Into it. Pam, what have you learned about the investigation . Well, anderson we learned that the fbi investigators and computer scientists continued to examine whether there is a Computer Connection between the Trump Administration and a russian bank called alpha bank, according to several sources familiar with the investigation. Now this is the same information from the breitbart investigation, regarding investigators who were alleged to have tapped his phone. Cnn was told there was no warrant on this server. Questions about the server and the russian bank were widely dismissed four months ago as an attempt to buy alpha bank to block spam. But were learning the same team looking into the russian suspected interference and the 2016 element is still examining it. They say the relationship is odd, investigators are not ignoring it but the fbi still has a lot more work to do to determine what was behind the unusual activity and whether there was any significance to it. The fbi declined to comment and the white house did not respond to our requests for comment, anderson. So jose, its kind of confusing, explain what was odd about these communications between this russian bank. Sure, this can get pretty technical fast, what is so odd about the communication here is that this russian bank repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular server in the u. S. Being used by the Trump Administration. The computer world, its the same as looking up somebodys phone number, over and over again, while there is not necessarily a phone call it usually indicates an intention to communicate, according to several scientists we spoke to. Now a group we spoke to talked about the leaked records, they were puzzled as to why the russian bank was doing this. Now, last summer during the president ial campaign, the russian bank looked up the address to this trump corporate server multiple times, more than any other source. The only group looking into it, was the chain regarding betsy devos, those two entities made 900 lookups. The investigators we spoke to found it weird. All the people we spoke to said they never had communications with the russians, and they dont have proof and dont agree what the explanation is, the russian bank believes it received trump Hotel Information last summer, meanwhile, the American Marketing Company that would have been sending trump emails said it was not doing it at the time. And alpha bank, for its part stressed that not a single executive has not had any a filllation at all with the Trump Organization, they say their principals have not had any communication with Trump Organization, so this computer information remains a mystery. So as that story broke late this afternoon, fbi director james comey was discussing the gang of 8, and the ranking members of the Intelligence Committees. More from the capital, so what do we know about the briefing . Do we know at all what was discussed . We know they talked about russia, anderson, part of this growing investigation on capitol hill into russia as well as the fbi inquiry that is happening, about russias attempts to influence the election, and whether or not there were any improper contacts that occurred between the associates and people tied to the kremlin in any way. Now emerging from the briefing all eight of the members who get the most Sensitive Information on capitol hill were closed lip and would not answer a single question. They had an opportunity to also ask comey about an issue that he has been in the middle of since zur donald trump tweeted over the weekend he was spied on by president obama, we learned that comey himself was upset at those tweets and actually asked the Main Justice Department to knock down the story that there was perhaps spying going on. This is an opportunity for the members themselves to ask if there was any evidence of Donald Trumps claims to have been spied on, we dont know the answer quite yet. But clearly an opportunity to look into that. And also the broader issue of russia, which is at the heart of what members of congress are looking into right now. And march 20th, comey is going to be testifying publicly, correct . That is right. But it will be the first public hearing, too, anderson of the House Intelligence Committee with a number of other members, intelligence officials to talk about these issues further. And the top democrat, adam schiff, wants to press on this. What is the latest there, where do they stand . Well, right now members in the house and senate who sit on the Intelligence Committee are heading to virginia to comb through raw data that the cia is providing about what happened during the elections, what im told from a number of senators who sit on the committee they have learned a lot about the russian attempts to influence the elections, but one thing theyre trying to do is figure out whether or not the Trump Associates in any way occluded or worked with the russians in any way. They want to hear directly from Trump Officials who apparently had discussions with russian officials, including paul manafort, the Campaign Committee chairman, and Michael Flynn who was the National Security adviser who resigned recently after the discussions with the Russian Ambassador came to light. So theyre even open, anderson, to the issue of subpoenas to have them testify and answer the questions in closed door setting if they dont agree to the committees request to talk to them. Another thing, tax returns also on the issue, some members of the democrats and republicans want to get Donald Trumps tax returns to see if there is any financial ties. Also, the subpoena may be difficult to achieve but something they pay look at also. Adam schiff is the ranking democrat on the committee. When i spoke to him, director comey had met with the senate counterparts. I want to get your reaction to new investigation that they continued to examine whether there was a computer server connection between the Trump Administration and a russian bank and that is according to sources close to the investigation. Do you know anything about that . Well, i can only say this. Im certainly aware of the public reports going back now some months about an alleged connection between alpha bank servers and potentially a server linked with the Trump Administration. And i can say what i think the questions we ought to be requesting in the committee, i cant tell you what answers we may or may not be receiving. But i think we need to determine if the allegations are credible, if they were investigated by authorities and if so what have they found . Did they reach a conclusion or is that investigation ongoing. What leads remain to be tracked down. So these are the kind of questions that our committee ought to be asking. But again, i cant go into anything that we are able to find out into the conclusion of the investigation. It certainly seems as if there could be a completely benign explanation for this. You know, i certainly reserve judgment in terms of whether this is completely benign or whether there is something more here. That is exactly i think what we need to determine. And you know, this alpha bank issue is just one of many issues that we have been reading about in the open press for some months now. And again, i dont think we want to predetermine where the conclusion will be. And what merit any of these allegations have. But if they are credible, then i think its our responsibility on the committee to determine whether they have been adequately vetted. What we know and whether there is further investigation that needs to be done. Cnn has also told, i want to be precise about the reporting, there was an article in breitbart regarding president obama of tapping President Trumps phone. Does any of that, or if you can say, does any of that align with what you believe the president s motivations were about lashing out at former president obama . Anderson, i can only say i have really no idea what caused President Trump to assert that his predecessor was engaged in that type of criminality. It seems completely divorced from reality. So i really have no idea where it came from. Its pretty clear that is true of my republican colleagues as well and indeed many in the white house. You know when sean spicer doesnt want to talk about it, not even he can spin this kind of specious allegation. You think that is why the white house is saying look, were not going to talk about it any more, its going to be investigated by congress. Absolutely, they have no way to defend these remarks, they were so incendiary and out of bounds, the best they could do is say lets give it to the investigative committees and please dont ask us about it any more. But as i mentioned before, be careful what you wish for. Were going to have an open hearing now, this will be one of the topics well be able to ask the director of the fbi very directly. If, in fact, he wanted the Justice Department to refute this and they were unwilling, he will have the opportunity to do it himself. The cia is reporting that theyre meeting with the gang of 8, the house intelligence meeting, i know there is a lot you cant discuss about that. I do have to ask what do you want to ask him about President Trumps wiretap accusation . Well, i cant you know at all comment on the gang of 8 meetings. I can say in terms of what we look for in terms of from the director, the fbi, both in committee and as generally as a member of the gang of 8, as a general matter as part of the gang of 8 we want to be informed on a periodic investigation of the meetings going on in the country. The bureau, that is the practice, we want to make sure that is adhered to and is complete. The committee, there is no way to discharge our responsibilities if the fbi is not willing to cooperate with us and tell us about any counterintelligence investigation. That is what i underscored with the director, its my hope when he comes back to the committee well have a fuller discussion of what, if any the issues the fbi has looked into it. Congressman schiff, appreciate your time. All right, lets bring in the panel. Jeffrey lord and kirsten powers. A Bakari Sellers is here, rod, let me start with you. Youre the cyber expert. Does this server activity between this russian bank and the Trump Administration, does it seem odd to you in any way . That is the word used before i one of cnns sources . It does seem odd, and especially, there are a few points here that just dont line up with conventional internet trafficking and how the dns behaves. So for example, the allegation is that these were just requests sent back to the Trump Administration, maybe in response to spam. That argument doesnt hold water for me, because if there was spam it would have gone to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. All of the installations would have been sent back to that server. It doesnt quite line up for me even though i request the firm, absolutely professional, this is a question i think needs to be drilled on, which why were not other systems sending that messages during the time period. Its confusing for folks like me who are not computer experts and who are in fact morons with computers, just try to dumb it down a little for me. But if this bank was sending 2800 basically requests for a phone number or lookups to this Trump Administration server, why would a bank do that . Why would anybody need to send so many . Sure, a reason would be if a Bank Employee of alpha bank set up used their corporate email address, like sergey, if they set up an email account at a trump hotel or somewhere else to receive information, if that spam came in, it would be going to the banks server. So anybody that used a hotel address could receive spam from different parties. Again, i dont know how this trump email was being used, but again that would be a possibility. And theyre not sure where the spam is coming from, so for secure they want to check and that is why i guess theyre pinging the trump server . Exactly, theyre trying to figure out is it spam or a trojan horse or malware, getting somebody to click on something that may not be coming from the Trump Administration or from a hacker who sent the fake email, like the fake email attempts. It is not very natural, it would only come from one bank, and should not go all over the world. It raises questions, there are areas where the story doesnt line up. You know the information doesnt line up from what we expect as normal. Would you expect if computer experts had been able to find this sort of pinging, would they be able to find if there was email trafficking between the bank potentially, a lookup is one specific type of what we call dnsquery. What is dns . The way the internet works we type in a name like cnn. Com, the system converts that to an internet protocol, the long address with the numbers, like the postage system between the internet to simplify. So people understand how can this dns information be captured by different parties that question went from alpha bank and went to the Trump Organization server in pennsylvania. And it had to go to the registry of. Com. So all the. Com names in the world are held to this registry. They respond to that question, by the way. By that query hops through the internet, it could have gone through the servers in moscow, the netherlands, new york, before it got to pennsylvania. Anybody could keep a record. That is presumably where this data came from. Some parties are keeping logs, what we call record logs, they saw this traffic and then they began to work together. So but its its just little bit odd that there is so much traffic from this one bank and not from other places. Now so you said yeah, the other thing i want to mention is if there was if this was a Real Intelligence operation of any sort or any sophisticated hacker, they would never be doing 2800 lookups. So in terms of a theory that maybe this is about some you know, conspiracy between the russian government and the trump political campaign, you know that is hard to believe, too, any hacker worth their salt wouldnt do a lookup 2800 times. Once is enough. And they cover their tracks on that. Right, if somebody in that bank is trying to cover their tracks and have a secret channel to someone else this is not the way to do it. Exactly right, they would be using a vpn, a virtual private network, trying to hide the evidence. That is not the case. So this argues any suggestion that there was malfeasance here. But anyway, this story is a little bit odd. And new legal action on trying to block. Well tell you about that tonight on ac360. With advil, youll ask what twisted ankle . What muscle strain . Advil makes pain a distant memory nothing works faster stronger or longer what pain . Advil. 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E trades powerful trading tools, give you access to indepth analysis, and a team of experienced traders ready to help if you need it. Its like having the power of a trading floor, wherever you are. Its your trade. E trade returning to breaking news lead, our investigators pam brown have learned fbi investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there was a Computer Connection between a Russian Organization and an Organization Called alpha bank. There was more information on that and the investigation by james comey, as we reported we know obviously it concerned russia. So there are a lot of questions which is why were turning back to our panel. How important is it to hear you think for the public to hear from james comey. Because they will have that opportunity march 20th . Well, i think its very important. First of all its important for the socalled gang of 8. The house and Senate Leaders wh