election commission hosted a summit with state and local officials on election system issues. it includes efficiency, security and voter assess ability. the commission is an independent federal agency created in 2002, charged with identifying best voting practices. >> what is the eac? glad you asked. it stands for election assistance commission and simply put our goal is to make your job easier. seriously. we were established by the help america vote act of 2002 as an independent bipartisan commission, charged with helping americans vote. the primary way we do that, by ensuring a election officials have the support and resources they need. we hope in a few ways we craft and adopt the voluntary voting system guidelines, a test laboratory and certified voting systems. certification clearinghouse of information best practices related to elections. we also maintain the national male voter registration form which can be used to register to vote, update registration information with a new name or address or register with the political party and develop recommendations and standards

of state or local official. sometimes there's not an existing level of trust in those, so there may be some reluctance to share that kind of sensitive data. so that's part of what is being worked on, and what does that environment look like when there is a threat in state "a," is that data something that needs to be shared with state officials or local election officials across the country? when you have 8,000 local election officials that becomes a pretty significant job to do that. so that's something that's being actively worked on. from what we have been focusing on and i think what a lot of people have been focusing on, again, a new term i've learned. i've learned a lot of new stuff in the last year. one of them is human firewall training. and from the smart people i talk to, and i try to talk to smart people that know a heck of a lot more about the subject matter than i do, is, that's the one initial step. i think there's a whole host of things we need to be doing, but that is the one step that's probably

top officials who were involved in those conversations. and we'll get back to you if that information develops. >> the president's meeting at camp david with members of congress, cabinet secretaries. one person who is not going to be joining him is jeff sessions. do we know why? >> well, we don't know exactly why. i talked to a senior administration official earlier this evening about this who said, listen, the attorney general will be involved in other events with the president in the days and weeks ahead. the attorney general is not on this trip and he was not invited on this trip, but this official said this should not be looked at as a snub. the white house said earlier this evening, despite the fact you have various cabinet officials, you have top congressional officials and as well as top members of the president's staff, not to mention the vice president, despite the fact that they're all up there, that this should not be read as any kind of snub or message to jeff sessions. the white house said earlier this evening that the white h

official who also attended the rio de janeiro olympics in official who also attended the rio dejaneiro olympics in 2016. official who also attended the rio de janeiro olympics in 2016. and what could go possibly wrong in this meeting? there could be a gender hijacking possibly from the north korean. there could be some sort of demand that the north koreans are going to make —— agenda hacking. it seems the goal is the dprk getting into the olympics. the goal is that they will do everything they can and can't do to make sure that that happens. there are fears of an environmental disaster in the east china sea as a tanker continues to leak oil two days after it hit a cargo ship. chinese officials say the vessel is in danger of exploding. one body has been recovered but 31 crew members are still missing. the sanchi had left port in the persian gulf, bringing 136 thousand tons of oil east. it passed through the malacca straits and was heading up the east china sea to south korea when the collision happened. robin brant reports from shanghai. since saturday night, the fire has burned. da

government officials, high-level officials are required by statute to fill out somewhat detailed forms about their financial interests but the statute is that it has been interpreted so that if the government official has a business, the official does not need to disclose the debt and financial relationship of that company but we have a president who has hundreds of llcs and the office of government ethics has interpreted the statute, the disclosure statute, he is not required to disclose financial relationships of those llcs including the death coat of those llcs those companies so we have financial disclosure laws adequate for many of the people in the room or someone like myself but they're not adequate to deal with someone who is using, has their own company because it has been interpreted not to require disclosure. for someone like trump, jared kushner, we need to change the law so we can get visibility into the financial connections including the debt of their own companies. >> in addition to not having to disclose the debt, the other wacky think about disclosure, we have discuss

the statute had been interpreted so if a government official had a company, a business, the official does not need to disclose the debt and financial relationship of the company. hasave a president who hundreds of llcs. at the office as interpreted, these that you -- he was not required to disclose the financial relationships of those llcs, including the debt owed by the llcs. financial disclosure laws adequate for people in the room. they are not adequate to deal , whosomeone who is using has their own company. it has been interpreted not to require disclosure. for someone like trump, jared kushner, we need to change the loss, so we can get visibility into the financial connections, including the debt, of their own companies. >> can i add one thing? in addition to not having to disclose the debt, the other wacky thing about ethics disclosure is if you ever seen, broad ranges -- see -- broad ranges. to see what your asset is, maybe adequate. one thing we looked at -- if you look at other countries, it was -- was not a man taking action. it was a pattern of rent seeking businesses in

last month intelligence officials warning officials this a member of the trump family has been targeted by a chinese influence operation. what is an influence operation in this context and how unusual is that warning? >> well, an influence operation is in some sense an effort by a foreign government to try to alter the decision making of powerful people in a foreign power. as we all know and heard now, russia sought to impact american politics by getting involved in the election itself. china takes a different approach. it's trying to leverage or bring ever bring pressure or persuade foreign leaders in australia, new zealand and indeed in the united states to try to make policy choices. this is growing over the last couple years and we have begun to hear more specific information about what might be happening at the top of the u.s. government. >> i'm struck by the strenuous denial that you received from mr. kushner's spokesman, that's unusual for a white house advisor to have his own spokesman but these are the times that we're in. he's denying that he ever spoke on personal or family b

sometimes what happens may be learned by the local official or the state official and they need to interchange the information, so some states have made progress in setting requirements of the sharing of the kountase and the state level, and some best practices out there, and one of the coordinating councilmemb councilmembers who represents the state of utah is chairing the effort to look at the template for 50 states to consider on that. this is not all about the federal government to get the p information out to the states, because sometimes the information comes because somebody is doing something on the state or the local system, and they may see the anomaly that has contextual relationship elsewhere so building those processes are important. that is some of the progress on the information sharing, and the third area is really in terms of enhancing the tools. with the critical infrastructure designation, one of the things that the secretary of homeland security now, multiple secretaries of homeland security have affirmed is that we need to prioritize the resources to take on this threat. w

officials and staff members. in the attorney general's office, including the attorney general jeff sessions. i should also point out according to the senior administration official, this person described what was going on and the conversations regarding jeff sessions' decision to recuse himself or not recuse himself as, quote, chaos. >> jim acosta speaking. >> and then he called sessions office but it was about a news conference. >> cnn's jessica schneider has been following don mcgahn's role and has more from white house. >> reporter: a source close to attorney general jeff sessions tells cnn white house council don mcgahn personally reached out to sessions in early 2017 to try to dissuade the attorney general from recusing himself from that probe. they learned about the outreach and it was a direct order by president trump who reportedly erupted in front of several white house officials when sessions announced he recused himself. >> therefore, i recuse myself. >> reporter: saying mr. trump said he had expected

it was written by a contracting official. i want to emphasize the non-sensibility of it would not depend on a law degree or any kind of legal education, but on the other hand, i am intrigued -- ie fact that it wasn't mean, i'm a teacher of legal ethics, so perhaps for that reason, i am intrigued by the fact it was not touched or not apparently touched by a lawyer but made by a contract officer. it just doesn't make any sense because it's says the president would not benefit from the lease because he won't actually receive the benefit until after he leaves office, but to suggest that is not a benefit is nonsensical. daniel: i am math illiterate, completely, and finance illiterate too, god help me, but even i know what a capital account is and i know because just because you don't take distributions from your capital account does not mean it is not yours. if the profits from the hotel are going into his capital account, the account is going up and asked kathleen said, basically because the money would not actually go out until

secret anything that's not in the public domain through official channels could potentially be an official secret and they could face up to fourteen years in prison i mean that's what they've been charged with at this stage the door is open for the possibility of some other charges coming down the road but basically you've had strong i you know the human rights group of come out and saying that this is ridiculous abatement charge that this act is just soulless old and it is does not apply. and also the families of these two men of these two journalists say that they never even saw the documents they were called to meet with a dinner with police officers and they had not met before were handed these documents that had not looked at and then just as they walked away from dinner is when they were arrested so the families are basically saying that this was a setup ok where does this go from here can we expect to see these two journalists put on trial. yeah well this is basically the beginning of the process the next day is january twenty third so there will be talking about bal the defense tea

i meet with iranian officials and what's interesting is you hear a lot less from iranian officials about what's happening in the region than say from saudi officials. i think it reflects that iran sees itself as a global power in a way that other countries in the region perhaps don't. so i would say that we would like these countries in the region, saudi arabia, the uae and so forth, to start thinking of themselves more in that not necessarily global context, but in the regional context, opposed to in competition with the iranians, if you know what i mean, focused on promoting their own prosperity, sort of their own resilience against the types of threats they face. >> yes, a bunch of questions here. >> you mentioned that the crowned prince is engaged in experiments. can you give us an idea if it's not delicate to say so, having just been hosted by them, about some of the results of the failure of his experiments? what happens in saudi arabia, given the strategic imperatives are still the same for them, if there is a reaction to everything he's doing. i don't understand that they have op

but officials are saying, a former security official for paris, for example, said that he expected it to be in the hundreds of millions of euros, especially when one considers that the river traffic, this is a major transport hub for paris, the river traffic has been cut off now for days, as well they won't be able to determine exactly the extent of the damage because they have to wait until the floodwaters go down. that could be weeks, and do a proper inspection of the underground railroads, the footings, the bridges, and other things that are presently submerged. jim bittermann, cnn, paris. >> all right, jim, thank you. >>> let's get the very latest on the situation in paris. >> ivan cabrera joins us with that. when's it going to get better? >> it's going to get better continuing today. as jim mentioned they were pretty much stabilizing at this point here and he mentioned millions of dollars in damage with this particular event. tell you what that's better than the billions back in 2016. when we did flood to 6.1 meters. this is where we should be. this is the normal height of water

now officials in santa clara county say they are fighting back. ( robin ) the ice deputy director says they will continue to enforce the law and prevent companies from exploiting illegal immigration. ( robin ) happening now... berkeley police are releasing new surveillance of a robbery and shooting... hoping it leads to an arrest. we want to warn you... this video may be disturbing. this happened on vine street near martin luther king junior way back in december. the victim had just parked this silver car -- and was getting something out of it. that's when you see the two thieves walkup. one of the thieves grabs the man's back- pack. there is a struggle and shots are fired. but the victim does not let go of the backpack. he is dragged... and then the thief fires two more times.. until the victim lets go. the victim wa

after the speech, cabinet officials will fan out to reinforce the message. one will be about congress moving to action, also about items that this white house has already accomplished like tax reform. you should expect another speech on tax reform from the white house for the president early next month. part of the discussions going on evolve immigration and keeping the government (the funding authority ends on february 8. the white house has given an offer on immigration, protecting 1.8 million dreamers. those who brought to the country illegally as children, and extremely billions of dollars and a border wall and ending chain migration and the visa lottery system. the president is interested and wants to keep the daca recipients in the country. >> if we make the right deal, i think they will. these are people with very strong opinions on daca and on immigration in general. i happen to think they are largely right. look, we're going to try to ma e a deal on daca, we have a good chance of making it. we need the wall, we need security at the border, we need t

official from receiving compensation for services provided. no indication it is just limited to gifts, but now in litigation the justice department, now that the clause is being in litigation and at issue, it interprets the emoluments clause more nearly than it has before, so that it wouldn't apply to for value exchanges with government officials, and that is not limited to the president, that weakens the clause as enter but about the justice department to all federal officials. daniel: that illustrates one of the things in our report, that the justice department in particular i do not think is the best enforcer of these roles. this is why i think that you need an independent ethics a -- theor, not just justice department is not well-suited for this. kimberly: we have a couple minutes, you get our last question. >> from the brennan center for justice, i will pick up on this servedecause having agencies and having witnessed, or should i say having heard of these conversations that contracting officers designating the ethics that they participat

government officials say small growers government officials say small g rowers a re government officials say small growers are illegally taking over forest la nd growers are illegally taking over forest land but community leaders says big tea companies are involved as well. but the organisation representing most tea firms, the indian tea association, rejects this. it says it is not encroaching on forest land. the warden of the forest says his hands are tied as tea gardens have taken over part of the forest, but he has no control. translation: there was plenty of food and water 30 elephants but because of increasing populations, and because elephants don't eat tea leaves, we see this conflict with humans. government official had told me they had recently recovered some land which was being used illegally for tea gardens. it is a small step but a bigger issue remains about how people and elephants can live together. mariam kerketta wants no otherfamily to together. mariam kerketta wants no other family to go through her loss. navin singh khadka, assam, bbc news. new caledonian crows, are f

official to explain trump's comments. we'll have more on that including a reporter that broke that news, coming up, stay with us. ♪ with expedia, you can book a flight, then add a hotel, and save. ♪ everything you need to go. expedia because um, i've been meaning to talk to you, uh oh. well, you know, you're getting older. um, you might be experiencing some, ah, sensations. ah, it happened to your dad..uh with.. oh, look the tow trucks here! can't wait to be rescued? esurance roadside assistance lets you know when help will arrive. that's insurance for the modern world.® esurance. an allstate company. click or call. you have any questions, uh.. i'm good. awesome. these are the specialists we're proud to call our own. experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com >>> i am runing to be president. whether you vote or not vote for me, i will be your greatest champion. i am running to represent haitian america

officials. but i think in many ways cyber security and a need to focus on just not just the physical security of your election system but the digital and cyber security of your elections is something moving from the other duties of the job description to an actual line item or paragraph or full section of your job description going forward and that's one of those things that i know everyone in the field is committed to doing and wants to make sure they do right. the problem is in many ways we're catching up to the bad guys or the advanced good guys in the field and learning how to do that. there are some very high level things i know were already in place and we're going to hear about those today but there are other things each of us and the people we work with are going to have to do a better job of, thinking about how securely we back up our information and how we secure it. knowing how to spot, respond or not to phishing attempts and other attempts to get at the data that we work with on a da

state officials are working with local officials to deal with this question. sometimes what happens might be learned by local official. and they need to interchange a. there are some best practices out there. one of the government courting councils his chariot and effort to look at can there be a template for 50 states to consider. sometimes the information comes because someone is doing something on the state and local system and they see an anomaly that may have contextual purpose elsewhere. that is some of the progress we made on information sharing. the third area is things that we've done in terms of enhancing our tools. with the critical infrastructure endeavors devastation. multiple of them. we need to prioritize our resources to take on this threat. we have done so. there had been a backlog of availability for us to support those. it is our most thorough hands-on support to state and local election officials. to understand their system in the state to get hands on in the system when asked and to make security recommendations. we had had a reported back

last month intelligence officials warning administration officials that a member of the trump family has been targeted by a chinese influence operation. what is an influence operation in this context and how unusual is that warning? >> well, an influence operation is in some sense an effort by a foreign government to try to alter the decision making of powerful people in a foreign power. as we all know and heard now, russia sought to impact american politics by getting involved in the election itself. china takes a different approach. it's trying to leverage or bring pressure or persuade foreign leaders in australia, in new zealand, and indeed in the united states, to try to make policy choices that are closer to chinese objectives. this has become a growing subject of interest among counterintelligence officials over the course of the last couple years, and now we've begun to hear more specific information about what might be happening at the top of the u.s. government. >> i'm struck by the strenuous denial that you received from mr. kushner's spokesman, that's also unusual for a wh

of state or local official. sometimes there's not an existing level of trust in those, so there may be some reluctance to share that kind of sensitive data. so that's part of being worked on, and what does that environment look like when there is a threat in state a, is that data something that needs to be shared with state officials or local election officials across the country? when you have 8,000 local election officials that becomes a pretty significant job to do that. so that's something that's being actively worked on. from what we have been focusing on and i think what a lot of people have been focusing on, again, a new term i've learned. i've learned a lot of new stuff in the last year. one of them is human firewall training. and from the smart people i talk to, and i try to talk to smart people that know a heck of a lot more about the subject matter than i do, is that that's the one initial step. i think there's a whole host of things we need to be doing, but that is the one step that's probably going

from two other campaign officials. they obtained a grand jury subpoena for steve bannon's testimony last week that they are still actively working with a grand jury. alongside their ongoing negotiations to get the president himself interviewed by mueller's prosecutors. i just have to say, in an alternate universe on earth one where things retain their rational size and shape, it is a huge deal that the national security adviser is quietly cooperating with the special counsel and has been for months, the special counsel that has been working with the grand jury, which has already handed down dozens of accounts against the president's top officials. that's happening right now, that mike flynn cooperation. while him and at least one more cooperating witness are looming over this presidency, think about the president's defense team and what they need to strategize. president's defense obviously needs all the intel they can get on what they are up against. what mueller has, what they need to mitigate or investigate themselv

according to current and former officials briefed about chinese communications, chinese oc officials said their baam basketball to -- a ambassador discussed it. it's the surveillancsurveillanc. it's the intercepts over and over again with the different senior people and trump campaign and administration. they make public denials or they make denials to the fbi and then those denials got blown out of the water by evidence, specifically by intelligence intercepts. by surveillance information, collected by intelligence agencies while surveilling foreign government officials. the intelligence intercepts keep getting them. how do you fix that problem? if you see that as a problem, how do you fix that? well, republicans and congress are dramatically stepping up their efforts to attack and undermine the fbi and now very specifically going at the fbi to try to make a scandal out of their collection of intelligence intercepts. as attorney general jeff sessions was being interviewed by special counsel robert mueller and prosecutors at the end of last week, republicans in the house were opening

could trigger new elections also coming up myanmar charges two journalists with violating the country's official secrets act saying they were trying to reveal the truth about the military's crackdown on. mudslides in southern california have leave at least thirteen people dead and carve a path of destruction through coastal towns already ravaged by wildfires. also on the show they fled war and starvation hoping that life across the border is better these are some of the one million refugees seeking an escape from civil war in south sudan but they face new threats and the country we have an exclusive report. hello i'm terry martin good to have you with us. shrouded in mists the scene around germany's parliament building today illustrating the lack of clarity concerning the country's next government september's election produced no clear result but political parties are now nearing the end of confidential talks aimed at. forming a new governing coalition leaked reports suggest until americans conservative bloc and the social democrats have reached agreements on climate policy in migration but s.p.

well, most election officials it's not a ballot. in our country over 400 different ballot types that we have to distribute. so we have to calculate the number of each of those types. so it's very complicated. we also assign the number of poll workers based on projections and do that for the peak hour so that we don't have any problems. so the number of poll workers varies, knonot just three to fi anywhere from 18 to those. we also do it around break times. so we found this data analysis is helpful and helped keep things smooth at the polling places. but we also know it's not always dependable. so we also, in addition to prior to election day, on election day we actually survey each and every one of our polling places to find out what the turnout is like and the ballot usage. then we make corrections as necessary. the result of our data collection and analysis has been that we have created a lot more convenience for our voters. we have very few lines. and if there are lines, the wait times are short. we've saved hundreds of thousands

there are ten seconds left officially until the top of the hour until there is an official government shutdown. your lawmakers now still working to try to come up with something, but obviously that will be too late. here's the breaking news. it is midnight. no deal. this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. a shutdown of the federal government is now beginning. senators still on the floor intensely negotiating. negotiations are contining past the deadline even though the deadline is midnight, and that is when the government officially shuts down. but there is no deal yet. and that means a shutdown is under way. i want to get to cnn's phil mattingly. he was on capitol hill. jeff zeleny joining us again

i know chairman masterson and others out there have often said election officials need to be it officials. but i think in many ways cyber security and a need to focus on just not just the physical security of your election system but the digital and cyber security of your elections is something moving from the other duties of the job description to an actual line item or paragraph or full section of your job description going forward and that's one of those things that i know everyone in the field is committed to doing and wants to make sure they do right. the problem is in many ways we're catching up to the bad guys or the advanced good guys in the field and learning how to do that. there are some very high level things i know were already in place and we're going to hear about those today but there are other things each of us and the people we work with are going to have to do a better jub of, thinking about how skurly we back up our information and how we secure it. knowing how to spot, respond or not to fishing attempts and other attempts to get at the data that we work with on a dail

government officials and security officials and they say that's why they launched the attack last night but a very very long siege but if yours right now is of a studio over and jennifer they walls there was an alert that attack at a hotel what take place and if this hotel has been targeted before what was security like and how could this have happened. well this is this hotel was attacked in two thousand and eleven and since then security here has been very tight and you are right the united states embassy issued a warning earlier this week saying foreigners should not go to saying that they had intelligence that a complex attack such as this one might be eminent at a hotel they named another hotel across town near the airport this hotel was not. but they said that foreigners should say away from any place where international groups might gather obviously there was some intelligence security has been on high alert here in the afghan capital for many many months since may thirty first that terrible bombing that killed one hundred fifty people in the center of town there have been a numb

working with bipartisan policy center, we developed protocols for local election officials. and to rely on queuing theory to turn those numbers into estimates. 2016, whent that a we went back and asked voters how long they waited in line, though states that had really 2012, southn carolina, virginia, maryland,, florida, their lines were cut in half or three quarters. that is a story of a lot of things going on. part of that is figuring out understand where the problems were. every polling place was not a problem child. from my perspective, whenever i give my big talk about how elections are going in america, i oftentimes will start with one of my favorite videos which is -- about the powers of 10 and i use that video to illustrate how there are different levels of understanding the world, one of which being elections. we can understand what is happening at a national level, state level, county level, or at polling places. when he to understand all of those levels and what is happening -- we need to understand all of those levels and what is happening on those levels. say, du

according to six officials attended or braefiefed, mr. tru began reading aloud from the document that steven miller gave him just before the meeting. the document listed how many immigrants received visas into the united states in 2017. more than 2500 were from afghanistan. the president complained that afghanistan was a terrorist haven. the nation of haiti had sent 15,000 people. the president grumbled they quote all have aids. 40,000 people had come from the nation of nigeria, mr. trump said once they had seen the united states, they would quote never go back to their huts in africa. so this piece came out the day before christmas eve. white house denied these claims and these quotes. white house press secretary called this story lies. white house officials quote strenuously insisted that mr. trump never used the words huts or aids to describe people from any country. the white house put out a statement in the name of a lot of senior administration officials reportedly inside the meeting and put out a statement in the name of those othe

they killed ordinary people and officials, they were also targeting foreigners. us senators hold a rare sunday session to try to end the budget stalemate that has closed down the federal government. i'm kasia madera in london. also in this programme... turkish troops advance into northern syria — targeting an area held by kurdish groups which have been fighting against islamic state. some pop diplomacy from north korea, as it sends a girl band singer to inspect south korea's winter olympic preparations. live from our studios in singapore and london, it's newsday. good morning. it's 9am in singapore, 1am in london, and 5.30am in the morning in kabul, where afghan officials say the number of people killed when a group of militants launched an attack on the intercontinental hotel has risen to 18. all of the gunmen also died, but it took the security forces several hours to bring the situation under control from kabul, zia shahreyar reports. the final moments of a fight that had lasted all night. gunfire and explosions, as afghan special forces battle to regain con

officials including james mattis the current u.s. defense secretary but just a year later former president mohamed morsy forced him to resign and on eventually formed his own political party tag masood is a professor at the harvard kennedy school of government in the u.s. he says sami anon has many allies who could help him. semi i meant clearly has loyalist supporters within the military establishment it's inconceivable that he would have decided to run for the presidency without having some backers within the military so the question is how will those people respond so i do think that it's too early to say that and then candidacy has been nipped in the bud but we are clearly and it's clear that the regime has indicated its anxiety about i meant candidacy and we'll see now what happens in the coming days in what must be a negotiating process between and then in the military his candidacy announcement indicated that he thought that ccs policies were bad that the military was being asked to bear too much of the burden of governing egy

afghan security officials and foreigners and they say that they had originally planned this attack for last weekend but they delayed it because there was a wedding party in the hotel we have just heard from president ashraf ghani just issued a statement praising afghan security forces saying that they worked very hard to avoid any collateral damage perhaps a reason why this siege went on for so long very difficult that there were so many civilians inside the hotel right here behind me most of its two hundred rooms were full of many many people one hundred sixty people as you said have been have been rescued right now the death toll stands at six and right now afghan officials are inside that hotel searching room to room for any kind of clues as to how this happened and for any other injuries casualties or perhaps death deaths inside that hotel we do know that dozens of people were holed up inside their hotel rooms for a very very long terrible night we do know that some people jumped off their balconies or tried to climb down their balconies to get out of the hotel as the attack was go

what he now says about texts between two fbi officials. the latest twist in the non conspiracy conspiracy theory. was 34% eastern european. so i went onto ancestry, soon learned that one of our ancestors we thought was italian was eastern european. this is my ancestor who i didn't know about. he looks a little bit like me, yes. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com >>> 4:18. some exerts between lisa page and peter strozk appeared to look like a special prosecutor was moving in. the last thing you need us going in loaded for bear. response? agree agreed. >> the republicans have been using this issue to discredit the fbi. including a text by page suggesting a secret society wc b within the bureau. ron johnson is now backing off ichlt. >> -- backing off. >> senator, the comment of the secret society is in jest? >> it is a possibility. >> a possibility. not exactly strong enough there from the senator. the justice department inspector general informing lawmakers that a trove of missing messages

it's official. a collector's item. >> [beep] trump and his policies. >> if you described president trump's in a year or sentence what would t-b? >> defective. >> we're asking people in west hollywood how they feel about president trump's first year. >> uggg. >> rough for everyone. i think that we should come together as a country and support who we have in office no matter what. >> what do you think of the first year. >> phenomenal. i think three year will be over the top. >> what about the tax cut for 80% of americans. >> what. >> tax cuts. >> i don't pay taxes [beep] [beep] [beep] [beep], y'all. >> [beep], [beep], [beep] >> thank you for your opinion. >> great speech. >> did you want a hat, sir. [laughing] >> the voice of the generation. what is that guy? was he -- >> i don't know. he wasn't stable. >> what? >> he wasn't stable. >> he wasn't stable. i don't know if he was a member. he's not stable. he had strong opinions he shared with me. he didn't want a hat sadly. maybe next time we go back we

officials in the u.s. state of michigan are opening up about an investigation into michigan state university. that's where convicted sexual abuser larry nasser practiced sports medicine for nearly two decades. >> olympic gymnast aly raisman tweeted her approval of the investigation, and urged u.s. gymnastics and the u.s. olympic committee to open up their own inquiry. jean casarez has more about michigan's investigation. it is now official michigan state university is being investigated by the attorney general's office here in michigan. the attorney general said he didn't want to make it public until all of the women came forward with their victim impact statements. he would not say whether it was an actual criminal investigation but they are bringing someone in from the outside. his name is bill forsythe, a former prosecutor for 42 years. his title in this investigation, independent special prosecutor. also he said that this was priority one for this investigation. and he also had some words for the michi

officials tell cnn american military and intelligence officials are viewing these peace overtures with some skepticism and those who have sat face to face with the north koreans say there's a good reason for it. >> the first round with any negotiations with the north koreans is very tough, sometimes confrontational. often very demanding. >> reporter: we've spoken with several former u.s. oishl ifs who have negotiated directly with the north koreans. they expect the diplomats to try to exact concessions from the north koreans. and they'll likely demand a scaling back of joint u.s. south korean military exercises. these veteran dip lomats say thy can be friendly, charming, persuasive and then can turn into gangsters. the north koreans got frus trtrd in 1998. >> one turned to him and said we can turn your home into a sea of fire. >> and the north koreans have carried out threats made at the bargaining table. former official says in 2003, north korean negotiators told him the u.s. had better end its hostile policies toward pyongyang or else. >> they said they would transfer their so-called

and north korean officials say they will reopen it. at the border with the south the move comes amidst a possible thaw in tensions between the two rivals with leaders on both sides making calls this week for dialogue. this is. thomas for the entire news. more news at the top the hour. information.

reporter: thousand of officials, now demoted fbi agent peter strzok and demoted. lawyer lisa page thought they were lost because after technical glitch. but they were able to recover them. republicans believe special counsel robert mueller's investigation of public russian collusion during the presidential election are biased. strzok and page worked briefly on the probe and express a anti-trump sentiment. senator grassley who released the text messages saying the timing is disconcerting. prompting the attorney general to defend his department. >> it's a little bit odd that would happen. so it raises legitimately raises his questions. >> my purpose every day is to get the department back to its fundamental mission of enforcing the law and protecting the safety of americans, with integrity and fairness. reporter: some of the fiercest advocates for the clinton email probe, the texts that the top officials never planned to pursue charges in the clinton case. kelly. kelly: lauren blanchard from washington. thank you. melissa: for mon on this, let's bring in our panel,

a senior administration official telling cnn's jim acosta that there were two other high-level officials doing the arm twisting. "i think it's fair to call it pressure," the official said, about white house conversations with sessions and top sessions aides about the matter. jeff zeleny now with more. what's reaction from the white house on news of the efforts to stop sessions' recusal? >> reporter: the white house has not commented about this at all. i talked to ty cobb, one of the president's lawyers.

officials weren't doing u.s. russia relations any favors shows muscle to get used to union human i don't understand the logic behind this move but it's definitely a hostile one and further complicates u.s. russian relations with our security services share intelligence that helps prevent terrorist attacks do they need this or not will we start working together or not we can do without that but i think it's in everyone's interests it would be absurd to reduce our relations to zero. while the united states is mulling further restrictions there's a different stance coming from the european union the belgian prime minister claim that the block is against new sanctions was during his meeting with his russian counterpart dmitri medvedev resourcefulness for sanctions are not the end goal dialogue is the key and i would like to highlight that the youth has made a decision not to support the strengthening of restrictions in reaction to the new us less from several political analysts. i don't think it will have much of the

indications they were a number of high-level fbi officials. bigler johnson and the republican chairman of the senate judiciary committee chuck grassley want answers from the justice department's internal watchdog. the missing text between peter strzok and lawyer lisa page and why their committees were told every text was recovered 15 months are missing. justice department spokeswoman said they are working every angle. >> find the text messages, the old phones, whether it's going to some of these technology companies that were involved in seeing if they have them. >> and attacks made public last year, page and strzok talk about avoiding detection. page says we talk on that phone will he talk about hillary because it can't be traced. law enforcement officials tell fox the missing checks are part of a broader technical problem. at least one republican wants more interest from the fbi and former attorney general. >> what i do want is an opportunity to fairly question folks like strzok and page and comey and lynch and others with a benefit of all o

last week that official was let go. he says he conveyed that information to the fbi general counsel who was vently misst re reassigned to a no-show job around christmas with no explanation. james comey reported the president's directors to the fbu deputy director who today was forced out of his job, as well. less than a week ago there was dramatic reporting at axios.com crihristopher wray threatened t resign to protect mccabe. today andrew mccabe was pushed out of his job. christopher wray does not seem to have resigned. whatever is going on where christopher wray was inspiring people with him standing up against white house pressure, he was going to resign than see officials pushed out of their job after being publicly -- if you were thinking christopher wray would resign rather than let that happen, andrew mccabe is gone after today. the fbi director christopher wray was seen at the white house with rod rosenstein. he oversees robert mueller's special investigation since jeff sessions recused himself. the reason i go

joining us now for the interview is matthew axelrod, a senior official. thank you very much for the heads up you gave us about this story and thanks for being here to help us understand. >> thank you. >> it makes sense to me, the way the justice department has explained this. they fired the u.s. attorneys all at once. 300 days ago. the federal vacancy reform act says that you can put the first deputy in those offices, in charge of the office for 300 days, but then you need to appoint somebody new. seems like they hit the deadline and it was time to rush a bunch of new nominees in there. what's wrong with that understanding? >> what's wrong with that, rachel, is you got the first part right, which is that under the vacancies reform act when they fired the u.s. attorneys, the existing number two officials ascended and became the acting u.s. attorneys in those districts. and there's a fixed time period after which the vacancies reform act doesn't work anymore and their authority ends. but what normally happens is then the attorney general uses a separate aut

official. and the order reportedly came straight from the oval office. it has some asking tonight could that be construed as obstruction of jut justice? nbc news national correspondent peter alexander has more. >> reporter: do not recuse yourself, that was the message delivered to attorney general jeff sessions by white house counsel don mcgahn and several other white house officials last march. a senior white house official telling nbc news that the president's aides all tried to convince sessions not to remove himself from running the russia probe. the instructions coming from the president himself, according to "the new york times," orders sessions ignored. >> i have recused myself. >> reporter: sessions' move infuriating president trump who the times erupted in anger, telling aides he expected his attorney general to look out for him. like robert kennedy did for jfk and eric holder for president obama. >> i just gives us a sense of how the president sees the job of his top law enforcement official not as someone necessary through to follow the facts

an official i.c.e. spokesperson told abc 7 news he was not able to speculate about future enforcement action beings. according to the chronicle, the bay area would be the center of this raid. sanctuary city laws in this area have been known to frustrate the president. this sweep is planned to start in the next few weeks. reporting live from san francisco, amy hollyfield, abc 7 news. >>> now a live desk update. >> watching things very closely in lansing, michigan, this morning. impact statements are continuing in the sentencing hearing for the former usa gymnastics doctor, larry nassar. victims spoke in court yesterday. we're listening to more victims speak out this morning. nassar has pleaded guilty to seven cases of sexual assault and women have described how he sexually abused them. many say it was when they were children. >> you used my body for six years for your own sexual gratification. that is unforgivable. >> you broke and shattered a lot of girls. >> meanwhile, prosecutors said they have schedu

officials and state department officials are saying that they have been communicating for months with what they call their i'm providence frustration with pakistan over this situation and their refusal to take action. the scenario according to the u.s., you have terrorist organizations getting sanctuary in pakistan, planning attacks and launching attacks on forces and allies in afghanistan and that they have known about this, the u.s. has voiced complaints about this and still pakistan has not addressed this. it's not only a problem here, but something that they have brought up to the pakistani government for years, shep, this is a relationship that is really been through its ups and downs since 9-11. they have blocked access for the u.s. to certain routes. the u.s. has held back money in this administration before that announcement yesterday, shep. >> shepard: rich edson reporting. thank you. some folks flying to cancun today couldn't escape the cold. how the extreme temperatures led to a major scare in the air. that's next. >> shepard: it's cold. folks up and down the east coast dea