Hearing but at an anything but routine time. What are we expecting here . Reporter youre absolutely right. The first testimony from fbi director james comey since the march hearing when he did divulge very carefully without giving statement beyond the simple statement that the fbi was investigating alleged russian meddling into the 2016 president ial election. There are going to be a lot of questions about that from both sides of the aisle. Youre right. Im here outside the senate room. The Judiciary Committee with a Standard Oversight Committee raerg. Very auspicious given everything thats happened, given the fact that Hillary Clinton spoke yesterday and laid much of the blame for her defeat at the feet of the fbi director. He just walked into the room. Didnt have a comment. Its all against the backdrop. Continuing to tweet is donald trump, the president tweeting this morning, fbi director comey was the best thing that happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds. As r perhaps trump just ran a great campaign. So close questioning going to be expected from democrats on the political issues and from both sides on the question of rush hand m russian meddling in the election. Especially at Hillary Clinton giving her analysis yesterday about what happened in the election and laying a a lot of it at the feet of james comey. Chuck grassley recently wrote a letter to the fbi director because he wants information about the document that reportedly suggests or raises questions about the attorney general loretta lunch. What can you tell us about it . Its an email apparently, a democratic staffer saying dont sweat it, loretta is not going to push it that hard and the question is was the fbi aware of it. If it leaked, if the russians got their hands on it as a stolen or hacked email, would it make the fbis job more complicated. My understanding is that that didnt play much of a role in this. And of course we have to remember i dont know how much mr. Comey is going to be expansive about his discussion of the Hillary Clinton investigation for this reason. The Justice DepartmentInspector General has an investigation going of the entire handling by the fbi of the clinton email investigation. So theres not a lot he can say because of that iq investigation. He has talked about this some in recent weeks say it was a difficult time if are the fbi but it has to be nonpartisan. Cant be viewed as a partisan tool or playing favorites 37 but in terms of getting into the weeds im not sure how much hell go there because of iig investigation. Once Loretta Lynch had the meeting on the tar mac with big clinton before the fbi announced its conclusion of the investigation, thats what really concerned them most of all. You can see the crush of cameras there. Pete has watched a lot of these hearings. I would suggest that even for the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice which was also before the committee we did not see this kind of crush that were seeing today. A lot of hydra ma there. R i want to pick up on the point that pete was making. How much does that limit or give an opportunity for comey not to answer questions and to the basic question of why did you confirm the clinton investigation before the election but not the russiatrump investigation until after the election. Is that a question he can legitimately answer . I think hes going to be able to answer the question. To petes point, he will be circumspect in this conversation with congress today. What the fbi will from time to time do is acknowledge the obvious lip we knew, you, i, the American Public knew there was an Ongoing Investigation of hillarys email that had been going on for months. For comey to acknowledge that during the runup to the election is not momentous. Whats more momentous is what he said last july and what he committed to last october. But today hell be circumspect. He will be guarded in his comments. He will narrowly define and perhaps restate what hes already said, which is there is an Ongoing Investigation. The fbi wants to do its work out of your gaze, out of my gaze. They want to be left to do their work quietly, professionally, find the facts, bring the facts to the prosecutor who will determine whether there should be a prosecution or not. And in those cases where there should not, youre not trying to tar or stain or scar the subject of the investigation. I want to let people know what exactly is going to be going on. Youre going to have the chairman of this committee, chuck grassley, a republican from iowa, the Ranking Member on the democratic side, long time senator from california, Dianne Feinstein, they will be making Opening Statement and then we will hear from director comey himself. And malcolm nance, somebody who has been following this closely, i want to pick up on something that ron talked about, ideally you want to do Something Like that out of the gaze or the prying eyes something that has not been happening nor will it happen when it comes to the investigation of russian meddling into the 2016 campaign and maybe what the Trump Campaign may have known about it. So given the restrictions that there may be on comey for what he can and cannot say, whats the key question you would want to ask as someone who has followed this very very closely . Well, as you know, theres going to be two entirely different sets of questions that are going to be asked today. From the republican side they are no interest in the russian meddling. Thats relatively clear. Theyre going to place their emphasis on what kind of poli c politics were involved with Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch. On the democratic side, theyre going straight to what director comey and the Counter Intelligence division has been looking into, and that is this counter espionage investigation, an investigation to see what Trump Administration officials are involved with moscow. So i dont think hes going to answer clearly on anything other that basic acknowledgmenacknowl. If i could ask any one question, the question would be what does the fbi think would be the end result coming out of american citizens cooperating or collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency. And his not answering that question or even touching around the fringes of it will give us a better idea of where they are. In the meantime all of this has been given new drama by Hillary Clintons interview yesterday where she said, her book is coming out, shell take blame but clearly laid the blame for what happened to her on all of this going on in the last two weeks of the campaign. Let me play a little clip of Hillary Clinton yesterday. It wasnt a perfect campaign. There is no such thing. But i was on the way to winning until the combination of jim comeys letter on october 28th and russia wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but not scared off. To the extent, karen, that democrats believe what she just said, democrats in particular on this committee believe what she just said, is there value in them relitigating it via james comey . What do they gain from it and is there a legitimate reason for asking those question . First of all, this is a counter fak chuct chul. Theres no way of proving the Hillary Clinton presidency. And i think the fact that both sides, that everybody has been unable to get past the 2016 election has meant that there havent been enough questions asked about the implications going forward. How were the russians able to accomplish this and what can we do to prevent this from happening in the future. And i really think that for most americans that those are the two big important questions. And are americans depending on who you voted for looking at this in profoundly different ways, the importance you give it, sabrina on very Different Levels . Absolutely. I think that democrats in particular will point to a lot of the polling that did show Hillary Clinton having a much higher probability of winning the election. And then there was certainly and its supported by data, a shift after the release of that letter. When you look at some of the exit polls. Again as karen said, can you definitively say that that she absolutely would have won the election had it not been for the release of the comey letter, thats where it gets complicated. Sandra Richard Blumenthal of connecticut wants to focus on comeys decision to release that letter but then to not at all comment on the fact that there was an Ongoing Investigation into contacts between associates or aides on the Trump Campaign and russia. Now as ron said it could be that they did not have anything sufficient to share with the American Public at that time. I think youre going to see comey again rely on the Ongoing Investigation into russian interference to try and avoid getting too much into what they knew and when they knew it. Is there anything that you think that he can say today thats going to kind of answer some of the questions or calm some of the concerns that people have . You know, i really dont see it. I agree with karen and sabrina. I hope that his focus is in how russia intruded, how they tried to influence, what are those attack vectors was it people, was it electronic through cyberattacks and intrusions and tactical releases of information. Whats the connection when russia and wikileaks. Those are important questions for us going forward. My fear is, to sabrinas point, that this country is so polarized, so divided that if you didnt want hillary in the white house, you put on those lenses and judge by that and pick up the pieces that comey says that may agree with your theory. If you were for her or against her, thats how you view this. And my hope is that comey can push aside all of that, tell the American Public and the Judiciary Committee that theyre committing to running a thorough investigation. This wont happen fast. Do you think he can do that . I dont think hes going to be able to satisfy those that are so partisan that their minds were made up last fall. Some of those positions were reinforced yesterday. I dont think hes going to appeal or connect with those people. I wonder about the wisdom of continuing to litigate this election. Youve got the budget, health care. Were going to talk about those coming up. But obviously people across america are heavily engaged in or care about and then you have the president you and i have covered any number of president s and its hard to fathom them stepping in in the middle of an investigation. But you have the president saying that james comey is soft going into this hearing. Whats the where does this go is it better for both sides to just step back and say, let the investigation one its course . Im not suggesting that will happen but what do they get out of it . Certainly Hillary Clinton got a lot of attention yesterday. It is a human feeling to want to you know, shes got a lot to work through here having just lost an election that most people thought she was going to win. And when she did win the popular vote. But it is donald trump who has more on the line here in moving forward. Hes got an agenda to get through. And with regard to this, he keep relitigating the 2016 election when it would seem to make more sense for him to get out in front of it and for him to say, look, you know, something bad happened here with the russians and we need to get to the bottom of this and get ahead of it and in the im going to let the investigation go forward. And in the meantime i have an agenda here to push. I might suggest another line, sabri sabrina, which would be i dont believe there was anything that changed the outcome of this election. I won the election. But having said that we cant have any questions about it. For the next president ial election we want to be sure that weve done everything we can to ensure its legitimacy. But the problem is trump is he takes this as an attack on the legitimacy of the election. Weve observed him for more than a year and a half and now that he does not necessarily approach these issues with a rational mind. I will admit i was watching Hillary Clinton and she did the little aside that i won the popular vote. In donald trump was catwatching that hes going to tweet. Its not unusual for him to have been tweeting about james comey last night when you think about it, the president of the United States is taking to twitter to attack the sitting direct of the fbi who is currently overseeing the investigation over russian interference into the election. Thats the problem with trump. He gets so easily distracted and he hasnt been able to build goo will on capitol hill and enact his agenda despite having republican majorities in the house and the senate. And you could see him continue to be distracted by what james comey says or doesnt say. Speaking of distractions, pete williams, i just wonder, the human aspect of this, how much this is a distraction for james comey and is it a distraction for the department in general . Yes, it is on both counts. Hes kept a low profile since this came out. He used to meet with a group of us that cover the fbi fairly regularly, at least once a quarter. We havent had one of those meetings since before the election. Hes its sort of changed his sort of whole approach. There are a lot of things he wants to talk about and hes been doing this to some extent in private gatherings and other speeches to groups. He wants to talk about the fbis access to encrypted material on phones. The growing dark problem. He wants to talk about the growing problem of cyberattacks, get a public discussion going about that. His attempt to do that are overshadowed by this Russian Investigation which from everything i can gather from talking to folks involved in it is going to be going on for several months at least. Let me just play a little bit more of what Hillary Clinton had to say. She talked specifically about vladimir putin. Heres her take on it. He certainly interfered in our election and it was clear he interfered to hurt me and to help me opponent. And if you chart my opponent and his campaigns statements, they quite coordinated with the goals that that leader who shall remain nameless had. So we talked about its impact on u. S. Politics. But international politics, i think karen weve stepped away from looking at this and the impact on the u. S. And russia. Although i must say the word coordinated is not a word i would have i mean, donald trump, during the campaign was just all over the place. So it is really, you know, hard to see, you know, that he could have had the discipline to have run some sort of signaling back and forth. Again, i understand her frustration and its a very human thing to feel and there is certainly a lot of questions to be asked about contacts between People Associated with donald trump and the russians. But at least from what weve seen of this president , i would not think that a sort of carefully orchestrated anything would be kind of in his wheel house. In the meantime, take us inside this investigation. Were watching the public part of it. Whats going on privately . The fbi is running it as a Counter Intelligence investigation. Theyre issuing National Security letters to get documents relevant to the investigation. Theyre trying to interview both potential subjects and those around them who are in a position to know to secure their cooperation, to really affirmatively prove that there was some sort of coordination or that there wasnt. That they cant see it. And i think importantly, did somebody break the law in material significant ways. Weve heard reports that mike flynn, Paul Manafort and others should have filed as agents of a foreign power or as registered foreign agents and they failed to. Is that significant enough . Whats the history of those sorts of investigation and prosecutions. Ult matimately the fbi is an Investigative Agency and Counter Terrorism agency. Theyre not doing this solely to paint on intelligence picture. Theyre looking to see if somebody needs to be prosecuted for violations of federal law sfl were watching as Dianne Feinstein is giving her Opening Statement. Pete, is there a sense where you are and from the contacts that you have made what the chances are for some sort of charges against somebody in this or is it just way too early in this investigation to even have a sense of it . A little of both, chris. Ive seen nothing, no indication yet that theyve contemplated criminal charges against anybody. And as ron pointed out, this is being run by the Counter Intelligence organization. That is how this started. What were the russians up to. The initial thinking was theyre gathering information to use themselves, information to leverage either russian government policy or Vladimir Putins personal information. But when they began to go public with it, thats when the thinking changed a enyou saw the assessment of the intelligence agenc