The president tweeted this. Since the Obama Administration was told that the russians were meddling, why no action . Focus on them, not he. He went on to say that the Obama Administration officials said they choked when it came to the russian meddling. They didnt want to hurt hillary . And the post report details what actions president obama did take and how they wrestled with various options for retaliation. Michelle kosinski has the details. Reporter a bombshell report. Starkly laying out the u. S. Intelligence communitys taste for russias meddling in the 2016 election and it was directly ordered by Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post detailing that intelligence sources had captured putins own instruction to disrupt and discredit the president ial race. With the goal of defeating or hurting Hillary Clinton and helping donald trump. The cia delivered it by courier to president obama in august. The post says that it revealed the frustration, now among some of them that more was not done to punish russia. Quoting one its the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend. I feel like we sort of choked. They say the administration was worried about appearing to try to influence the election themselves as well as provoking russia. One official explains, our primary interest in august, september and october was to prevent them from doing the max they could do. And after the election, some of the harsher options for punishing russian like a cyber attack on them faced roadblocks. One defended the Obama Administration. Maybe the judgment was wrong, maybe we should have acted differently. Maybe we should have done certain things that we didnt do. But given everything we were dealing with, given first of all the perception that russias Main Objective was to undermine the confidence in the election that motivated us to be careful about how we played this in public. Reporter the Obama Administration did set the ball rolling to infiltrate russias infrastructure, with Cyber Weapons controlled remotely like bombs that could cripple the systems. The white house says trump stands by his january comments that he thinks russia was involved in the hacking. And has no plans to fire the special counsel overseeing the russia investigation, Robert Mueller. Despite trump in an interview expressing worry over muellers friendliness with fired fbi director james comey. Which is very bother some, but hes also we have to see. Reporter on the same interview in fox he addressed why he alluded to possibly having recordings of his conversations with comey when in fact he had none. But when he found out that i you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether its governmental tapes or anything else, who knows, i think his story may have changed. I mean, youll to have to take a look at that. Because then he has to tell what actually took place at the events. Reporter but when cnn pressed my question for you, what is the white house what is President Trump now doing to prevent russia from doing this again . Well, this report is new and well discuss it with him later. Reporter again and again i mean, russia, what is he doing to try to start this . Allison, i realize you like to say the word russia russia to mislead the voters and i know cnn is aiding and abetting the voters youre not answering it. Yes. I am. What is he he is saying he want the ballot integrity to be protected. Reporter on friday, the House Intelligence Committee was waiting for james comeys memos, as well as any official word from the white house that they dont have recordings of the conversations between trump and comey. As we see the investigations evolve now the Senate Judiciary committee wants information from Loretta Lynch to see if she might have improperly influenced the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Michelle kosinski, cnn, washington. Lets discuss. Joining us the National Security analyst and retired cia chief, and Professor Emeritus of harvard law, alan dershowitz. One of the most explosive parts is that the cia was able to get Vladimir Putins specific orders deep in the kremlin were learning. What does that tell you and do you think the russian president will be rattled by this . According to the Washington Post reporting it was an intelligence coup in the sense they got a very valuable piece of intelligence which frankly analytically we had assumed and sort of kind of come to the conclusion the while back. I think you have heard people on your program and others and myself included not a whole lot goes on in the National Security front, on the intelligence front or any front in russia without Vladimir Putin being involved and its no surprise to me that a former Intelligence Officer like putin would have wanted to be, you know, either kept up to speed very quickly on these types of that type of operation, influence operation to try to change the elections or actually be personally involved in it. Thats just i think sort of who putin is. Now, in december, president obama placed sanctions on russia, closed down the compounds in new york and in maryland. Was that enough . I mean, President Trump is criticizing their reaction. We know the compounds were allowed to operate in the first place and u. S. Officials knew they had enhanced espionage capabilities. Well, the other part of th that the other thing of the sanctions package that was more damaging to the Russian Operations near the u. S. Was the expelling of 35 russian diplomats, probably most of them Intelligence Officers. So yeah, they shut down the two the two vacation sites, the two da chas and were they being used operationally, who knows. Theyre good spies, they would figure out ways to use the locations but its really a hard its a hard thing. I mean, they got the intelligence and then the question is from a policy perspective what do they do . Thats whats fascinating about the post article. You have the one end of the spectrum, you go cyber warnary fair and then you look at the sanctions. Its not as easy as it seems to come one a good response when sitting here, you know, theres a pundit trying to say this is what they should have done. Some pretty tough choices there. Alan, President Trump has been getting classified briefings as well since he was nominated last summer and hes known russia hacked the election since at least october when the public found out. Doesnt him highlighting this issue with his tweets also highlight what little hes done . Well, i think it shows that were going down the wrong track by having a criminal investigation of the russia connection. Criminal investigations are not designed to uncover the truth. Theyre designed to uncover admissible evidence against particular individuals. We should be having an independent Commission Set up with subpoena power to get to the bottom of what russia is doing, how long they have been doing it and how to stop them from doing it in the future. This is a national issue. Not an issue of partisanship, not an issue for criminal justice. This is an issue for information gathering so that all americans know the extent of the problem and address the problem for the future. Were going down exactly the wrong road by well, the criminal investigation but we have those four congressional committees that are also investigating. Those are bipartisan committees as well. No, theyre not bipartisan. They have a majority republican. Theyre not bipartisan. The democrats dont have subpoena power. There has to be a nonpartisan commission to consisting of people who want to get to the bottom of this and are not trying to get partisan advantage either for the democrats or republicans. Not trying to point the finger of blame, see, this is what obama should have done or trump should have done. Thats the wrong approach to this problem and we have to have an objective, nonpartisan information gathering approach so that we the American People can decide how to respond to this. Alan, you dont have faith in mueller to be nonpartisan . Absolutely not. Its not that i dont have faith in him to be nonpartisan, but his job is to find crimes. There probably arent any crimes committed by americans, even if there were republicans who took advantage of what the russians were doing thats not a crime. You wont get to the bottom of this by a criminal investigation. You only get to the bottom by of a broad based investigation. Remember, muellers jurisdiction is limited to finding violations of existing federal criminal statutes. That doesnt give him a broad enough basis for getting to the bottom of what happened here. Second of all, he doesnt make things public. He either gets an indictment or no indictment. Were not to know what goes on behind the closed doors of a grand jury. So steve, let me bring you back into the conversation and talk about what can be done in order to prevent the russians from doing some kind of interference again. We heard from jeh johnson, the former Homeland Security secretary say that he believes that the russians are not deterred. Do you see a strategy behind President Trumps approach that appears to be opening relations with russia versus punishing them . I do not, but in fairness its difficult and a lot of i think certainly the modern era, the past president s that we have had have started their administrations thinking that they can work it all out with russia just through their strength of personality. Obama did the same thing. George bush did the same thing. So this is not an uncommon thing to say, okay, well fix it with russia. And then really it becomes difficult when you say how, what are we going to do given the fact that we know that the russians did indeed conduct an influence operation during our elections . I think what we need to do is we need to take a very close look at our Cyber Capabilities and both offensive and defensive. Its hard to create it when youre connected to the internet designed for the free flow of information. You have to see this as a nuclear situation. You have to make it so unattractive for your enemy in this case russia to conduct such an attack in future. The only way you can do that is to be able to threaten significant cyber damage yourself. Its very tricky. Its a very slippery slope. Just like Nuclear Weapons are. Thats what we have to take a look at. Thats where our military might and planning and r d needs to be focused in the coming months and years. Thank you both. Still to come, did President Trump just lay out the groundwork for the democrats worst fear he may try to fire the man leading the russia investigation . Next what President Trump says bothers him about Robert Mueller. Hint something to do with the last guy he fired, james comey. Youre live in the cnn newsroom. With roundup precision gel®, you can finally banish garden weeds without harming precious plants nearby. So draw the line. Just give the stick one click, touch the leaves and the gel stays put killing garden weeds to the root with pinpoint precision. Draw the line with roundup precision gel®. And be sure to check out roundup® with sure shot wand. 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It dates back to 2004 when james comey refused to authorize an nsa Surveillance Program called stellar wind under george w. Bush. Comey learned members of the Bush Administration were heading to then attorney general John Ashcrofts hospital room to get him to reauthorize the spying program. Comey called Robert Mueller who was the fbi director at the time to alert him. I told him what was happening, he said ill meet you at the hospital right now. One of the finest people i ever met. Reporter comey was Deputy Attorney general at the time and was serving as the acting head of the Justice Department. He was later named fbi director by president obama right after mueller stepped down. Congratulations, mr. Director. Reporter for years, comey and mueller have spoken highly of each other. Its daunting to follow mueller but also a gift. I promise to do my best to uphold his legacy. I have had the opportunity to work with jim for a number of years in the department of justice. And i have found him to be a man of honesty, dedication and integrity. Reporter still, after breitbart quoted a former fbi assistant director saying comey and muler are the best of friends and have been for over two decades, comeys attorney tried to set the record straight. He told snopes, jim and bob are friends in the sense that coworkers are friends. They dont really have a personal relationship. The attorney said they have never been to each others house. And that the two men have only had lunch together once and dinner twice. Another Important Note despite some claims the two men are very good friends, comey had nothing to do with muellers appointment as special counsel. President trump had already fired comey by the time Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein brought mueller in to lead the dojs russia investigation. Now whether or not mueller and comey have much of a friendship, they do seem to share many of the same values and beliefs. Both were educated at virginia universities. Mueller at the university of virginia and comey at william somemary. Both had given up big jobs at private law firms and worked with holder during his time at the Justice Department under the clinton administration. While the extent of their friendship remains unclear, they do both share a reputation for having a commitment to credibility, truthfulness and honesty. Regardless of your chosen career, you are only as good as your word. You can be smart, aggressive, articulate and indeed persuasive. But if youre not honest, your reputation will suffer and once lost a good reputation can never be regained. Reporter randi kaye, cnn, new york. And an update now on the Republican HouseSteve Scalise who was shot in the hip last week. He is out of intensive care and the hospital statement says that the congressman is listed in fair condition. The hospital notes he still faces an extended period of hearing and rehabilitation. Meantime, another victim of that shooting matt mika is in Good Condition and back at home. His family says he is,ed to make a full recovery after undergoing multiple surgeries. So good to see that big smile on his face. The end may be near for obamacare. The fate is in the hand of five senator, gop senators who are not willing to back the current legislation thats been presented. Can the majority leader get this bill to the president s desk and what might that mean in the midterm elections . Youre live in the cnn newsroom. You are, theres a hilton for you. Book your weekend break direct with hilton. Com and join the summer weekenders. My dad called them up and asked for the Jennifer Garner card which is such a dad thing to do. After he gave his name the woman from capital one said mr. Garner, are you related to jennifer . Kind of joking with him. And my dad was so proud to tell her, as a matter of fact, she is my middle daughter. 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