Comeys firing to the Russian Investigation which helped spark this Counter Intelligence probe. Heres one of those moments. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story, its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. A second instance, a draft letter the president intended to send to comey listing the reasons that he was firing him, but his lawyer blocked him from sending it according to New York Times. This sparked an angry tirade from the president via twitter this morning. Cnns erica orton joins me. What more can you tell me about the investigation and status of it now . Reporter this is two elements of one investigation. Obstruction of justice inquiry, which is a criminal matter, and the counterintelligence investigation. That we know or reporting has shown has been taken over by Robert Muellers team. It is not clear what the current status of that counterintelligence investigation is, but it is possible that in the coming weeks and months as the mueller team writes its report and issues that report, that we might see some conclusions from that investigation or some information from it included in that report. All right. Erica orden, thank you for that. Lets talk further about this, how the white house and president are pushing back on the report and investigation. Cnn White House ReporterSarah Westwood joining me. We know the president is not happy, he has tweeted quite a bit. But extrapolate further on exactly what the president is thinking. Reporter fred, President Trump and the white house are slamming the fbi in the wake of these reports that counterintelligence agents were looking into whether President Trump was working on behalf of russia against u. S. Interests in the days after he fired former fbi director james comey. As you mentioned, White House Press secretary Sarah Sanders calls this counterintelligence probe absurd. President trump has been vocal on twitter this morning, going after comey, his former deputy, andrew mccabe, calling them corrupt, and claiming that the counterintelligence probe was opened for no reason and with no proof. New york times cited two instances that trump directly tied his decision to fire comey to the russia investigation. Thats what the New York Times says, why investigators opened that obstruction of justice inquiry after comeys firing. This counterintelligence is another aspect of that inquiry. A counterintelligence is not necessarily criminal in nature. According to reporting, investigators on the counterintelligence side of the fbi first had their interest peaked by President Trump in july, 2016, calling on russia to leak Hillary Clintons hacked email. Thats sort of the kind of thing they were looking at. All of this got folded into muellers broader investigation of election meddling. So it is unclear how long the counterintelligence probe lasted, but clearly the white house lashing out at news that it existed in the first place. All of this comes as the White House Legal Team is preparing for what could be the release of the Mueller Report soon. Sources tell cnn the White House Legal Team hired 17 new lawyers, ahead of what could be in the months ahead dramatic conclusion to the russia intrigue. Thank you so much. Keep us posted. One of the reporters that broke that New York Times story talked to cnn about why this is so significant. The way these things are supposed to work is were not supposed to find out about them, okay, that the fbi investigates somebody, a counterintelligence investigation, maybe they suspect russia, they investigate, to it quietly, it goes away. The firing of comey and referencing of the Russian Investigation by the president , and the second aspect to that, lester holt interview on nbc news, he said we did it because of russia. And the fbi is watching this and they say hes telling us why he did this. He did this on behalf of russia. Within days of that, they opened up this multi tiered investigation that has a criminal aspect and counterintelligence aspect. Joining me to talk further about this, retired fbi supervisory special agent, cnn analyst james galliano, and assistant director for Congressional Affairs formerly, greg broward. Good to see you both. There has to be a lot there or a lot of red flags for the fbi to launch both a criminal probe and counterintelligence probe, right . Thats fair, fred. Lets make a distinction for the viewers here that there are two separate standards. In a criminal investigation, youre looking for information or allegations that lead you to collect evidence to lead to potential indictment, prosecution, conviction. On the counterintelligence side, the fbi has been working these investigations since 1917. It is a different standard. Youre looking to push back on foreign actors, foreign state actors like north korea or iran, china, russia, that might be trying to influence an election, might be trying to steal state secrets or intellectual property. I think the Mueller Report will answer those questions fairly, whether or not theres objection of justice on of criminal side, did those things that happen, President Trumps own tweets and statements, is that indicia of obstruction of justice and whether or not if they were able to determine if he was waitia wg or unwitting acome list to the kremlin. It will come down to investigate the investigation itself, crossfire hurricane, to determine whether or not any fbi processes, protocols or doj protocols werent followed, and lastly, i think exposure for the president is less in this instance than it will be when Michael Cohen testifies. I think exposure and damage done by the upcoming testimony will have far more impact and ramifications than what New York Times reported on as far as the counterintelligence investigation and obstruction of justice case. Greg, if Law Enforcement isnt debating if the fbi overstepped its bounds by launching probes, when you look at these items that were spelled out in New York Times that precipitated probes from the firing of comey to the letter that trump wrote that was not sent out because it did show there was correlation between the Russian Investigation and firing, and then challenging Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail or challenging russia on the campaign trail, if you can hack her emails, if youre listening, assist, et cetera. All of those examples, does that say that investigators overstepped bounds by following up on those leads . Well, i would say as a former federal prosecutor and senior doj official, i of course have been on the inside of more fbi investigations than i could describe on this show, and typically when you see this kind of criticism from the outside, it is the classic sort of armchair quarterbacking that cant be trusted to be credible at all. I think thats what were seeing and have seen throughout this investigation. I think the real point that people should take from this story is that the real issue would be if the fbi when confronted with the facts that have been reported, if the fbi did not open an investigation with senior level approval which would have been required, that would be a story. The fact that the fbi did apparently have proper predication and as a result did apparently open up this investigation when it did with senior level authority, it is interesting but it should satisfy the American People that the fbi is apolitical, that it views anyone and everyone as not being above the law, whether it is the president of the United States or anyone else, and if the facts are there, theyre going to open up an investigation. Thats to take away from the reporting. Thats among the moments that had many aghast when the words were uttered. Listen. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. At first, you know, while there were all of these other threads, the times said the fbi held off on opening an investigation into the president in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with the inquiry because it is a sensitive matter, because of the magnitude. So then james, what would be the Tipping Point when theres that reticence for the fbi collectively and then theres a decision that we have a lot of material here that weve got to followup on. Sure. Fred, you listen to those remarks from the president on the campaign trail, and are they in tem pore at, reckless, inappropriate, absolutely. Now, can we pull on the thread and take it back to having active collusion going on with the kremlin . Thats the part that im a cautious skeptic about. To gregs point, youre right. Things had to be signed up on the most Upper Echelon levels of the fbi and doj, up to and including the Deputy Attorney general and probably the attorney general himself. Why is that . Any investigation into a clergy men, journalist or politician requires separate higher level of signoff. Theres scrutiny at so many levels. James comey called it a 500 year flood and i agree. In 2016 he and his team were faced with tough choices. Easy for people like me to look back years later and say you should have done this, should have done that. The only thing i am concerned about and i think well find out when the report is released into the investigation, did the fbi follow all processes and protocols or were they driven by emotion. Sometimes it happens. I spent 25 years doing investigations. Emotions can sometimes take hold but that cant happen. The fbi has to be the calm in the chaos. When i read that last night in New York Times, that wasnt the feeling i walked away with. And greg, do you feel this material is public a year and a half after the fact it precipitated, the fbi investigation precipitated the special counsel investigation, do you feel that because it is public now that is an indicator that the special counsel probe is soon to end . Not necessarily, fred, no. Theres been a lot of speculation about the timing of the conclusion of the special counsel probe. It is hard to predict. The grand jury was extended. That may or may not mean that more activity is to come. I would be hesitant to try to game out the timing of the conclusion of the investigation. All right. Greg, james, always good to see you. Thus nar, it is nthe longes shutdown in history. Cnn speaks to a pregnant tsa worker struggling to make ends meet, this as 800,000 workers ask when will they get paid. [leaf blower] you should be mad at leaf blowers. [beep] you should be mad your neighbor always wants to hang out. And you should be mad your smart fridge is unnecessarily complicated. 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To give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you dont. straining ill take that. cheers 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. In two great flavors. The u. S. Government shutdown is now the longest in u. S. History. A record 22 days, impacting 800,000 federal workers, most of whom started the weekend with a big fat zero on their paychecks and dont expect movement to end soon. There are no meetings on President Trumps schedule and members of congress headed home. President trump tweeting democrats should come back to washington, work to end the shutdown while at the same time ending the horrible humanitarian crisis at the southern border. I am in the white house waiting for you. The president is demanding congress include funding for a border wall in any shutdown deal. But he says declaring a National Emergency is not off the table to get the 5 billion down payment that he wants. House democrats passed smaller spending bills to fund several agencies, but without the president s support, Senate Republicans refused to call votes on any of the measures. Meanwhile, the people really feeling the pain are the federal workers, their families, contractors who have not been able to work or are working without pay while bills are piling up. Lets bring in Dianne Gallagher who is listening to stories of workers. Theyre frustrated. Theyre frustrated and scared. You mentioned movement. Thats what most workers told me they noticed. They dont see an end in sight. I went to little rock, arkansas where i met a tsa worker thats still working without a paycheck. Shes six months pregnant. Says now it is starting to effect her health. This is before work, her morning routine. Coffee for my husband, fix my childs lunch, i have to get his backpack together. Reporter wrangling a fouryearold while six months pregnant, not easy. But working three weeks without pay with no end in sight. Im not getting anything and i was expecting that. Reporter makes it even harder. I grew up at tsa, 13 years. 13 years on monday. Reporter along with thousands of other Transportation Security Administration officers, aria has been working throughout the partial Government Shutdown. But today is pay day and her check isnt coming. Reality is the fear of not knowing when im going to receive that check. And then this is going to cause a Ripple Effect on our income here. Reporter she says her husbands job helps to ease their financial burden, but thats not the case for many of her colleagues at the airport in little rock. We have a list of who you are able to contact at food pan trees. And the longer it lasts, stuff for the baby, daycare, they become more difficult to swing. I cant tell the daycare worker hey, i cant pay you. Thats our biggest fear, the unknown. So i dont know how long we are equipped for it, and when pregnant, i cant just go pick up a job. Reporter a veteran officer, she doesnt want another job, saying she takes her mission seriously no matter what. I wouldnt clock in if im not giving 100 . I go in, give 100 , and not getting paid is hard. Reporter especially when the president says the shutdown is all about national security. Shouldnt we be part of that partial shutdown, the one who receives pay . I think were pretty essential. Reporter does back pay help if it comes three months later . Back pay doesnt help three months later because im already three months behind. Reporter she hopes it ends soon so she can spend her Maternity Leave bonding with her daughter instead of looking for a job. I asked her what would you Tell Congress and what do you want to hear. She said please act like theres some urgency here because it is urgent for us. The uncertainty makes it worse, she already has a complicated pregnancy, it is making it worse, the additional stress. They Want Congress to act like theres urgency and get something done. Worry some for 800,000 people and beyond. More than half those are going to work every day, not getting paid every day, not getting paid. Thanks for bringing that story. Appreciate it. Lets talk more about all of this with assistant editor at the the washington post, David Swerdlick and margaret telev who covers bloomberg news. You hear examples like that. We have been hearing from federal workers over three weeks time about concerns, worries, et cetera, and it was just last weekend when the president said he has a lot of expectations that federal workers will make adjustments. But does it seem as though lawmakers and the president are really empathizing with these struggles, margaret . If so, wouldnt there be greater urgency to come to the table to do something . Well,