we re watching the white house where the president is set to deliver a speech any moment now. touting what he calls the achievement of the last 18 months. and while, yes, there are plenty of achievements for the biden administration to harold, like any leader, he faced his share of setbacks. if he runs, would he have the political momentum needed to win re-election. regardless, any 2024 plans announced by president biden will come under a cloud of covers. the doj s investigation into the handling of classified documents is just getting started. we re learning more about why president biden and his top aides chose to keep the first discovery a secret for almost 70 days before it blew up in their face. former fbi chief of staff is with us. joining me now is monica alba and a washington post reporter. thank you for joining us. monica, let s start with you. in listing the wins today, is president biden laying out a case for his re-election before announcing his bid for re-elect
January 2017 report, quote, we assess russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the u. S. President ial election. Over at the Justice Department, which announced two days ago, the indictment, of course, of 12 Russian Military Intelligence Officers for conspireing to interfere in the election. They met for two hours with interpreters present. No other aides, not even secretary of state pompeo. He attested to russias meddling last year. I am confident that the russians meddled in the election as is the entire Intelligence Community. So, not only did President Trump disagree with that today suggesting strongly siding with putin because he didnt see any reason why russia would do what he is accused of doing and who he believed he launched into an attack on Hillary Clinton and the dnc email server and american journalists seeming to suggest that democrats, democrats are the one to blame for the cyberattack that the democrats should have had better secur
Crazed, crying lowlife and a dog. Is he afraid of what her next secret tape could reveal . No defense. Former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort tells the judge he does not want to take the stand and his defense team rests without calling a single witness or presenting a case. Is there a strategy at work here . Wolf blitzer is off today. Im jim sciutto and youre in the situation room. This is cnn breaking news. The breaking news, extraordinary new claim by former apprentice star and extrump white house official Omarosa Manigault newman said she is interviewed by Robert Mueller after saying earlier she is ready to provide secret recordings. President trump called her a crazed, crying lowlife and a dog while denying that he used a racial slur. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders says the president is simply voicing frustration but says she cannot guarantee a recording does not exist of him using that slur. Im going to speak with senator ben cardin and our correspondents and spec
Gordon sundland circumvented the National Security council and the normal white house process to pursue a shadow policy on ukraine. We already know that guiliani worked through american diplomats and others to pressure the government of ukraine to carry out investigations that would benefit the president politically and he continued to do so as the president froze u. S. Military aid to that country. When it comes to that military aid, we are also learning from the Washington Post that Gordon Sondlands testimony which is scheduled for thursday, quote, will raise the possibility that trump wasnt truthful in his denial of a quid pro quo. According to a person familiar with his testimony, quote, sondland intends to Tell Congress that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump. At the same time sondland was reacting to ambassador bill taylors bombshell assertion that i think its crazy to withhold Security Assista
Do you feel, lawrence, that you have clarity about how the democrats are going to pursue this . I do not. Its not a version of this that weve seen before, but i do believe they can work it out. I actually think the pelosi structure of this saying that all six committees are involved now in an impeachment inquiry is designed to allow sharing of information from one committee to another that otherwise might not be easy to do. Especially information from the Intelligence Committee to any other committee and the ways and Means Committee if they have information will be in the form of the trump tax returns eventually. So its designed, i believe, to facilitate that, but ultimately the Impeachment Committee is the house Judiciary Committee. Theres just no constitutional way around that. Yeah. And there arent very many precedents in history for how to do this sort of thing, it just hasnt happened very many times. Talking with Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters today, its sur