there s currently an acting attorney general dana boente in that position with regard to any investigation that may be occurring. with regard to yr specific question, my answer is, senator, that i do not know the details of what the basis was for that, and i wouldn t reach any opinion about it just based on what i read in the newspaper. senator from hawaii? thank you, mr. chairman. there are more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies all right, senator blumenthal you heard that exchange. what say you, got cha question? not a gotcha question? not a gotcha question at all. in fact, the point senator franken was making essentially is that then senator sessions offered an answer that wasn t even required by the question. he on his own offered that he never met with the russians, and so he really dug himself this hole, and the question when it was gotcha or whatever, didn t
him saying that he had not met with russians, but that wasn t even my question. my question was just if this is and i asked it of mr. rosenstein, which is if it turns out to be the case that members of the mpaign, of the tru campaign have met with russians and you know, includclud kohl cd with them, it was not a gotcha question. that s all i want to say. if you go back and look at the tape i have to say i couldn t have been nicer. i couldn t have been sweeter. really. so that s that. mr. rosenstein, i want to ask you a question. the. s former national security adviser, michael flynn, resigned his position because he misled senior administration officials
come out is a gotcha question. it was not a gotcha question, sir. it was, from the standpoint that he didn t know what you were asking about. but i said that as i was asking the question. senator, no. you haven t heard this and i don t expect you have heard it. senator tillis? look at the tape mr. chairman, please. a testy exchange the likes of which we do not see often in the upper chambe kasie hunt. the big question onrosenstein today was would hupport an independent counsel to investigate the election in the trump/russia ties. what did he say to that? reporter: right. that obviously the sessions, the question to sessions that franken asked is what ultimately has resulted in a chain of events that has led to anybody having any idea who mr. rosenstein is at this stage in the game, because sessions of course ended up having to recuse himself from anything related to the trump campaign and democrats have focused on the deputy attorney general slot as the one that will
i think he owes that to us. reporter: but judiciary committee chairman republican chuck grassley coming to sessions defense. if i was going to ask you a gotcha question, i was going to tell you about it ahead of time and i consider what senator franken asked sessions at that late moment, that that story just come out as a gotcha question. it was not a gotcha question, sir. reporter: and today the white house is still not commenting further on explaining the president s claims about the wiretap. instead, it reiterated its desire to investigate leaks to the press. wolf? pamela brown, thank you very much. joining us now republican congressman chris collins of new york. congressman, thanks very much for joining us. always good to be with you, wolf. president trump called it a fact. he said it was a fact that president barack obama ordered the illegal wiretapping of his phones last year at trump tower in new york city, the homeland security secretary john kelly told me last n
it s what makes a subaru, a subaru. i consider what senator franken asked a at that late moment came out was a gotcha question. it was not a gotcha question, sir. it was, sir. from the standpoint he didn t know what you were asking about. but i said that as i was asking the question. i said, you don t haven t heard this and i don t expect that you have heard it. senator look at the tape, mr. chair.