Page 23 - General Clapper News Today

In just hours, former acting attorney general sally yates and former intelligence director james clapper will testify on capitol hill. what can we expect to learn today? joining us to discuss is national security analyst and nsa director general michael hayden. great to have you here. >> thank you. >> sally yates will be hamstrung in the open session. what do you expect to learn? >> this is fascinating, alisyn. let me say at the end of the day thes white house is not going to be enthusiastic wit...

Answer before as well. because i think you may have misunderstood me. you asked whether i was aware of evidence of collusion. i declined to answer because absenteeing would reveal classified information. i believe thats the same answer that director comey gave when he was asked this question as well. and he made clear, and id like to make clear that just because i say i cant answer it, you should not draw from that an assumption that that means that the answer is yes. >> fair enough. >> this ill...

Russians did in the actual election and the second question was what the ties of those around president-elect trump and candidate trump and president trump. it is on the second we will hear the most, i think from sally yates because clearly she had access to this fascinating trove of conversations that were picked up by american intelligence that go back after the time general flynn was fired from the obama administration as head of the defense intelligence agency. he goes to russia. he is worki...

>> other than situations where the department of justice would arrange, for example, for me to talk on background with reporters about a particular issue, to educate them about that, no, ive certainly not provided classified information, and that would be the only kind of background. >> and ive done the same thing, but certainly not -- that doesnt -- doesnt include sharing classified information. >> do you know anybody else as justice who has ever leaked classified or unclassified information to...

Evaldated during the review. >> i would have to consult with the analysts that were involved in the report to definitively answer that. i dont know whether they considered that or not. >> can you submit that as an answer in writing? >> well, im a private citizen now, sir. i dont know what the rules are on my obtaining potentially classified information. so i will look into it. >> mr. clapper, you testified that the intelligence community conducted an exhaustive review of russian interference and...

Unconstitutional, one of your colleagues said or even just that would reflect poorly on the department of justice, would i say no? and i looked at this, i made a determination that i believeds that it was unlawful. i also thought that it was inconsistent with the principles of the department of justice and i said no and thats what i promised you i would do and whats that i did. >> i dont know how you could say it was lawful and say it was within your prerogative to refuse to defend it in a court...

Ambassador and general flynn? was there unmasking in this situation? >> are you looking at me yes. >> i dont know. >> can i try to clarify one point on this unmasking thing? >> very quickly. >> as a consumer of intelligence, for example, i would receive intelligence reports from various agencies. >> i get that. >> oftentimes the names are already unmasked by the intelligence agency. >> the bottom line is i want to know how it got to the "washington post." somebody had to have access to informati...

And never had and never would. >> ned price, you worked for susan price, so just to put that out there, you worked for her in the national security council. but we understand that general clapper, who is also testifying today, is going to or prepared if hes asked to testify that he routinely did unmasking, checked on what the name is of someone who came up in one of these -- one of these references because thats his job. he needed to know what the context is and whether that is significant to pr...

While. i think the gravity of this situation, what we heard from general clapper, what we heard even from director comey. no one was willing to say whether they attempted to do it. especially on the senate side. this hearing called by lindsey graham, a republican, who it has been pointed out that they dont have the staff to do the investigation. they have called for an independent commission. something not likely to happen any time soon. a long hearing and i think people were walking away from t...

General flynn possibly being compromised here and then these important national security decisions had followed, would you have concern about that? >> well, i would hypothetically, yes. i mean, i was gone from the government as well. >> youve had quite a career in intelligence and national security, and here you have a man thats been told, the white house has been told he could be compromised and blackmailed by the russians continuing to make the highest level decisions of our government. >> wel...