[Gorani:] America's FBI director has confirmed there is an investigation underway into possible coordination between Trump campaign officials and Russia. James Comey also told the Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, there's no evidence to support the president's claim that Barack Obama wiretapped him. President Trump's Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, has wrapped up the first day of his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats began by venting their anger at the Republican-controlled Senate that refused to even consider President Obama's nominee last year. Gorsuch promised that if confirmed, he would serve patiently and impartially. The British prime minister will formally start the process of the U.K. leaving the E.U. in nine days. Theresa May will trigger Article 50 next Wednesday. It's expected the negotiations over the terms of Brexit will take two years to complete. America's FBI director, James Comey, has confirmed there is indeed an investigation underway into Trump campaign officials' communications with Russia. That, alone, is huge news. Intelligence officials are not known for revealing many specific details in a public setting. But House Intelligence Committee members are delving deep into media and other reports to shape their questions. The top-ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, referenced several reports, including the Steel dossier that everyone's been talking about. But hasn't been fully substantiated to make his case for why Americans need this hearing. Listen to Schiff.
[Schiff:] In early July, Carter Page, someone Candidate Trump identified as one of his national security advisers, travels to Moscow on a trip approved by the Trump campaign. While in Moscow, he gives a speech critical of the United States and other western countries for what he believes is a hypocritical focus on democratization and efforts to fight corruption. According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. intelligence, Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, CEO of the Russian gas giant, Rosneft. Sechin is reported to be a former KGB agent and close friend of Putin's. According to Steele's Russian sources, Page is offered brokerage fees by Sechin on a deal involving a 19 percent share of the company. According to Reuters, the sale of a 19.5 percent share of Rosneft later takes place with unknown purchasers and unknown brokerage fees. Also, according to Steele's Russian sources, the campaign is offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the Russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniability, like WikiLeaks. The hacked documents would be in exchange for a Trump administration policy that de- emphasizes Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and instead focuses on criticizing NATO countries for not paying their fair share, policies, which, even as recently as the President's meeting last week with Angela Merkel, have now presciently come to pass. In the middle of July, Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign manager and someone who is long on the payroll of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests, attends the Republican Party convention. Carter Page, back from Moscow, also attends the convention. According to Steele, it was Manafort who chose Page to serve as a go-between for the Trump campaign and Russian interests. Ambassador Kislyak, who presides over a Russian embassy in which diplomatic personnel would later be expelled as likely spies, also attends the Republican Party convention and meets with Carter Page, and additional Trump advisers, J.D. Gordon and Walid Phares. It was J.D. Gordon who approved Page's trip to Moscow. Ambassador Kislyak also meets with Trump national security campaign chair, and now Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. Sessions would later deny meeting with Russian officials during his Senate confirmation hearing. Just prior to the convention, the Republican Party platform is changed, removing a section that supports the provision of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, an action that would be contrary to Russian interests. Manafort categorically denies involvement by the Trump campaign and altering the platform. But the Republican Party delegate who offered the language in support of providing defensive weapons to Ukraine states that it was removed at the insistence of the Trump campaign. Later, J.D. Gordon admits opposing the inclusion of the provision at the time it was being debated and prior to its being removed. Later in July, and after the convention, the first stolen e-mails detrimental to Hillary Clinton appear on WikiLeaks. A hacker who goes by the moniker, Guccifer 2, claims responsibility for hacking the DNC and giving the documents to WikiLeaks. The leading private cybersecurity firms, including CrowdStrike, Mandiant, and ThreatConnect, reviewed the evidence of the hack and conclude with high certainty that it was the work of APT 28 and APT 29, who are known to be Russian intelligence services. The U.S. Intelligence Committee also later confirms that the documents were, in fact, stolen by Russian intelligence and Guccifer 2 acted as a front. Also in late July, candidate Trump praises WikiLeaks, says he loves them, and openly appeals to the Russians to hack his opponent's e-mails, telling them that they will be richly rewarded by the press. On August 8th, Roger Stone, a long-time Trump political adviser and self- proclaimed political dirty trickster, boasts in a speech that he has communicated with Assange and that more documents would be coming, including an October surprise. In the middle of August, he also communicates with the Russian cutout, Guccifer 2, and offers a Breitbart piece denying Guccifer's links to Russian intelligence. Then later in August, Stone does something truly remarkable, when he predicts that John Podesta's personal e-mails will soon be published. "Trust me," he says, "it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel #CrookedHillary." In the weeks that follow, Stone shows remarkable prescience. "I have total confidence that WikiLeaks and my hero, Julian Assange, will educate the American people soon," he says, "#lockherup." "Payload coming," he predicts, and two days later, it does. WikiLeaks releases its first batch of Podesta e-mails. The release of John Podesta's e-mails would then continue on a daily basis up until the election.
[Hala Gorani, Cnn Anchor:] That was Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, discussing media reports about alleged Trump campaignRussia ties, clearly saying, look, we need to look into this. Something, you know, doesn't sound right. It's possible something went on. The Trump campaign staffers colluded with Russia. CNN Political Analyst and "Washington Post" Columnist Josh Rogin joins me now from Washington with more. What did you make of this first day of testimony by the FBI Director and the Director of National Security Agency?
[Josh Rogin, Columnist, The Washington Post:] I think most of us in Washington were surprised by how much FBI Director and NSA Director said at today's hearing. They revealed that there was an investigation ongoing. They revealed that it began in July of 2016. They talked about that it does examine people who are currently serving inside the Trump administration as well as some who are not. They dismissed the wiretapping claims, said they had no evidence of that. They dismissed the White House's claims that there was any involvement by British intelligence in that story. And they actually talked a lot about what they know about Russian interference in the U.S. election. So, you know, over the course of these six or seven hours, we got a lot of new information. Despite that, the White House had a press conference immediately after, saying that there was no new information, that nothing was learned.
[Gorani:] And in fact, Donald Trump tweeted, saying that James Comey had confirmed, you know, something that he had not confirmed
[Rogin:] Well, that's right.
[Gorani:] which is that there had been no interference. Right. And then, in fact, Mike Rogers or I should say, James Comey, when asked, said, I cannot make that statement. I can't take that position.
[Rogin:] Well, it was more that. There was a series of tweets from the official POTUS account, that's the government account, not Donald Trump's personal account, in real time, that were misleading about the things that Comey and Rogers were saying. Trump's Twitter feed said that the officials had said there was no evidence of Russian interference in the political process. That wasn't true. They said that James Clapper had said that there was no collusion. That wasn't exactly accurate. So we saw a real time spin effort from the White House that continued into the press conference that sought to sort of shape the coverage. I don't think it was really that successful.
[Gorani:] I mean, what impact would this have on the White House, I wonder? Because do they care, really? I mean, does the Trump White House care when, really, they're talking directly to their base, whether Trump makes, you know, these outlandish accusations directed at former President Obama, that he wiretapped Trump Tower or not? It's out there. He's talking to his base, and his base is still very much liking what they're reading and hearing.
[Rogin:] Well, that's true. I think it's clear that the White House does care about these allegations. They talk about them all the time. They're very active in pushing against them. They can no longer state that they're unaware of an investigation. That's a big change that will force them to change their talking points. They're confident that their base will continue to support them. What they're not confident about is where Republicans in Congress will fall down. We saw a lot of Republicans at these hearings, defending the Trump administration, focusing on the leaks rather than on the substance of the leaks. But in the end, even top Republicans are forced to acknowledge now, on the record, that there's no evidence of wiretapping claims, especially no evidence that they're attributable to President Obama or his administration. So we see a widening gap between what congressional Republicans are willing to say and what the White House is willing to say. And that's certainly a concern for the White House.
[Gorani:] And, Sean Spicer, the Press Secretary, was asked about all of this. This is what he said today in the briefing room.
[Unidentified Female:] Does the President stand by his comments that he's not aware of any contacts that his campaign associates had with Russia during the election?
[Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary:] Yes.
[Unidentified Female:] And the second one is, has anyone from the White House
[Spicer:] Well, can I just amend the first?
[Unidentified Female:] Sure.
[Spicer:] Obviously, just to be clear, I know that I'm trying to think through this for a second because, obviously, General Flynn
[Unidentified Female:] Right.
[Spicer:] But, again
[Unidentified Female:] We're talking during the campaign, before the election.
[Spicer:] Right. And I'm not aware of any at this time. But even General Flynn was a volunteer of the campaign. And then, obviously, there's been discussion of Paul Manafort, who played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.
[Gorani:] I mean, Sean Spicer there is having to really just kind of jump through hoops here. He says, yes, the President is standing by the claim that, you know, there was no contact. And then, wait, wait, wait, hang on. Actually, Flynn, and also, there was you know what I mean. Gosh, he's got a tough job.
[Rogin:] Yes. I mean, he's spinning as hard as he can. It's really quite misleading. Paul Manafort was the campaign chairman. He was heavily involved in the campaign. General Flynn was the top foreign policy adviser to Trump during the campaign and became his national security adviser, so to dismiss him as a volunteer is kind of ridiculous. Overall, what we see the White House doing is cutting bait with anyone they can cut bait with. The people who they can't cut bait with are the people who are still in the administration. And we also saw an effort by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes today to focus on those people. So they're trying to draw a distinction between those who were involved before Trump took office, and those after. But for the FBI, that distinction is a lot less meaningful because their investigation spans the time before Trump was elected and after he took office.
[Gorani:] Right. Since July, in fact.
[Rogin:] That's right.
[Gorani:] Thanks very much, Josh Rogin, in Washington. And joining me now from Washington, as well, with more on the House hearing is CNN National Security Analyst Steve Hall. He's also a retired CIA operations officer with the head of the Russia operations. Thanks very much for joining us. One of the things that the FBI Director, James Comey, didn't want to be drawn in were comments on specific individuals. He was asked about Paul Manafort. He couldn't talk about whether or not current members of the administration were being looked at, et cetera. So we got generalities, but we did learn new things. What did you think was most interesting?
[Steve Hall, Cnn National Security Analyst:] Hala, I drew two things. Obviously, a lot of information and Josh is right. There's a whole lot of things that happened in the six hours. But one of the things that was important to cut out with was that Director Comey did indicate and confirm that this is a counterintelligence investigation that's been going on for a while. Counterintelligence investigations are really, really sticky because you've got a lot of classified, a lot of secret information that is being used during the course of the investigation. And of course, as you mentioned, it also can pertain to some of the people or it might pertain to some of the people that came up during the course of the discussions today, people who had been members of the Trump campaign or the Trump team. So that's going to be complicated and it's going to slow things down, even though, towards the end of the hearings, we got the clear indication that the committee really wanted things to move ahead as quickly as possible because of the political pall that this sort of casts on the situation. But the second thing that struck me, Hala, was, you know, I had hoped that there had been a possibility, at least, for more bipartisanship. And pretty early on, it became clear, as more and more chaff came up, to, in my view, direct attention away from the central question, which is, was there contact, cooperation, collusion, whatever you want to call it, between the Trump campaign and the Russians?
[Gorani:] Yes.
[Hall:] So that's going to be a tough row to hoe. And I wonder whether we're just going to require an independent mechanism to continue on with this.
[Gorani:] You could clearly see the partisan lines drawn there during that hearing, but why aren't some of these individuals being questioned by the FBI as part of this investigation? I mean, wouldn't you expect then, I don't know, Mike Flynn or Paul Manafort to be summoned, to talk to FBI agents and officials about what they knew, didn't know or where they were at any given time? I mean, isn't that something you would expect?
[Hall:] Yes, absolutely. And that's clearly in the FBI's charter. It's got a big piece of the lion's share of the counterintelligence investigation charter. And when that part of the investigation, when it reaches that point in the investigation, I think that they are going to want to talk to those people. Timing in these things is of utmost importance, again, because on the counterintelligence piece, you know, if you're going to act on a piece of information that you're acquired, perhaps clandestinely, you've got to be careful when you decide to call somebody in and ask them about it. It can have impact on other parts of your investigation. It adds a whole another layer of complexity on to what is already a very complex criminal or could be a criminal investigation. And it's just going to take a lot of time to unwind it, which is politically unfortunate for those who have now fallen under this sort of cloud.
[Gorani:] But when you say a lot of time, because, I mean, obviously, American people, many of whom have been hearing these allegations float around, and this investigation has been ongoing since July. We're only hearing it publicly confirmed today, even though James Comey went very publicly on the record about an investigation that was sort of reactivated into the Hillary Clinton e-mails but said nothing of this one. So the question is, what could it be, months? Could it be years?
[Hall:] Well, there are two things there. I mean, it could easily be months. It could be longer. You know, years would be a little long, but I've seen counterintelligence investigations that have gone on for a long time due to their complexity. But to add insult to injury or to pour salt in the wound, a lot of it is so sensitive and so classified that it's not like a normal criminal type of thing, which the FBI and the DOJ, the Department of Justice, could be perhaps, more open about. So it's going to be long and it's going to be secret. And that's going to be really hard for an open society like ours to deal with.
[Gorani:] All right. Steve Hall, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time on CNN. We will be right back after a quick break. Stay with us.