Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Breaking tonight, President Trump is publicly weighing in on the Stormy Daniels lawsuit, denying he knew anything about his lawyers hush money deal with the porn star. This as were uncovering new efs that mr. Trump hasnt given up on the idea of firing his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, a move that could threaten the special counsels russia investigation. Cnn learning that this week the president floated replacing sessions with his embattled epa chief, even as scott pruitt was embroiled in scandal. Uhl get reaction from democratic congressman adrianna espaillat. And our analysts are all standing by. Lets go to pamela brown. Pamela, we heard from the president on air force one just a little while ago. Reporter thats right, wolf. And there were some Significant Developments aboard air force one. The president breaking his silence on Stormy Daniels, claiming that he didnt know anything about the payment that his own lawyer made to daniels just before
Connections here, 12 companies they own or control, also 17 senior russian government officials. So 38 of these people and entities in total targeted. And the reason is, what the administration is calling the totality of russian activities. Their takeover of parts of ukraine, continued violence there, cyberattacks, meddling in elections, although those words werent used, and also connections to syria. Some of the people are notable that are targeted here. We have several advisers to putin, a putin soninlaw who became extremely rich not long after marrying into the family. We have the chairman of the huge energy company, stateowned. We have ol leg dare pos kof who has connectioning allegedly to trumps former Campaign Chair paum man fort and his partner rick gates both of whom were indicted in Robert Muellers russia probe. A number of others here, too. This will raise several questions. First of all, the original list back in january that the Treasury Department was required to come up w
Judiciary member, congressman ted liu. Our correspondents and analysts are standing by. Lets go to every an perez and murray. What are you learning . This came between discussions of rick yates and Robert Mueller. This is months before rick gates pleaded guilty to charges in the special counsels investigation. According to sources who talked to the court writer, mueller told gates that he had plenty of evidence against Paul Manafort, the former Campaign Chairman of the Trump Campaign, as well as gates former Business Partner. He said he had plenty of evidence against manafort. What he needed gates help with was the core mission of the special counsel which is the ties between the Trump Campaign alleged ties between the Trump Campaign and the russians. What this means is that the special counsel is looking specifically at making the case of russian collusion, that it has not gone away, despite what you hear from President Trump and from his allies. From republican members of the house i