Source: FBI Chief "Incredulous" Over Trump Wiretap Claim
ERIN BURNETT, ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT HOST: OutFront next. Breaking news. The FBI Director, "incredulous" over President Trump accusing Obama of wiretapping his phones. And tonight, the White House won't say whether Trump has confidence in the FBI Director James Comey. And more breaking news. Republicans unveiling their bill to repeal parts of Obamacare, what does it leave in place and the meeting filled with expletives. Sources say, the president accusing his staff of fumbling. We have new details behind Trump's rage. Let's go out front. And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. We begin with the breaking news. Incredulous, a source telling CNN at this that FBI Director James Comey's reaction to President Trump's charge at former President Obama ordered his phones to be wiretapped during the campaign. We're also learning that Comey had FBI officials reach out to staff at the justice department over the weekend. Part of that discussion, a request that the justice department publicly knock down Trump's allegations. Also, tonight White House Spokesman Sean Spicer speaking to CNN moments ago dodging the question when asked twice if Comey has Trump's full faith and confidence to remain as director of the FBI.</s>SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What's the president's view of James Comey right now? Does he have the president's full faith and confidence to stay on as the FBI Director?</s>SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I'm not -- I don't think -- we've only heard unsubstantiated anonymous sources make those claims. I don't think Director Comey's actually commented on anything that he has allegedly said, so I'm not -- I'm not going to comment on what people say he might have said.</s>BURNETT: That was Sara Murray you heard asking that question. She's OutFront at the White House at this moment. And Sara, look, this is the reality, the FBI and the White house seemingly at very, very serious odds tonight.</s>MURRAY: That's right, Erin. There does seem to be some distance between the president and the FBI Director about his allegation that came seemingly out of the blue over the weekend, a serious allegation the notion that a former president wiretapped then presidential candidate Donald Trump. But if you think Trump is backing down from that allegation, no, think again. President Trump leveling a stunning attack at his predecessor, alleging without any evidence that former President Obama spied on him at Trump Tower. This weekend, Trump tweeted, how low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon Watergate, bad or sick guy. His allegations appeared to have been inspired by a Breitbart article that was make its way around the White House. But since then</s>SPICER: Absolutely not, no way. The president has made very clear that he wants the house and senate intelligence committees to look into anything in the 2016 election that may or may not have been proper with respect toss wiretaps or surveillance. We hope that they do that.</s>MURRAY: Meanwhile, sources tell CNN that the FBI has asked the justice department to refute Trump's claim that Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump's phones last year. The FBI's request came because such a wiretap would be illegal. The president can't just order eavesdropping on a U.S. citizen. A court would have to approve the wiretap request and that would mean a judge would have had to have found sufficient evidence to do so. Today, Spicer declined to say whether FBI Director James Comey still has the president's full confidence. But what about the president with the FBI director?</s>SPICER: I haven't asked him that yet. I think obviously he's focused today first and foremost on this effort to keep the country safe.</s>MURRAY: Over the weekend, the former director of national intelligence also said he was aware of no such wiretapping during his tenure.</s>JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATURAL INTELLIGENCE: For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president -- the president- elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign.</s>MURRAY: As for Obama, a spokesman for the former president insisted he's never ordered surveillance of any U.S. citizen saying a cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. Even members of the Republican Party said they weren't sure what the president was referring to.</s>SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: If it's true, obviously, we're going to find out very quickly and if it isn't then obviously he'll have to explain what he meant by it.</s>MURRAY: Now the President Trump's tweet came ahead of a very busy week for him. He has the new travel ban that they unveiled today as well as the new plan to plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. There is some on the hill who believe that this wiretapping allegations could be a distraction from that agenda, Sean Spicer dismissed that notion today and basically said, look, we can all walk and chew gum at the same time. Erin?</s>BURNETT: All right. Sara, thank you very much. And well, the White House would not say today whether the president still has confidence in the FBI Director, James Comey, we are getting new information now as to what Comey thinks about the president's claims of wiretapping. And Pamela Brown is OutFront with that breaking news in Washington. Pam, what are you learning about what the FBI director says? PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT : Well, Erin, we're learning that the FBI director had a level of disbelief, if you will, after the president tweeted that the past president, President Obama, ordered a wiretap of his phones during the campaign. Of course, as Sara mentioned, a president can't order a wiretap of a phone and the FBI acts independently of the president when it comes to going to the FISA courts to ask for a warrant to wiretap them in phone. And so, in response to this, Director Comey of the FBI was concerned that this allegation could be bad for the FBI's reputation given the magnitude of the allegation and the fact that he believed -- he knows it was wrong, according to a person familiar with the matter. And so that was really behind what we saw, what we reported on over the weekend. Staffers in the FBI reaching out to career personnel at the Department of Justice asking for DOJ to come out and publicly knock down this allegation and say that it's simply not true. As we know, that has not happened, Erin, and we're told by a person familiar that there was a level of frustration with the FBI Director that that hasn't happened. But, of course, this is really a unique and interesting situation where you have the director of the FBI seemingly at odds with the president.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much. It certainly is. Pamela Brown, thank you. And OutFront now, Republican Congressman Chris Stewart who sits on the intelligence committee. And Congressman, I appreciate your time this evening. You just heard, the FBI Director incredulous of President Trump's accusations. And I don't know if you heard but Sean Spicer, the press secretary refused twice to say that Trump has confidence in Director Comey. Do you -- in the intelligence committee, do you have confidence in James Comey tonight?</s>CHRIS STEWART, UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE 2ND DISTRICT OF UTAH: Yes. We do. I think he's one of the finest men in government, I think he's shown integrity in some very, very difficult political situations and we have much to learn. I mean, the reality is there's no reason for us not to have trust and confidence in Director Comey at this time and in the investigations going forward, we'll be working with Director Comey on that. He's been very forthright with us in the past and I would expect he would continue to act that way.</s>BURNETT: Now, you have confidence in him but the reality of it is of course, Congressman, the president has made a huge allegation and he has presented no evidence for it, right? It was out of the blue, I think everybody was dumbfounded, you, us, everybody. Should he be making a claim like this publicly and then not putting any proof out?</s>STEWART: Well, it is a serious claim and it is much better if we have some evidence to support it at the same time. But the problem is it's not the only time we've seen that. For the last few weeks we've seen this narrative that previous Trump administration or that there are campaign officials were in some way colluding with the Russian government to manipulate the campaign, that certainly been a story that we've heard. Again, without any evidence that officials have had to say we don't have evidence to support that. I don't think either one of these is very helpful. I think it's better if we have a serious and a delivered investigation as a house intelligence committee has been permitted to do. We started this investigation by the way, not in the last month or so, we start today in September. And I think it's better if we do that and probably don't have as much political grandstanding and a little less -- a little less focus on the cameras, a little more focus on finding out the truth and reporting to the American people.</s>BURNETT: And the truth is important, I do want to say in terms of what we reported. Again, it has been constant communications between the Trump campaign not colluding and constant communications of course, we've had evidence out but colluding no, at this point, no, nor have we reported that. But on this issue of wiretapping, right? The president could clear this up so quickly, Congressman. If there's proof he knows about it. If a request to wiretap him came as he alleges from the Obama White House, he has the ability to declassify that request, could he that right now? And that would mean you, the American public, you, me, we all see the allegations and the requests. So, if the request exists, why isn't he declassifying it and letting us all see the classified information?</s>STEWART: You know</s>BURNETT: But just because he comes out and alleges something is true on Twitter, is it -- is it worth you running it down, spending time and resources to run it down just because he said it's true with no evidence thus far?</s>STEWART: You know, I was asked that in an earlier interview today and I -- and I -- and I had to say, look, this is the president of the United States making a very serious accusation. I don't know how we could ignore it. And that would be true regardless of what the accusation was and regardless of who the president was. If any president says this type of serious behavior took place then we have a responsibility to tell the American people either it did or it didn't. I don't know how we could just say, well, you know, that seems -- that seems unlikely therefore --</s>BURNETT: We didn't know he have no evidence, he's the president so it carries merit just on that basis of his office.</s>STEWART: Well, yes, yes, yes. Just like for example we're pursuing allegations of improper conduct between individuals and perhaps Russian intelligence and we don't have evidence of that either. But some of the accusations have been made and so we need to answer that question.</s>BURNETT: Well, the president was -- I mean, been on that, U.S. Intelligence deemed it important enough to brief the president on a 32-page dossier, right? With the pool aside with James Comey at the FBI. We have since learned that some of the conversations in that dossier between Russian nationals did take place. I mean, there are some facts that go with that including U.S. intelligence deemed it important enough to brief the president. This isn't just a tweet from the president.</s>STEWART: Well, as there are I think in background now and this is not me speaking as member of the intelligence committee, this is background on what's been recorded by other entities within the press. Let's say that, you know, that they did go to FISA courts in June and they were declined and so they went back I believe in October. And they --</s>BURNETT: Right. But he could declassify this, so we could all see what the allegations were.</s>STEWART: Well, that's true but again, I'm just giving you an indication that there was some indication that, you know, there was some reason to believe that. So I'm going to let the president answer that. Again, I haven't counseled with him on this, I don't know what his thinking is. I would encourage all of us, not just the president but all of our organizations and entities. Declassified information as appropriately as we can, as quickly as we can. I think we do need to investigate it, the American people want to know if it's true or not. I think we owe them that type of an answer.</s>BURNETT: Yes. Well, part of the reason I'm asking this issue about him declassifying, right? Is that the President of the United States can't just order eavesdropping on a U.S. citizen. You referenced the FISA for it, right? A specialized judge has to deem the evidence and has go in and say here's the evidence that we believe as merit as of the wiretap and then that FISA court has to approve the wiretap. So there's a couple scenarios here. Either a judge found sufficient evidence of something going on in Trump Tower that required a wiretap, option one or Trump is falsely accusing President Obama. Both of those things are bad for President Trump, are they not?</s>STEWART: Well, I don't know that there's, you know, if you're interested in creating a scenario that's bad for anyone individual here I think we can do that for a lot of different folks and a lot of hypothetical theories. I think the more important question here is once again, just getting to the truth, just answering the question for the American people. And, you know, the Intel Committee we work in a bipartisan way, we don't work with the cameras blazing in front of our faces. We've been -- had reputation on working across the aisle and being serious about our work. I hope and I expect we continue to do that because these questions that you're asking me tonight deserve to be answered and they deserve to be answered in a serious and thoughtful way that isn't politicized and it isn't done for a political advantage.</s>BURNETT: And before we go, Congressman, I do want to ask you about the other breaking news at this hour. We're getting our first look at the GOP leadership plan to replace Obamacare. Do you support it?</s>STEWART: Well, I haven't seen it yet. Of course you know there's been all sorts of iterations of this.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>STEWART: I sure the hope that I can I suppose that I will unless there's something, you know, dramatically different in that, this is something we promised the American people that we would support and I look forward to looking at it later tonight.</s>BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Congressman. Thank you for coming OutFront.</s>STEWART: Thank you. You bet.</s>BURNETT: All right. And next, we have more breaking news. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a letter to congress again insisting he did not lie during his confirmation hearings, it's a triple down. What's the reaction on Capitol Hill? One of the senate's top democrats OutFront this hour. And an angry president lashing out its staff in an expletive filled meeting according to a source. Why is he so angry tonight? And Jeanie Moos, on why Barbra Streisand is blaming president Trump for ruing her diet.