Investigation. You will hear from him and senators from both parties that are on a mission. This is in just moments. In the meantime this is how donald trump jr. Is now defending the meeting he had more than a year ago with the russian lawyer on the promise of russian government information. In retrospect, i probably would have done things differently. To me this was Opposition Research cnn now has also learned that special Counsel Robert Mueller plans to investigate that meeting and all of those emails. Cnn reporters covering this from every angle as this story moves quickly. Lets begin with cnn senior White House Correspondent jeff zeleny and you have a lot of color out of the west wing directly this morning feeling paralyzed. Reporter good morning. There is a sense of dismay in certain quarters of this west wing of the white house largely because they had hoped this week was a chance to turn the corner once again and focus on the president s agenda coming back from his g20 summit last week as he prepares later this evening to fly to paris. But that is not what is happened this week. A Top Republican who is in close contact with the west wing tells me, quote, the white house is paralyzed. And that is simply because, a, this involves the oldest son of the president and b, from an agenda point of view the agenda essentially is not moving. Another Administration Official tells me, you know, describing the mood here saying another week is lost. And that of course is about the agenda here that republicans on capitol hill, republicans and others here at the white house were hoping to move forward. Theyre hoping to get some progress on health care, you know, trying to move this forward. This has essentially ground all of the activity here at the west wing to a halt. Im also told by the people inside the white house here that white house chief of stance Reince Priebus whose never sure of his own standing with the president , he is trying to urge staffers to just put their heads down and get to work and focus on the matters at hand here but that has become much more difficult in the wake of all of these revelations. The president is weve not seen him in public since he stepped off air force one and arrived back here to the white house on saturday evening. Not unusual of course to not see him over a weekend but we have not seen him hold any Public Events on monday or tuesday on wednesday. He is flying to paris later this evening, but this is something that has indeed in the words of one Top Republican paralyzed this white house. We understand from your reporting also the president s been watching this coverage. What does he make of it . Reporter he has indeed been watching this coverage. Im told that he spent a lot of yesterday watching the coverage and in one respect is viewing this as a father. He is dismayed that his son is involved in this and he views this as deeply unfair. Its described to me at one hand hes furious by this. On one hand hes frustrated by this but he does believe this is unfair. Hes also viewing this as in one respect just another bit of this russian news thats unfair. Weve heard him call it a hoax and something that democrats are trying to stir up. But that is not taking into account what many others inside this white house realize, that this is indeed a different moment. Republicans on capitol hill, many of whom are supporters of this president and surely supportive of this agenda know that this is a different moment here, so once again this is becoming the soundtrack of the summer as opposed to passing health care, talking about tax reform or other things and the president as near as we can tell has not done anything to advance that agenda. The Vice President is taking the reigns on health care, talking to senators and others here. Hell be traveling the country and giving a speech but President Trump has not been. Jeff zeleny at the white house. A very busy white house, busy in the sense of dealing with the fallout. The cnn special Counsel Robert Mueller will investigate this meeting and will investigate these emails. Reporter we fully expected that this was going to be the case but muellers team which includes fbi agents that have been working on this investigation for about a year now are planning to take a look at this meeting. A lot of this was not fully known to the investigators until very recently and we know that as part of this investigation, this counterterrorism counterintelligence investigation, im sorry, led by the fbi, they have looked at some of donald trump jr. s business dealings and some of his meetings, some of his contacts, foreign contacts over the past year as part of the broader investigation into russian meddling. We did reach out to the special counsel, his spokesman said they declined to comment. We also talked to donald trump jr. s lawyer. He says he is not heard from the fbi and is willing to turn over any materials if they come asking for them. Evan we know that Jared Kushners lawyer said over the weekend that they amended his security clearance form, yet again. Is this meeting the reason for that additional amendment . Reporter it was. This amendment came just about three weeks ago or so to the fbi. Jared kushner if you remember has now amended his sf 806 form. Hes amended it at least twice that we can count and this continues to be an issue because when you sign these documents, you say youre swearing under the penalty of perjury that youre disclosing all your foreign contacts and he is not done so repeatedly. Now we theyre telling us that this is a final update. They dont have any additional meetings that they need to disclose but this was a big one to miss because Paul Manafort who was also in that meeting had previously disclosed that meeting to senate investigators. So its not clear why Jared Kushner whose paying a lot of legal fees to some very high powered attorneys here in washington did not disclose it until much more recently. Umhum. Very, very interesting. Evan perez. Lots of questions there. Thanks so much, evan. The man who will be central in working with the special Counsel Robert Mueller on this probe is set to face questions on capitol hill, christopher ray. In just moments, he the man picked by President Trump to replace the fbi director he fired will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary committee. Among the many questions, was he ever asked to be loyal to the president. That is key considering the context. Suzanne is on capitol hill. Reporter just moments ago i had an opportunity to talk to senator Chuck Grassley who is the republican head of the Senate Intelligence committee and he made news on a number of front. First of all in regards to donald trump jr. And the emails, the statements that he has made, Senate Intelligence committee are asking for him to go before sworn testimony. Chuck grassley also saying as well that they are considering calling donald trump jr. To go before their own committee as well as the attorney, the russian attorney making the point that she had overstayed her visa, how did that happen . They would also like to get all of the members involved in that meeting before their committee as well. It is something that he says theyre currently negotiating. He does not want to step on the special counsel bob muellers investigation. That is a sensitivity. So that is something thats currently in the works. Also asking as well about what are the top things that youll be asking Christopher Wray of course in that hearing thats coming up in about 25 minutes and a couple of things that he said first as you know independence from the white house, from this president is key. It is the most important thing here. He also said that he wanted to make sure that this was an fbi director that would protect whistleblowers, that that has been an ongoing issue and problem in the previous directors and then some general questions here of course. What are the other senators going to be asking . Theyre going to be looking for whether or not there was any kind of loyalty test, if you will for Christopher Wray. We do know that previously from james comey, he has said that the president wanted this pledge, asked him this pledge. He also says that President Trump had asked him to end or suggested to end the investigation of former nsa chief Michael Flynn. That is something thats going to be of consideration. Those are just some of the things that we expect. The format is going to start with Opening Statements and then each one of these senators on committee will have about ten minutes to question in the first round and five to seven minutes to question in the second round. It is going to be an ongoing affair but Chuck Grassley hopes that this can be rapped up and confirmed before the august recess. Again, that hearing getting underway in moments. Lets bring in our panel as we wet for it. Jeff zeleny is back. So nice to have you all here. Lets begin with the word of the day from the white house and that word is transparency. Nothing to see here. We have been fully transparent. If you look back, its anything but the case. The saturday statement that didnt disclose the purpose of the meeting from donald trump jr. Was now reviewed. Weve learned from the the New York Times by the president himself. They had to change that drastically by sunday. The message sunday was Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had no idea about this meeting. That was not the case. They were forwarded this email with all of the information about the meeting. Thats a low bar for transparency is it not . It is a low bar and that is what we heard from the president , praising his son for being transparency. He tweeted again he felt like his son was open and honest in his interview last night as well. What weve seen here is sort of rolling disclosures about this meeting and shifting stories from donald trump jr. About why that meeting happened, this idea it was about adoptions in those initial emails that weve seen, at least part of those emails. We dont know weve seen all of the emails about these conversations that he had with that russian government lawyer. There was certainly in those emails that weve seen so far no discussions about the meeting being about adoptions. I mean, in many ways you feel like this could be the tip of the iceberg. This is one set of emails. Were there previous discussions that we dont have those emails . Were there a subsequent discussions about any of this . I think from the white houses point of view and donald trump jr. s point of view he wants this to sort of be put to an end with that interview that he had last night, this Public Relations part of it, but certainly the legal discussions of this will be ongoing with the special prosecutor and certainly on the hill as well more discussions about this and you can imagine that there might be more information to come. John mccain has talked about this whole episode as a sent ped with with hundred legs and many more shoes to drop. Disclosure at gun point. Donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, the president of the United States, are all of their interests aligned right here . They all now have their own lawyers giving them their own advice. It seems to me there might be some conflicts here especially given what evan perez is reporting. Jared kushner is the only one in office that had to fill out the security forms. Their interests arent aligned. Its been on a collision course for a while now. All of these people should have lawyered up a long time ago. I was surprised that donald trump jr. Only recently got his lawyer because a lot of the statements that he made were very unwise from a legal perspective and at this point i think youre going to start seeing a lot of fingers pointed at each other and theyre going to Start Talking when the fbi starts closing in. Because you have worked with bob mueller when he was at the department of justice, we know now that he was, you know, looking into this meeting, these emails. He knew about them in the days leetding up to this, how does this change how he looks at things . What questions he asks . Who he wants to talk to . How does this now change the investigation . Well, its a bit of a sea change from the standpoint of this is the first direct indication that we have in the Public Domain of a contact between the Trump Campaign and russian surrogates and so to the extent that there was rumors of collusion or conspiracy to aid the Trump Campaign by russian operatives, it remained sort of vague. This is now much more direct and so i think it gives mueller and his team more impetus to route out what was at the bottom of this thing. So i think as with the intelligence committees on the hill, this will be just evidence of better need to be thorough and investigate all this stuff, not that mueller wouldnt have been otherwise but this really says weve got to look at this because this is a direct link between the transition the people on the campaign and the russian operatives. Jeff, i want to take you down memory lane here. This is the campaign you covered very, very closely. This meeting was june 9th between the president s son and the russian. This is what President Trump said on june 7th, right around those days. This is what he was promising then. Listen. I am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week and were going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. I think youre going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. So he said that after the emails were sent back and fork with donald trump jr. , emails were told now by donald trump jr. , he never told his father about, thats the story, ultimately when donald trump senior the president gave that speech there wasnt much new there but this was right at the beginning, just prior to the wave of everything that happened with hacks and russia and this and that, jeff . Reporter it is so interesting to look at that really week period of time, john. June 7th was the day was the final round of primaries in the election cycle. Donald trump was also going to be the republican nominee but Hillary Clinton was just trying to rap up her primary fight and on june 7th when candidate trump was giving that speech right there, a meeting had already been set up. As we learned from the emails yesterday, on june 3rd it was the first request for the meeting and six days later on the 9eth of june, that meeting actually happened. So it certainly looked in behind sight watching this all in order here that President Trump, candidate trump was expecting something to come on the Clinton Campaign. Now, it is we dont know that he knew about that meeting at all because certainly this is the time that the general election battle was joined here. It certainly seemed like he had something on his mind that he was going to give a speech the next week. Youre right that speech didnt really have much in it, much new in it. A lot of new back and forth. Both sides were going after each other fairly hard. But very interesting that he would deliver that speech that day in the middle of all this and again on june 9th on that thursday, when this meeting actually happened, donald trump trump, candidate trump was at a fund raiser. His first fund raiser at the Four Seasons Hotel about a block from trump tower. He was back in trump tower all of that afternoon as the meeting happened. We do not know if he knew about the meeting but it certainly is important to remember and point out, this was a very Small Campaign operation in terms of the number of people. The Clinton Campaign headquartered in brooklyn had hundreds and hundreds of people. The Trump Campaign very small particularly back in june. So some people wonder and this is what, you know, a subject of the questioning likely will be, how could the president , candidate trump not have been aware that the meeting was going to happen because it certainly seemed so juicy. Donald trump jr. Said id love it if this is actually a real in terms of having information for a Hillary Clinton. So watching all this back in sequence, it certainly is interesting. May i add something to that timeline as well . Very quickly. The email says we could use that stuff later in the summer and then of course later in the summer was the wikileaks leak. So they all sort of tie into together. Donald junior also said in that email especially later in the summer which he completely down played in the interview with hannity last night. I didnt really need it then when i thought things werent as busy. I dont remember the followup question. Stick around. We have a lot more to discuss just minutes from now the president s pick to run the fbi, fill in the void created by the firing of james comey over the russia investigation that will begin. Youre looking at live pictures. Christopher wray, the nominee, what does he think of this investigation . Has the president asked for his loyalty . Are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile. See how invisalign® treatment can shape your smile up to 50 faster today at invisalign. Com [music playing] across the country, we walk. Carrying flowers that signify why we want to end alzheimers disease. Bu