so in the meantime, as you rally stock ahead of the launch of the phone next september or october, i think it's probably a better selling opportunity. >> gentlemen, we'll leave it there. thank you so much. a lot of breaking news. gene munster and paul leeks. >> gene munster said is super important. snap is higher after one analyst breaks from the pack and says buy the stock because snap could replace the camera app in your phone. you'll hear from the man direct after this. if you have medicare parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. medicare doesn't cover everything. and like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, these help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. so don't wait. call now to request your free decision guide. it could help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. these types of plans have no networks, so you get to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. rates are competitive, and they're the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. remember - these plans let you apply all year round. so call today. because now's the perfect time to learn more. go long. certainly been a rough ride, a rough start for snap chat, the parent company snap. stock holding below the ipo price. analysts have not been very positive overall on the company but it seems that snap is getting a bit of a life line. one analyst telling investors to buy the stock. what is the fundamental thesis around your buy rating when a couple of other analysts have said you've got to sell it, more than a couple. >> three things. the first part is the digital camera. you think of the iterations and innovations. not much aside from pixel quality. if they can push on the hardware side the industry because they're subject to the limitations of the cameras on the phones and at the same time can iterate on the software side, we think it could conceivably replace the camera. >> how so? to your point, they just exist on the good wilf apple or samsung or whoever is making the phone. it's a physical then. >> gene muster told us apple is going to add augmented reality. >> that's fantastic. everyone is trying to do the same thing. the innovations are only coming from one company. there's only one company, snap, that has done that. there's one that's pushing an you're seeing facebook copy every single iteration of products that they have. second thing, the holy grail, that's the hook on the camera. the money is going to come from the premium content. when you look at mobile video, there's two kind of bifurcations of it. one is the destination for youtube netflix and the second is the more passive where you need a curated premium experience. when you think about mobile video it's all td video plug and play on mobile. nothing is produced specifically for mobile. the incentives aren't aligned. it's all about hyperbolic content and clicks. if they can shift to a tv side, affiliate model, guaranteed fees and control the experience with products and content produced specifically for mobile, then you can have a much more -- >> they don't have very good ability to track user data. in fact, capitalize on that. that concern goes away under your premise that it can get a steady stream of fees from this content model. >> they'd be the ones paying the fees to get the content. >> how do they make money? >> they will control all the advertising that takes place. >> they still need to have 245 good tracking? >> exactly. i think it's under appreciated. you think about what they have with the bit mogi. they know what you look like, what your style is. >> based on a -- by the way, bit m moji, you use bit moji. >> bit moji. with the head. >> you put flowers on your head? >> that's a filter. >> no, it's a cartoon likeness of you. >> i know what they are. the ears wouldn't fit on the app. >> they have a lot of data because of the use same ever the cartoony like images? >> it's not limited to that. i'm saying that that is something -- that's one of the aspects of data that's under appreciated. >> sounds to me that you think of snap as a future not just tv network but multiple tv networks that we're all going to log into it and we're going to choose the tv network stream that we like the best for the news, information, content that we like? >> yes. i think it's going to be the digital equivalent of channel surfing. curated exactly for me based on my preferences. think about this -- >> redit. i pick what i want? >> i think it's going to be tv mobile video experiences. 78% of generation z users are active. 48% of millennials. >> then there's us. >> everyone's -- >> i have it. i've take jep a picture. facebook is going after it with filters. instagram has filters. >> that's fine. where is the innovation coming from? >> becoming commoditized. >> the problem is everyone is talking about how dau is moderated. >> daily activity users. >> thank you. >> they're most focused on the highest affluent markets. what they're not talking about is the potential to increase the average revenue per user. you talked about the comparison. twitter is monetizing and less than 10% what facebook is monetizing. if you imagine that grows from 10% of facebook to 30% of facebook within a couple of years. you can have a position where the company's revenue base goes up 10 dlgs x within three years from wherever we are in 2016. a lot of -- i just think that people aren't looking at the big picture here. >> all right. >> put a flag in the ground. thank you. all right. check, please is next. ♪ ♪ our first name h always been 'american'. at at&t, we employ more than 200,000 people with good-paying jobs. connecting consumers and budiness through mobile, internet, and entertainment. at&t invests more to america's economy than any other public coany. brging american's morechoi, and entertainment everywhere. no company is more invested in america's future than at&t. excuse me, are you aware of wh's happeninrighnow? we're facing 20 billion security events every day. ddos campaigns, ransomre, malwarattacks. actual just handled all the priorityhreats. you did at? we did that. really. we analyzed millions of articles and reports. we can identify threats % faster. you can do that? can do that. then do that. can we do that? we can do th. check, please. >> all right. my check, please, is about snap. our guest that we just had on had this provocative idea the reason why he liked snap he thinks eventually instead of having the camera app preinstalled on your phone. everyone is going to be like brian's daughter and snap is her app. >> that is her app. the camera is in a utilities folder. mine is if putin's goal is to drive a wedge between us, somebody else said this, cause chaos, distrust, confusion, he's succeeded. >> it's like we have our shoes tied together. >> he's got us chasing our own tail. >> i don't know that this and what we're watching derales the trump economic agenda. that is what's really relevant to our leadership. >> markets certainly don't indicate that at all. i'm watching wells fargo. they released new data. sales scandal is not behind them yet. new checking accounts fall 43% in the latest month. the sixth straight month of declines. we are watching wells fargo under pressure. >> all righty. i guess we can come to the end here and say thank you for watching what little "power lunch" we actually had today. >> we had james comey on the show. >> we did. james comey, sean spicer. >> "closing bell" starts right now. hi, everybody. well, well, well, welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. welcome back. >> thank you. test, test, test. yes, it still works. we're looking forward to a full satisfying 120 minutes today. talk of a retail bubble sending shares of department stores sinking and ecommerce giant ebay is announcing free shipping and guaranteed delivery which could be another blow to the brick and mortar stores. we have the ceo of

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