seemed to make up comey's rules as comey went along. as to what he was free to disclose about different investigations and when he wasn't free to disclose things pretty would tell lawmakers he had special authorization from the department of justice to confirm that the fbi is investigating alleged contacts between the trump campaign and the kremlin. but if asked about unmasking or asked about leaks and other issues come he would say i'm not authorized by doj to say anything on those matters. way back on july 5, he told us nobody at doj knows what i'm about to say, and then he launched the extraordinary moment where he sought to impeach hillary clinton rather than proceed with an indictment. >> bret: the administration points to the new deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein rod rosenstein, a memo that's attached to the letter that president trump put out. saying "i cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary clinton's emails and i do not understand his refusal to accept the judgment he was

i think the only thing that they like less than comey is the world without comey. the democrats have been sharply critical of him for what he did around the election and for his decision to reopen the clinton e-mail investigation 11 days before the election. so they've now positioned themselves as the defenders of comey because i think they realize that comey was their best bet to try and get some type of independent result out of the russia investigation. we have heard as well that the white house is surprised by the blowback to this. but, you know, i don't know how they couldn't anticipate that. you know, someone like firing the fbi director really resurrects the idea of the saturday night massacre, and that kind of thing, you know, is pretty troubling to some people. >> all right. michael schmidt, thank you so much for joining me. i'm joined now by senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. senator, your reaction to the dismissal of james comey? >> well, let's put it in a little context. remember, sally yates was acting attorney general, and one of the things sh

how much longer did james comey have in thejob? how much longer did james comey have in the job? he was appointed in 2013 by president obama so really he was just getting into that. it was a very busy one for him. he has really been the centre of these allegations, three congressional committees, the fbi, investigating the trump administration possible ties to russia collusion in the 2016 election. earlier the president in the later to comey director said he was informed of three separate occasions that he was not investigated with any links to russia at comey director has come underfire from russia at comey director has come under fire from the democrats saying he stole the election from hillary clinton. days before the election he sent a letter to congress saying he was a reopening the investigation into hillary clinton's e—mails because of those e—mails of huma abedin found on her husband laptop. republicans are very angry

i think the only thing that they like less than comey is the world without comey. the democrats have been sharply critical of him for what he did around the election and for his decision to reopen the clinton e-mail investigation 11 days before the election. so they've now positioned themselves as the defenders of comey because i think they realize that comey was their best bet to try and get some type of independent result out of the russia investigation. we have heard as well that the white house is surprised by the blowback to this. but, you know, i don't know how they couldn't anticipate that. you know, someone like firing the fbi director really resurrects the idea of the saturday nightmassacre, and that kind of thing, you know, is pretty troubling to some people. >> all right. michael schmidt, thank you so much for joining me. i'm joined now by senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. senator, your reaction to the dismissal of james comey? >> well, let's put it in a little context. remember, sally yates was acting attorney general, and one of the things she

sources say president trump asked comey to give him a personal loyalty pledge and that comey was taken aback and refused. the white house says there was no request so who is right and would such a request be wrong? and not perfectly accurate. the president now says he moves so fast that his press team simply can't keep up saying it's not possible for them to explain his moves with perfect accuracy. he suggests ending the daily press briefings. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> backing news. once again the white house now scrambling to respond to a twitter outburst from president trump. this morning president warned that fired fbi director james connelly, quote, better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations. white house press secretary sean spicer later insist that had this is not a threat. spicer won't say if the president records white house conversations, neither will the president. at issue, word from a source that the president asked comey to pledge his loyalty at at white house dinner back in january. the source says comey was taken aback by the requ

under james comey? well, i've had questions nd concerns about some things hat he's said and i always wondered why nothing came of the e-mails, the situation with the one was ever no prosecuted for that. mean, there was confidential, classified information that were in some of the e-mails and approved to ren't have that, had it. kind of shake me some that nothing ever seemed to that.n from host: thanks for the call this morning. rose up next, denver, colorado. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, call. you for taking my am calling to say that i am orry to see that f.b.i. director james comey has been and the timing of it and the season of it. a parallel to it with the video clip you have been showing where the president director or eted former director now, james comey, with a kiss on the cheek handshake, hand pat on his back. that to president where judasa judas, kissed the lord jesus on the and had the government of him harisees there to take nder arrest and lead to his crucifixion. host: rose,

all the democratic outrage over comey's firing seems like a massive flip from their nonstop comey bashing almost a year ago. >> when i heard about it, i found it hard to believe that comey, who i thought had some degree of integrity, would do this. what comey, i respectfully disagree. what he did was appalling. prosecutors know it. >> i think he made a mistake on this and he clearly has a double standard when it comes to donald trump. in these jobs, if you are not in it for a while, you can't take the heat, and i think he just couldn't take the heat from the republicans prayed >> i am so disappointed in comey. he has left the country down. for partisan purposes and that's why i'm calling him j. edgar hoover. >> do you believe jim comey should resign, senator reid? >> of course, yes. >> i am not challenging mr. comey's motivation but i think it was unwarranted, it was a mistake and i think republican and democratic former justice department officials have come out and questioned the move he made. >> eboni: i can't hold it in. chuck schumer and nancy pelosi have got to be the two worst exam

you have new reports about what he thought of comey and what comey thought of the president. >> and we've heard whuf jeff said played out in those rooms. comey felt the president was almost beyond normal, almost crazy. >> using the word crazy? >> that's ort of his word or sort of what was communicated. he said repeatly to his aides there's something wrong with him, there's something wrong with comey. and he got very angry about comey talking about russiach he did not dissuade people from thing about it. and he was mildly nauseous at the prospects of his role in the election, that was an affront to the president. he took it that way. he was very upset about it throughout the weekend. and by the time this week began, this was already in process. to your point, you know, they learned also -- i missed one step. ish, there was this issue about what comey had testified. >> oh, yeah, he'd gotten something wrong. >> not something small wrong. and there was this very long lag in cleaning it up. that gave the west wing officials an opening. they saw that was there an opportunity to go ahead with it

it was very polarized into the pro comey camp and the anti-comey camp. the people that were very concerned about what the succession will be -- we have just confirmed in the last hour that the acting fbi director, will be somebody called andrew mccabe. andrew mccabe is someone who has a lot of baggage and he will bring it to the job. remember back in 2015, andrew mccabe's wife, jill mccabe ran for a state senate seat in virginia and in the process got $700,000 from virginia democrat democrats. including the governor, terry mcauliffe. long-standing ties to hillary clinton. what bothered the foot soldiers that i know in the bureau is that they felt it was clearly a conflict or at least had the appearance of a conflict. because mccabe was providing resources to the email investigation but not directing it. the fbi concluded it was not a conflict and it was okay because mccabe had a more directing role in the investigation after his wife had lost her state senate race. they said to me, this shows that there was -- the culture was kind of broken. the leadersh

i listened to what the president said about comey's assurances in his letter he sent to comey. i'll tell you, that makes no sense to me at all. even if, and i don't believe it was said in the way the president has relayed it, but even if comey made some reference if he was under investigation, it was an improper request eto can him. while that may be the case at the time, that doesn't mean the next day something doesn't come up that puts someone close to him under the microscope. >> here's the moment you discussed there. asking director comey if he was under investigation. >> i actually asked him, yes. i said, if it's possible, will you let me know? am i under investigation? and he said, you are not under investigation. >> every single person who watched that interview, that part, they were struck by that, laura. it may not be illegal, i don't know, you're the legal expert. but was it ethical? >> i don't think that it was. it was an inappropriate question for him to ask, and inappropriate question if comey actually answered it. that's a big "if." the issue is the timing of it.

he likes comey, hates comey, likes comey again. it's crazy talk and nonsense. this russian thing is a joke, how can i tell? it's been going on ten months and not one item of actual evidence of wrongdoing has leaked out. it's baloney, everyone knows it is, and donald trump was well within his rights to fire a guy who worked at his pleasure and stopped pleasing him. liz: you know, jessica, before hillary's campaign manager criticized comey's firing he criticized comey's last second investigation into hillary clinton, and then he praised comey for letting hillary off the hook. i can't keep track of the flip-flopping. jessica, get your reaction to this sound bite. >> the fbi did a comprehensive and deep investigation into this, and at the conclusion of that, fbi director comey came out and said to the world that there was no case here, that they did not have evidence of wrongdoing on hillary's part. liz: i can't keep track of it, can you. >> yeah, i can keep track of it and curious whether kurt has whiplash from the amount of times donald trump has hated -- listen,

fired comey. one, comey's refusal to provide the president with any sort of assurance of personal loyalty, and, two, the fact that the fbi's investigation into possible trump team collusion with russia in the 2016 election, that's still not an active investigation but it's actually accelerating. federal prosecutors reese represent thely issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former national security advisers michael flynn. now, the white house officially disagrees with this theory of what happened, but mounting evidence suggests that comey was fired because of the president's irritation with the fbi's russia investigation. now the white house officially points to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein fresh on the job writing a memo expressing concern about the way comey had handled the hillary clinton e-mail investigation last year faulting comey for being unfair to clinton for among other things holding a press conference in which comey, quote, released derogatory information about the sub

he appointed james comey. have you spoken with president obama or anyone from the obama white house about this. >> not today. jake, i just learned the news, i was getting on a plane from chicago to california and learned of the news when i got on the plane, so i haven't spoken to anyone about it, though i'm sure -- i'm sure their reaction is very much like everybody else's reaction, which is that this was a stunning development. you know, my concerns about the president, this administration, policies come and go, but our institutions have to remain strong. our democratic institutions and with the action they took today they put a cloud of suspicion around the justice department, around the fbi. how are you going to appoint someone now who is going to be trusted to lead an investigation of the president who appointed him? and i mean, there are so many issues that flow the this and i think the special prosecutor call is going to grow. i think they greatly miscalculated on this one. >> and jeffrey tuben, presiden

says recommended firing comey. justice department spokeswoman denies comey asked rosenstein for more resources. amid all of this, president trump welcomed two top officials to the white house today, foreign minister sergey and ambassador to the u.s. sergey kisliak. there are questions raised of possible collusion. we are covering much more of that this hour with our guests within including bernie sanders, and adam schiff. and correspondents and specialists are also standing by. let's begin with our white house correspondent athena jones. athena, white house officials where you are seem to be stugeling right now to explain comey's firing. >> they certainly are, wolf. as you mentioned, just last week press secretary sean spicer said the president had confidence in director comey. it is last month that president himself said the same thing in an interview. now the white house is saying that the president has been losing confidence in comey for some time. and that he even has been considering firing him since the day h

seemed to make up comey's rules as comey went along. as to what he was free to disclose about different investigations and when he wasn't free to disclose things pretty would tell lawmakers he had special authorization from the department of justice to confirm that the fbi is investigating alleged contacts between the trump campaign and the kremlin. but if asked about unmasking or asked about leaks and other issues come he would say i'm not authorized by doj to say anything on those matters. way back on july 5, he told us nobody at doj knows what i'm about to say, and then he launched the extraordinary moment where he sought to impeach hillary clinton rather than proceed with an indictment. >> bret: the administration points to the new deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein rod rosenstein, a memo that's attached to the letter that president trump put out. saying "i cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary clinton's emails and i do not understand his refusal to accept the judgment he was

comey. he tells me that on february 14, director comey, then still the fbi director was in the oval office with president trump, vice president pence and the attorney general jeff sessions talking about an issue of national security or the law. after that meeting was over, the president asked the vice president and the attorney general to leave the room and then according to this memo, comey said, as you read, that the president said to him, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go, he's a good guy, i hope you can let this go. he told comey flynn had not done anything wrong. 246s the day after flynn resigned. comey kept a record of this as is characteristics for him. people who have followed comey's career for the last couple of decades that often when there is a controversy comey is somebody in the center of storm who has written a con tem rain yus account of what was going on at the time and what he was thinking and advocating during the years. this happene

director comey. the president over the last several months last confidence and director comey, the doj lost confidence in director comey, and bipartisan members of congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in director comey. most are portly, the rank and file of the fbi had lost confidence in their director. accordingly, the president accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove james comey from his position appeared before the news broke, the president spoke to several members of congress to inform them of his decision. those members are senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, speaker of the house paul ryan, senate daily by senator chuck grassley, senate minority leader chuck schumer, senator feinstein, senator lind, house majority leader kevin mccarthy, house minority leader nancy pelosi, income rissman bob goodlatte. later in the evening, he also spoke to bob corker, chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations. in addition to all of the big news happeni

archipela >> besides comey. >> besides comey. >> what about inside the white house? >> no, but, you know, we've had so far fired national security advisor in mike flynn, he fired sally yates, acting attorney general. >> a.g. >> now you have comey firing. three pretty high profile dismissals in 110 days. kind of unusual for a new white house. >> does the staff seem very much on edge? >> yes. >> different than before? >> in the building today, i talked to several people who work in the west wing. it seemed like it was just, let's try to get through the day. let's try to stay above water. i think they're all just playing it hour by hour and waiting for the other shoe to drop or more details to come out like we are. >> thank you, josh. >> thank you. >> hope you come back. coming up, with director comey out, the russia probe is a mess. all kinds of conflicts. will we see a special prosecutor? and how does that happen? comey is the fourth high profile person president trump has fired. there is a pattern. i'll explain it ahead. the new guy? what new guy? i hired some help.

you haven't heard from jim comey. i'm not saying that the reporting is wrong, but it is just reporting. may too premature to even call it evidence at this point. >> that's why i say it is evidence, not proof. second, the request for pledge for a loyalty. >> again, something we don't know for sure yet. >> again, there has been very credible reporting of it, and it's been corroborated. when we talk about these memos, hopefully we will see these memos. >> why haven't you yet? >> because we're just learning of them and also they may be evidence in a criminal investigation. we need to be respectful of the special prosecutor now. i think we have a continuing oversight responsibility. rosenstein should come to tell the american people everything he said in that meeting yesterday and there is virtually nothing he told us that he couldn't tell the american people. nothing classified, nothing that couldn't be made public. and second i want to see jim comey testify before the judiciary committee. while i think he is a man of pri

comey. the white house official i spoke with, woks wolf, directed me to video of andrew mccabe, acting fbi director who testified on capitol hill to the senate last week. they are pointing to a quote from andrew mccabe who said quoting here there are no efforts to impede our investigation to date talking about the investigation of those contacts between the trump campaign, associates and russia. we should point out, it is not exactly clear at this point and we need hear this from comey himself, whether or not the former director relayed concerns, talked about what was in the memo with the acting direct dire director mccabe, we just don't have information yet, wolf. >> jake tapper has information as well. jake, what are you learning? >> a source close to former fbi director comey who confirms the details of the new york times report and adds more information. this is a source who has a copy of this memo in question, the source says that director comey was in the oval office on february 14 bri

his twitter feed from when he praised comey to when he criticized comey. and he's clearly sour on him if you look at his twitter feed. he could have fired him in january, but he didn't. now it's getting close to home. what they could have done. and to dana's point, they didn't expect this kind of fallout, they could have said, okay, we feel we need to fire comey, but we think there should be an independent prosecutor. that would have saved them a lot of this grief, if they had called for an independent prosecutor at this time. >> the problem with conflicts of interest, it never occurred to him that what vladimir putin did to hillary clinton and the democrats, he would be happy to do to him. he's got to care about the presidency. he doesn't care about the presidency enough to -- >> surprisingly, the intelligence chairman richard burr and other republicans john mccain are very upset about this, but in this sort of up is down, left is right world that we're in right now, you have lindsay graham, who's been a very staunch critic of the president, he says he th

comey's ousting. sudden firing of the fbi director rattled washington amid the shock and confusion new details are emerging tonight. who will replace the ousted fbi chief? the white house struggles to justify the decision to fire james comey citing everything from alleged atrocities in the clinton e-mail probe to lost confidence. why did the white house press secretary affirm the president's confidence in comey just a week ago? russia probe, cnn learned days before he was fired. comey asked the justice kept for more resources to expand the probe into russian interference in the u.s. election and ties to the trump campaign with comey out, what happens to that investigation now? and white house visitors. president trump meets with the russian foreign minister and russian ambassador to the united states at the white house. images highlighting controversy dogging his presidency. and 10 minutes later, he welcomed formerix

comey. in an extraordinary tweet, trump makes a thinly veiled threat against the fb i director he just fired days ago. it is says there is no mincing words so what did he mean? the president suggests there may be tapes of his conversations with comey but later says he can't talk about it. now lawmakers are asking for copies of any recordings of mr. trump and comey. will the white house turn them over? demanding loyalty. cnn is learning details of a white house dinner in which president trump asked fbi director comey to pledge his loyalty while comey is overseeing the investigation into ties between russia and the trump campaign. how did comey respond? and accuracy? maybe. as the president top aides keep up with the shifting narrative of firing james comey. mr. trump says he is so active it is impossible for his sur gates to be perfectly accurate. is he about to cancel all future press briefings? we want to welcome our viewers from the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer, you

comey had done. sarah: my understanding was wednesday was the first time the director had openly and publicly made that statement and made that clear. [indiscernible] violence in chechnya -- with the president not informed on the issue? sarah: could you speak a little bit? >> is a because the president is not informed on the violence? sarah: a lot of times there are parts of the conversation that are not specifically included in a readout. i'm not aware. i have not had a conversation. i was not part of that meeting so i can't speak to every detail and i would have to refer you to the readout on the specifics of what i know was discussed. has the president in breach of this issue at all? sarah: that is something i will have to get back to you on. >> you said you want the russian investigation to continue with doj. whenthe white house special prosecutor to continue to look into it? sarah: you have a house committee, a senate hearing and the department of justice all working on this. i don't think there

comey was a well-liked manager. even agents who disagreed with some of the decisions he made in the clinton case, regarded him as professional and well intentioned, and a strong leader. this is probably most public and strong f.b.i. director the bureau has had since j. edgar hoover. so there's clearly a sense of loss at the f.b.i. today. >> woodruff: and i quickly want to press you on that, because at the white house today they were saying, no, that jim comey had lost the confidence of much of the employees at the f.b.i., at the bureau. >> yeah, they didn't really elaborate on that. look, i know there are people at the f.b.i. who disagreed with the decisions that jim comey made. there are 17,000 f.b.i. agents. are there some who had lost confidence in the f.b.i. director? i'm sure that's the case. but all the reporting that i've done and the reporting that my colleague adam goldman does, who covers the f.b.i. for "the new york times," is that this was a real-- this was a real jolt, and a real down moment for the f.b

said at the hearing in marchand then this letter today to james comey firing him saying comey informed him on three separate occasions he's not under investigation. what do you make of that? >> i think that first of all that was an extremely curious way to fire someone, by leaving the impression that comey had cleared him and his white house and his campaign of any wrong doing, any relationship that was inappropriate with the russian government because i do not think there have been any conclusions that can be reached with finality with regard to that subject. there are subpoenas that are being issued right now is to those related to general flynn and his activities and others being investigated by the fbi so what i think is that any comments made up until now are still extremely preliminary. there's a house and senate investigation but i think for this purpose, most importantly an fbi investigation and the person being investigated just fired the person conducting the investigation and as a result in order to ensure that our democracy gets the answer to whether or not there was a comp

comey. that's very important. i think the senate should in a timely fashion respond to that nomination. >> senator mike rounds, thank you. >> thank you. >> shepard: next up, chris van holland from maryland. he's calling for a special prosecutor to take over for the russian investigation. senator holland said "firing fbi director comey has a foul stench in an attempt to stop the russian investigation." he added "while i long had concerns about james comey, it's shocking that the white how old would enter fire in an investigation by firing him." thanks for being here, mr. van hollen. a short time against, sarah huckabee sanders said this investigation will continue, the leadership change means nothing. your thoughts. >> well, as you know, the timing of this does stink. so the burden is now on the president and the justice department to help restore faith and confidence in this investigation and the entire process. the way to do that is to appoint a special prosecutor, somebody that cannot be fired by the president a

president trump attributing his bombshell firing of fbi director james comey to comey's handling ever t of the hillary clinton e-mail investigation, a stunning reversal given trump's repeated praise of comey for how he managed that very investigation. >> i respect the fact that director comey was able to come back after what he did. it took guts for director comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had where they are trying to protect her from criminal prosecution. >> reporter: and just last week, the president tweeting that comey was the best thing that ever happened to clinton. the white house says the president acted on the recommendation of newly appointed deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who made the case for the firing in alert to his boss jeff sessions. asserting that the way the director handled the conclusion ever t of the e-mail investigation was wrong and the fbi is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust. the attorney general pledged just two months ago that he would recuse himself from any russia investigations after it was

they did not like jim comey. when hillary clinton said that was one of the reasons she lost, most democrats on the hill agree with that. he's been erratic in his public performances. some things he talks about very eloquently, other things that would help prescription more lig would help bring more light to the conversation, it's been frustrating for both sides. what jim comey has done throughout his career, made democrats feel like he's a democrat, made republicans feel like he's a republican. he's an every man. in the end, he had nobody standing on his side. >> we keep coming back to why now. there's an i.g. investigation under way right now and if it really was about clinton e-mails, and that all of a sudden donald trump had a night mare that they mistreated hillary clinton, i need to act on this now, that still brings us back to the fact there's an i.g. investigation -- >> which will continue. >> okay. okay. pause everything. we're not changing the subject. it's too good but we're going to make it better beca

james comey? >> our job, we are focused on the president's agenda and going forward all questions of these matters will be referred to outside counsel. >> we have a full panel on the story. first which go to ken delaney and nbc national security reporter. ken, what is the late est on james comey? >> reporter: he is going to testify in what is going to be one of the more dramatic hearings in recent washington history. as you've said, a source close to comey today said that he did speak to robert mueller, the special counsel, and did get clearance to talk about some of the things surrounding his firing. we don't know specifically whether there are any guide post, whether mueller asked him not to discuss certain matters. what's been interesting is it wasn't clear comey was going to testify at all. we knew for a while he was interested in telling his story publicly, but once robert mueller became the special counsel there was a lot of speculation that mueller may ask him not to testify for fear that i

i think we will get comey's perspective. rosenstein is still a hit or miss because he's still a federal employee. >> he's going to have some stink on him. that's just the way it is. the letter on its face, this two and a half page memo, some of the people named in it, the deputy a.g. that worked under bush 41 says it is a sham. alberto gonzalez was cited as a krit sick and said the timing raises a lot of bad questions. so he's got some things to answer for in this. but isn't it what sa liz chris talking about here, that if it wasn't about russia, why did he include that paragraph with something that is almost unconfirmable. no one who i have talked to who knows james comey said he would have said anything like that around the president. but why is it in the letter? >> there this glaring disconnect where you have the deputy attorney general saying this is about comey's behavior in the clinton investigation and then the president himself raising the spector of the russia investigation. and everyone that we have talked to not o

as a threshold matter, the president can fire secretary comey for -- i'm sorry, director comey for whatever he wishes. but the fact of the matter is this is a very well coordinated and planned decision. letters were sent from the attorney general, from the deputy attorney general and other high ranking officials explaining that they did not have confidence in mr. comey in conducting investigations not only for clinton's e-mails, but all sorts of investigations. and as a result, they decided to go a new direction. charles: want to go -- we've got jeff dewitt, i think, on, former trump campaign chief operating officer. jeff, i would imagine that within the trump administration they were grappling with this. blake burman mentioned that even today sean spicer said, yes, director comey enjoys the confidence of the president, but then hedging the last time we spoke. so this, obviously, had to be something that the administration be's been grappling with for some time. >> you know, charles, these decisions are never easy. the fbi is one of america's premier investigative agencies, and doing someth

james comey. >> it just doesn't make any sense! >> this is the kind of authoritarian behavior we've seen spread in other parts of the world. >> am i surprised by it? not necessarily. >> he's lost the confidence of people at the fbi. >> everybody's had a problem with comey. >> he's done his job well, and i don't think he deserves to be fired. >> the fbi has been way too involved in politics. >> this has nothing to do with russia. >> i have serious question about the times the white house. >> if there was ever a time that circumstances warranted a special prosecutor, it's now. >> hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. wherever you're watching, from around the borworld, thanks ver much for joining us. we're standing by for what should be a very eventful white house briefing later this hour. the unexpected firing of the fbi director, james comey, will certainly dominate this briefing today by the deputy press secretary, sarah huckabee sanders. you're already looking at live pictur

comey. >> let me ask you about your termination letter to mr. comey. you write, i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. why did you put that in there? >> because he told me that. >> he told you you weren't under investigation with regard to the russia investigation? >> i've heard that from others. >> was it in a phone call, did you meet face to face? >> i had a dinner with him. he wanted to stay dinner because he wanted to stay on. we had a very nice dinner early on. >> he asked for it? >> that dinner was arranged. i think he asked for the dinner. he wanted to stay on as the fbi head, and i said i'll consider, we'll see what happens, but we had a very nice dinner. and at that time he told me "you are not under investigation," which i knew, anyway. when you're under investigation, you give all sorts of documents and feverything. i knew i wasn't under investigation, and i heard it at some committee level that i wasn't. then during a

>> i was going fire comey. there is no good time do it by the way. >> because in your let erd you said i accepted their recommendation. >> i was going to fire regardless of recommendation. >> from the white house perspective though, that completely undermines what white house officials have been saying over the past two days. >> i want to start out on a positive. and the positive is that one of the reasons donald trump is so different from everybody else is something that we should applaud. he actually answers questions. and he answers them in the way that, you know, to the dismay of many of his staffers who are out there on a limb saying something completely opposite seems to be true. what he said is the real deal. he was going to fire james koechl. he was going to do it. and it did leave his spokesperson kellyanne conway forced to go on tv and clean up the bad communication strategy which by the way was not the shop's fault because they didn't know about it and the have not of the united states who all said,

comey. why comey lost his job unle raveling tonight. the white house saying his firing had nothing to do with russia. is the white house admitting that tonight? and the president's obsession with rosie o'donnell. good evening. i'm erin burnett. president trump speaking out now in his first television interviewer since firing jim comey 48 hours ago. since comey lost his job, the president and his staff have repeatedly changed their story as to why now, that all-important question. the president today contradicting himself, his staff, and his vice president. here is what trump is saying this evening in an interview with nbc's lester holt. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. it's an excuse by the democrats for having last an election that they should have won and the reason she should have won it. the electoral college is almost impossible for a republican to win, very hard, because you start out with s

comey. host: they talked about needing a fresh start at the fbi in the wake of james comey's handling of the clinton investigation last year. was they were time last year that you recall before his firing? guest: i like many people thought he mishandled the intervention into the hillary emails 11 days before the election. that was an appropriate, but it never occurred to me that a sitting president, barack obama, would fire him over that. and donald trump seems to be very pleased with the way the investigation turned out. many people believed comey's intervention and the presidency the mr. trump. host: did you get a sense there is a lack of confidence in this country in the fbi? that the trusted and broken? host: not guest: not really. i think of it as political football. i think people who are critical of mr. comey handling of the hillary clinton emails that saw him as asserting appropriate independence in the handling of the russian investigation. you can flip that reaction to likinger par

comey. comey was so appalled by the comments, he documented the scha exchange. the white house flatly denying the explosive allegations saying the president has never asked mr. comey or anyone else to end any investigation. this is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation with the president and mr. comey. in a tweet last week, president trump threatened or at least warned comey about potential tapes of the conversations. recordings comey hopes exist. the oval office meeting happened one day after flynn was fired and two weeks after the president summoned comey to a dinner at the white house reportedly asking him to pledge loyalty. comey refused. less than three months later, comey was fired. the president has openly said russia was on his mind when he made that decision. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. >> reporter: on capitol hill, top congressional leaders stunned by the bombshel

comey. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. sources telling cnn the president was more and more agitated about the russia investigation, decided he couldn't trust the fbi director. another source telling cnn trump was white hot, that's a quote, angry and cursing about comey testifying he felt mildly nauseous that his actions last fall could have influenced the election. but if the president was hoping that firing comey would somehow make everybody forget all about russia, this was not the best idea. posing for pictures, tweeted by the russians, with ambassador sergey kislyak. there he is. whose conversations with michael flynn got the former national security adviser fired. flynn, by the way, subpoenaed by the senate tonight. so, no, none of this is going away any time soon. and we're going to report on it right now. let's get right to cnn's david chalian, chris cillizza, athena jones, pamela brown. pamela, you're first. first on cnn now, the former fbi director james comey sent a farewell

related to comey. i asked you directly yesterday if the president had already decided to fire james comey when he met with the deputy attorney general and attorney general, and you said "no." also, the vice president of the united states said directly the president acted to take the recommendation of the deputy attorney general to remove the fbi director. sean spicer said directly it was all him, meaning the deputy attorney general. now we learn from the president directly that he has already decided to fire james comey. so why were so many people giving answers? were you guys in the dark? was the vice president misled again? >> i know you would love to report that we were misled, and we want to create -- hold on, jonathan. i let you finish and read off every single one of those statements, so -- unless you want to trade places, i think it's my turn now. am i think it's pretty simple. i haven't had the chance to have the conversation with the president. i've had several conversations with him, but i ha

which was more about trump than it was about comey. >> that abrupt letter never made to it comey before he learned of his own termination from tv monitors at the fbi office in l.a. that's where he learned about his own firing. our coverage begins this morning with jessica schneider here in new york. let's start with the trump letter on james comey. let's read it. while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, i nerve the less encourage the judgment of thedom doj that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. the president himself mentions the russian investigation. >> that's the interesting thing. he disconnect in the explanations in these three separate letters. we have that memo from rod rosenstein. two and a half page letter. it really goes into the details of how fbi director comey in the justice department's view mishandled this investigation into hillary clinton's e-mail server. then, of course, there's the additional letter from attorney general jeff sessions to president trump talking about his recommendation tha

trump penned to comey firing him which was more about trump than comey and talked about the russian investigation not the hillary clinton e-mail scandal. >> that abrupt letter never even made to it comey before he learned of his own termination from tv monitors at the fbi office in los angeles. our coverage begins this morning with jeff zeleny at the white house. >> reporter: the white house will be waking up today to the bomb shell that president trump delivered by firing fbi director james comey late tuesday night. it is something that the white house under estimated the fallout of. the top officials worked throughout the night to reshape the narrative that got away from them in the firing of the fbi director. now the letter, the very brief letter that the president sent to the fbi director thanked director comey for his service but also had some very unusual language. let's take a look at that. it said this. while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i'm not under investigation, i never the less encourage the judgment of the department of justice

comey. we'll get other papers to see what they bring, but we want to hear your thoughts on the firing and what you think about it, the f.b.i., overall what it does for what happens in washington, especially as work goes on in the house and senate over things like tax reform and healthcare, what it might do for the status of investigations into russia and the elections, all those things up. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents. you can post on our platforms, @cspanwj on twitter. republican line up first, manassas, virginia, sam, go ahead, what do you think about the firing? caller: well, i'm glad he's fired. but let me say this. if it wasn't for comey, trump probably would have got elected. if he did what he was supposed to do and indict hillary clinton, they would have put another nominee in and probably would have won. let me say something else about schumer's independent council. schumer is the best thing that ever happened to the republic

comey. >> i can tell you that director comey enjoyed broad support within the fbi. and still does to this day. i can confidently tell you that the majority of the fbi employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to director comey. >> reporter: this comes as comey was invited to testify on tuesday before the senate intelligence committee. no word if he has confirmed that appearance. this would be a classified closed session and that means it would be off limits to the public. we do know that other people in the administration plan to talk about some senators. rod rosenstein at the center of the comey firing invited to the briefing next week to discuss the comey firing. this issue not going away anytime soon. christine and dave. >> manu, thank you. rod rosenstein denying reports he threatened to resign. the washington post reported he was angered that his memo was used as the prime justification for dismissing the fbi director. if he was ready to quit, he is not acknowledging it publicly. >> mr. rosenstein, did you threaten to quit from the comey fallout? did you

why fire comey and why now? the white house saying the department of justice, the deputy attorney general recommending comey's departure. tonight, our team has learned it was the president himself who set this in motion. comey at home tonight as we learned what president trump said to the attorney general and to the deputy attorney general during their visit to the white house. what he asked them for and the time line leading to comey's firing. late word that president trump fired national security mike flynn has now been subpoena for doumtss regarding russia. abc's jonathan karl leading us off. >> reporter: less than 24 hours after the firing james comey, the man leading the investigation into russian meddling, president trump welcomed russia's ambassador and foreign minister to the white house. the russians releasing these pictures of the men laughing together in the oval office. later, the president asked why fire comey? >> mr. president, why did you fire director comey? >> why did you fire director comey? >>

that paper trail from director comey includes a memo written by james comey on february 14th immediately after he met one on one with the president in the oval office. that memo reportedly says that president trump told director comey to shut down the fbi's investigation into the national security adviser mike flynn. mike flynn had resigned the day before that meeting because of his undisclosed contacts with russian officials. now two people who say they have read comey's memo say the memo quotes the president directly from that conversation saying about the flynn investigation, quote, i hope you can let this go. so there is a lot to this story. the white house is denying this conversation took place. james comey would probably be a pretty good witness if it came down to a he said/he said disagreement about whether or not this conversation happened. particularly if he contemporaneously documented the contents of that conversation when it happened and he can prove it. but it's possible the white house could also prove it in terms of their side of the story. if they are not erasing that pr

james comey, gone. all three of whom had the potential to investigator -- and trouble the trump presidency. >> all three appointed by democrats all three appropriately replaced by a republican. but what we think. >> wait, wait. >> it was appropriately that james comey -- why do nef ten year terms. >> i think it's appropriate that he not be the director of the fbi. i think a lot of this is his fault. injury he should have resigned he should have looked in the mirror and said to himself "i" not trust the by democrats. i am not trusted by republicans. i am not trusted by the american public. and he should have resigned. >> yeah now he didn't and that's put the president. >> pick it back let's put the picture back up. the tlie people who are investigating this president are the administration fired. >> yates was a hold overshe was going to go only a question of which day she was going to go and be replaced. generally the u.s. attorney is replaced. and comey, is a unique situation. he really messed up. he ma

would hillary clinton have fired james comey? >> you know, hillary clinton wasn't elected president of the united states, donald trump was. i think this is a classic example of how the trump administration is trying to get us to debate, you know, what would hillary have done. let's go back to 2016 and relitigate the campaign and not keep the focus on the choice that donald trump made here. >> we're going to do that, but i'm not part of the trump campaign. this is me asking you. would hillary clinton have fired james comey? >> i honestly have no clue. you know, we were running a campaign, we were focused on winning votes, and this discussion never came up and never -- we never frankly had the opportunity because she wasn't elected to even make these sorts of considerations. you know what, frankly, it doesn't matter. what's concerning here today is that the same day that subpoenas were coming out in the fbi probe into russia, all of a sudden donald trump decides to fire james comey. and not just that, he decides to make the excuse