One year of looking endlessly and finding nothing, collusion is dead. This is an american disgrace. Today in cincinnati, the president continued to focus on the memo in a speech about tax cuts and the economy. He went off prompter at a point and said this. But did we catch them in the act or what . You know what im talking oh, did we catch them in the act. They are very embarrassed. They never thought they were going to get caught. We caught em. Hey, we caught em. Its so much fun. Were like the great sleuth. Well, we should point out that earlier today he lashed out at the House Intelligence Committees ranking democrat, adam schiff, or the president now calls him little adam schiff, and he also heaped praise on devin nunes, calling him a man of tremendous courage and grit who may someday be recognized as a Great American hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure. Putting that prediction aside, lets focus on the idea that the president is pushing that the nunes memo somehow, quote, totally vindicates trump. Keeping him honest, whatever else you might think of the nunes document, whether you believe as the fbi does that it contains, quote, material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy, one thing is plain just from reading it. The memo does not exonerate or vindicate anyone, let alone President Trump. It largely deals with applications for fisa Surveillance Court warrants targeting carter page, the onetime Foreign Policy adviser to the Trump Campaign. The memo alleges deputy fbi director Andrew Mccabe told the House Intelligence Committee that no warrant would have been sought without the steele dossier information. Christopher steele, as you know, was hired by fusion gps, which was initially hired to do Opposition Research on candidate trump by a conservative media outlet, then was later hired by the dnc and lawyers for the clinton campaign. Now, the memo alleges that in neither the initial fisa filing nor three subsequent renewal applications was the clinton connection disclosed even though according to the memo, this was known to senior fbi and Justice Department officials. Democrats say that the court was told there was some sort of political motivation behind the fusion gps information. Either way, legal experts have told us the dossier would likely not have been the sole basis for a warrant. Carter page after all had been on the fbis counterintelligence radar for at least a year prior to all of this. And even if you believe everything the nunes memo alleges about bias, even if you believe all of it, the nunes memo itself actually undermines any notion that the russia probe then followed from the fisa application which came in october of 2016. The memo itself states that sometime months before in july, something in july sparked the probe. Thats when the fbi launched a counterintelligence investigation of george papadopoulos. Hes another Trump CampaignForeign Policy adviser you probably no who pleaded guilty to lying about contacts with russians and is now cooperating with special counsel mueller. The fbi was looking at possible Trump Campaignrussia connections months before, asking for a warrant for carter page. George papadopoulos drunkenly boasting to an australian diplomat about russian contacts was hardly the sole factor in the probes genesis. And the nunes memo does not speak to any of it, nor does it mention this investigation has so far yielded guilty pleas not just from papadopoulos but also Michael Flynn, the president s former National Security adviser and the indictment of his former Campaign Chairman paul manafort, nor does the memo mention that former mueller investigator peter strzok also coauthored the first draft of the comey letter reopening the clinton email case just 11 days before the election. So if Peter Strzoks behavior showed bias and colleagues say it did not, you could argue he was biased against both candidates. But keeping him honest, however you choose to read the nunes memo, you ought to know how one of Hillary Clintons harshest critics in congress, a republican, reads it. The dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at trump tower. The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by cambridge. It also doesnt have anything to do with obstruction of justice. So theres going to be a russia probe even without a dossier. Congressman gowdy is not alone among gop lawmakers pointing out that whatever else the nunes memo says or suggests, it does not say what the president says it does. No, the memo isnt about the special counsels investigation. Its not about trump. I support the Mueller Investigation. Now, i hope that he does it fairly and honestly. Of course we would always expect that. It would be a mistake for anyone to suggest that the special counsel shouldnt complete his work. I support his work. I want him to finish it. I hope he finishes it as quickly as possible. This memo has frankly nothing at all to do with the special counsel. While President Trump is claiming without any evidence that hes somehow vindicated by the nunes memo, he isnt. And if he was expecting trey gowdy and other republican congressmen to back him up, apparently thats one memo they did not get to see. The breaking news tonight is that the House Intelligence Committee has unanimously voted to make public the democratic memo rebutting gop allegations that the fbi abused surveillance laws. Whether the democrats memo actually gets released, that is now in the president s hands. Cnns jim acosta has late details. Explain what happens now. Reporter the memo is now in the president s hands. Its in the white house hands at this point, anderson, and they have five days to act on it as they did last week. This is sort of the battle of the memos part two. The sequel may not be as good as the original, and it makes you wonder, anderson, how the president would respond if a democratic lawmaker were to shout out release the schiff memo. My guess is after the president s comments today, he would not say 100. Weve been talking to our sources this evening. Theyre going to go through the same vetting process, they say, over here at the white house as they went through last week. Theyre going to have Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community weigh in and make sure there arent any practices and methods of the Intelligence Community or Law Enforcement community revealed in this schiff memo. But at this point if youre going off of what the president was saying earlier today, that the democrats and congress were treasonous and unamerican for not standing up and applauding him at the state of the union and the fact that he was calling adam schiff little adam schiff, you might not want to hold out as much hope for the release of this memo as the one last week. So, jim, the white house has not given any indication about whether or not theyre going to release it. Theyre saying theyre just going to go through the procedure that they went through for the republican memo. Thats right, anderson. We pressed them this evening on this. They are stopping short at this point of saying, yes, theyre going to release the memo. Theyre just saying theyre going to apply the same painstaking process is the phrase we heard earlier this evening to the schiff memo as they did to the nunes memo. But remember the president was saying that memo last week was going to be released 100 before he had even read it. So its not altogether clear what kind of vetting theyre going to put this memo through. But keep in mind as you were hearing those republican lawmakers raise doubts about the strength of the nunes memo on the sunday talk shows over the weekend, i just talked to a senior congressional source from the republican side earlier this evening, who was saying, listen, there was a lot of hype around this nunes memo, and clearly it did not meet the hype. So inside the republican party, there are serious doubts as to whether that nunes memo really accomplished much of anything. And if you had the president earlier today saying, aha, we got them, we caught them redhanded with this nunes memo, its hard to imagine the president wanting to release the schiff memo, which the democrats believe really undercuts the nunes memo. Cnns manu raju reports chairman nunes had no comment after the vote saying you know the rules, we dont talk about committee business. Hanging over all this, the question of whether chairman nunes or his staff in any way discussed committee business, in particular his memo, with the white house. Last week congressman mike quigley confronted chairman nunes on it, and nunes would not be pinned down. Apparently the same thing happened today in the debate over the democratic memo. I also want to say that my colleague, mr. Quigley, again and repeatedly asked the chairman whether he or any of his staff had consulted with, coordinated, conceptualized this memo in combination with the white house. You know, after all, the chairman embarked 0en a similar effort to coordinate a Campaign Early on in the investigation. And once again mr. Nunes refused to answer the questions. At the very end of the hearing, he gave a very lawyerly written response or read a written response saying that the white house had not been involved in the actual drafting of the memo. But in terms of whether it was coordinated with the white house or they were consulted or strategized, the whole consent, he refused to answer those questions. Obviously theres a very important question for our committee. Hes talking about congressman mike quigley. Joining us is the congressman from illinois. Congressman, thanks for being with us. Can you tell us exactly what chairman nunes said when you questioned him today . As i recall, last week you asked nunes if he had been in contact with the white house. He said he had not. Then you tried to follow up saying, had any staffers who actually wrote the memo been in contact or coordination, and he didnt answer. Yeah. I tried to do the same thing. I mean you dont want to give anybody an out because you dont ask the specific enough question. So i tried to say members of the committee, himself, his staff, you know, and every possibility. I want to make sure i got it right, conceived, prepared, reviewed, coordinated, communicated with the white house about the moeemo, again, was the only member he wouldnt answer questions for. He answered another members question, and he said, ill answer your question because i like you. So besides having my feelings hurt, he didnt answer the question, and as my colleague mr. Schiff said at the very end, he had a very lawyerly answer that only responded to one small aspect of that. Because it would seem to me a pretty easy question to answer. Sure. Look, its fairly obvious. They have been blocking for the white house for a long time. They have coordinated with him when it came to that first nunes trip to the white house. If you witnessed what we have witnessed for almost a year now with the chairman refusing to sign subpoenas on key witnesses, going along with the gag order of the white house, it is a pattern of behavior that makes it extraordinarily difficult to do this. Its tough enough. Were investigating a foreign adversary. Youre not going to be able to subpoena a russian oligarch. But were also doing it as a minority against a white house which has several times, in my mind, obstructed this investigation. So for the independent investigator to block us too, it makes it very difficult. Do you believe the president is going to allow the democrats memo to be released . I think when he is briefed on it because i cant imagine hes going to read ten pages of footnoted academictype material hes not going to want to. I believe hell get some pressure from his own party and maybe his own staff hopefully to do just that. But i cant imagine hes going to go along with it. I think the best Case Scenario is he tries to seriously redact it. And if the president objects to releasing it, i mean do House Intelligence Committee democrats have other options or other ways of releasing it, i mean short of leaking . Yeah, no. We dont want to leak this. We dont want to be as bad as what we accused the republicans of doing last week. And we respect the Intel Community and the Justice Department, the fbi that this is reckless and dangerous to release these materials. We think releasing the first memo was a bad idea. The only thing worse than that is not being able to respond to it. So frankly youre seeing what we can do. Were talking straight to the American Public. Some republicans, though, have been critical of the democrats memo saying that, in fact, adam schiff really doesnt want the president to release it, that its full of sources and methods that would be dangerous to release and would be impossible to release and that its basically a ploy to i guess make the president look bad. At this point in time, after the first memo is released, the second memo needs to be released to counter that fact. The fact of the matter is we spent a lot of time on this, and we hope the American Public gets a chance to judge for themselves. Well, if the democrats felt the nunes memo was a partisan memo and was dangerous for National Security, why is it okay, then, for democrats to have their own memo . Yeah, again, i think that the difference here is that there were id like to think thirdparty active actors who reviewed it. As you referenced, the fbi and the Justice Department. And i think other legal scholars would agree with that as well. The fact is they have thrown something out there which not only attacks the soul of our relationship, the trust that weve had with the Justice Department and the Intel Community, its also attacked their credibility. Whatever it is they say. Look, im glad that mr. Gowdy and others have said what theyve said. The fact is i dont know of any republican who has said those things whos not about to retire from the house. Where are the profiles in courage of the member whos are sticking around . Congressman, i appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, a republican lawmakers take on the now competing memos and the president s claim the gop version vindicates him entirely. Also maggie haber man has a scoop she just published. The headline, trumps lawyers want him to refuse an interview in russia inquiry. Maggie is here. Well talk to her about that as well. And later, todays record on wall street not a good kind of record. Details ahead. S still buffering. 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And for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. And the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. Otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Tell your doctor if these occur. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Other side effects include upper respiratory tract infection and headache. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. Were talking tonight about the two pieces of breaking news. One Maggie Habermans new reporting on the president s legal team advising him to refuse an interview with special counsel mueller. Also the house intelligence voting to release a democratic counterpart to the nunes memo as well as President Trumps claim that the nunes memo vindicates him on any russiarelated wrongdoing. Before the break, you heard from democrat mike quigley. Joining us now is republican congressman lee zeldin. Congressman, thanks for being with us. Good to be with you. This morning, you tweeted, saying friends dont let friends on the House Intel Committee compromise good sources and methods, schiff deliberately loaded up his memos with sources that shouldnt be released and he knows it. This is a zero percent chance that this isnt a deliberate to play games, meld, and obstruct. What evidence do you have that he deliberately constructed his memo in a way that it cant be released . You can tell by the way hes been answering questions with regards to the memo. He has not revealed the fact that his memo was filled up with different sources and methods that have to be redacted. I think the responsible thing would be for the drafter of the memo to prepare the memo for release because it obvi