Kelly to give his soninlaw Jared Kushner a top security clearance. Kelly then overruled the persistent and longstanding objections of career White House Security screeners and wrote about it in a memo. Months later, the president denied any of it ever happened. Listen. Did you tell general kelly or anyone else in the white house to overrule Security Officials . No. I dont think i have the authority to do that. Im not sure i do. You do have the authority to do it. But i wouldnt. I wouldnt do it. I was never involved with the security. Thats Maggie Habermans interview with the president. The House Oversight committee has been requesting specific documents and interviews relating to White House Security clearances. For more than a month and last night threatened to subpoena them if they dont come soon. House democrats arent done yet with Michael Cohen. After three Straight Days after testimony before three separate congressional committees the president s former lawyer and confidant is coming back wednesday for more closed door q a with the house intelligence panel. Joe johns is at the white house this morning. Two reports, two separate papers, a lot of good reporters on the lines on the white house isnt denying reports about the president mandating kushner get the top secret security clearance. Nothing so far from the president indicating otherwise. Look, there are a couple of questions raised by the New York Times reporting. First, what is it in Jared Kushners background thats raised the issues in the first place . We have never gotten to what specifically that is. Even people on capitol hill have been asking. But there are some other questions as well including the memos to the file from john kelly, don mcgahn, the white House Counsel. Whats that about . Contemporaneous recollections of events. Still not clear. Perhaps the most important thing is the question of candor. The president himself has said he was going to leave this up to john kelly, the then chief of staff. Of course kelly said it was a president who ordered him to give the security clearance to Jared Kushner. Even Jared Kushners wife has said, in fact, it was the president who had nothing to do with this. The president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husbands clearance. A flat denial there. The lawyer for Jared Kushner, abby lowell has said there is nothing to see here. He put out a statement through his spokesman. Heres what it said. In 2018 white house and security clearance officials affirmed that kushners security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. That was conveyed to the media at the time and news stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time. House democrats have been all over the issue for some time. Elijah cummings, the chairman of the reform and Oversight Committee has said he might issue a subpoena if he doesnt get the information he needs. Back to you. Lets talk about what this could mean going forward. Cnn Political Correspondent sia murray joins us and our director of communications for national communications. Sean, happening this morning as every morning there at that time white house, the president is getting intelligence reports. The president ial Daily Briefing. Im interested in what you think the intelligence officials that deliver that are thinking now, knowing this. You know for a long time there was concern in the Intelligence Community over how Jared Kushner got his security clearance. To your point, one of the things thats disturbing is this morning as you said, as individuals are receiving the president ial Daily BriefingJared Kushner has a top secret sei clearance that allows him to see secure information including the president s Daily Briefing. For individuals who are delivering the briefing this is the most sensitive, classified information we have. The idea that Jared Kushner would be able to see this information considering all the background and concerns over why he could not receive a security clearance is quite disturbing. I have talked to people who said they really are shocked this is the way he received clearance. Sarah, we heard ivanka trump, an adviser to the president and his daughter, say the president had nothing involved in my security clearance in the abc interview a few weeks ago. It is possible she and perhaps Jared Kushner didnt know this, right . That the president gave the order to john kelly in a room where they werent and never told them. Possible . Sure, i guess thats possible. I think that would mean, okay, ivanka trump wasnt lying and maybe Jared Kushners attorney wasnt lying but then the president was lying. Any way you square it, somebody was lying assuming this New York Times report is accurate. If people were writing contemporaneous memos there is no reason to believe its not accurate. Everything kushner had to go through to get clearance. All the way they mishandled the paperwork. The fact his attorneys were out publicly in may of 2018 saying this is taken care of only to find out in allthat there were still issues and now we are finding the issues were so concerning to other folks in the white house that they wrote memos at the time to document it. It was never getting out there. This was done over the objection of top people working in the administration. You know, there is also the risk of other countries, adversaries, you know, taking advantage of this. How significant . Its extremely significant, poppy. Look. A lot of people said to me whats the big deal . The president has the authority to give kushner security clearance. We understand how our adversaries use information against individuals when security clearance when there is information they can leverage. We are looking at kushner who clearly had business dealings in these countries and a number of countries not on the list. What we are doing is asking ourselves what are the risks here. More importantly, what concerns me is a lot of the relationships were discovered by investigators. Not disclosed by Jared Kushner or others in his sphere. When the fbi goes back and they sit down with Jared Kushner and say we see you have entanglements, business dealings and didnt disclose them and the president gives kushner security clearance that raises concerns about what our adversaries may do to leverage those security clearances because Jared Kushner is so close to the president. Just thinking back to what we played, Maggie Habermans important question to the president in the Oval Office Interview about were you involved at all and his denial, there is an argument over his language with kelly whether or not it was an order. Doesnt the fact that there was a conversation about this matter . I mean, on top of no denial from the white house this morning. Theyre saying we dont talk about security clearances . I think it matters. We have heard everyone say six different ways there was no political intervention in the process. Its clear from the New York Times story there was political intervention in the process. President trump is allowed to do that. Hes allowed to give Jared Kushner the ability to look at top securi top secret information. They lacked every kind of transparency about this. They decided to come out publicly and say Jared Kushners security clearance was approved in may of 2018. Now they say we dont talk about it. We are not going to talk about the potential issues or conflicts that may have arisen during his background check. We wont talk about the process that was gone through in order to get him this clearance. Right. As shawn points out that makes people uncomfortable. We dont know what the issue was that was holding it up for so long. Unless Elijah Cummings gets his way and subpoenas documents we may never get a good indication of what the hangup was in kushner kushners background. Thank you. Three days on the hill. Apparently not enough. We have learned Michael Cohen will be back testifying again next week on capitol hill after seven hours of closed door testimony yesterday before the House Intelligence Committee hell return to the committee on wednesday. With us now is our senior Congressional Correspondent manu raju. Clearly they have questions. They want to know specifically about the white houses involvement in editing the statement that Michael Cohen initially gave back in 2017 to the same congressional committee, the House Intelligence Committee that he later admitted lying to about the pursuit of the trump tower moscow project at the time he downplayed it saying then candidate trump wasnt really involved. Cohen alleged publicly that the white House Attorneys or attorneys close to the president edited the statement. Something the attorneys have denied. We expect the cohen attorneys will provide more documents showing the edits that occurred in the initial statement. The democrats in particular interested in hearing more about conversations that occurred with Michael Cohen and the president particularly around the time of the raid of Michael Cohens properties, what more can he disclose about that. In his public setting he couldnt disclose details because it was under investigation from the Southern District of new york. Theyll try to get answers behind closed doors, but how much can he reveal . This will be the fourth time hes coming up to capitol hill before he heads to prison in the spring. Okay. Also, a name many people dont know, but a really interesting character, if you will, felix sater intertwined in a lot of deals including the trump tower in moscow proposal. He will be testifying in two weeks. March 14 before the House Intelligence Committee in an open setting which is very rare for this committee for witnesses in the russia investigation. Hes a russianborn businessman who worked with the president , then businessman trump over different projects. He appeared at events with him. Trump himself in 2013 distanced himself from felix sater saying he didnt know him well. That was in a deposition. A major line of questioning will be saters role in the trump tower moscow project. He had extensive conversations with Michael Cohen. At one point he offered a penthouse suggested offering a penthouse to Vladimir Putin as part of the project as a way to sweeten the deal. So all of that will be a sign they want to focus democrats do on the president s finances and any ties he has to russia. Business dealings with russia. Thats a reason why it will be in a public setting in march. Really interesting. Thank you very much. Back in the u. S. , after walking away from the talks with north korea back to slamming Michael Cohen, the set backs are mounting. How does it play out politically . And pakistan expected to release an indian pilot shot down over kashmir. The gesture, will it ease growing tensions . India saying pakistan is doing us no favor with this. We are on it. And lucky number 13. Relatively unknown on a national stage, democratic governor of Washington State jumping in to the 2020 race for the presidency. Will his focus on Climate Change set him apart from the pack . burke at farmers, weve seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. Even rooftop parking. Strange forces at work . Only if youre referring to gravityand we covered it. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum brushing only reaches 25 of your mouth. Listerine® cleans virtually 100 . Helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. Never settle for 25 . 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That fell apart and cohen is coming back next week for more testimony. Now the president has reportedly been caught in a dangerous lie about his soninlaw and the nations most sensitive secrets. His answer is to lambaste Michael Cohen and democrats in tweets this morning. Davider vin joins me, former Senior Adviser to the Trump Campaign in 2016. Good morning to you. David, let me begin with you. Whats the high point for the president this week . Poppy, listen. They continue to have negotiations on the korean peninsula. If we look back to where we started it all there are missiles lobbed across the sea of japan across our allies. It was a frightening place in the south china sea. We havent had a missile test or a nuclear test for over 400 days. Thats a positive thing. If you look at the independent analysis done in the last year, north korea has amassed even more fissile material to build five to seven more nuclear weapons. To davids point, the president didnt sign or agree to a bad deal. Is that a win . The clear result that youre supposed to do this at the lower levels and have the summit, not the other way around. Okay. Hes doing it his way. It is a little bit in reverse. They had a summit that failed. Now the teams will have to get together and continue serious talks about what kind of sanctions, dialing back of the Nuclear Program well see. All of thats to the good. There is a difference between having a good week and an acceptable week. He had more of an acceptable week in the sense that hes still making progress. It wasnt a complete catastrophe. Right. On capitol hill, his republican allies stuck up for the president. Yes. As ludicrous as it seemed at times they didnt ask a single probing question about what the president s former attorney was saying. Instead they attacked him and did the president s bidding. I wonder if they did it in the closed door sessions with Michael Cohen. David, weigh in on that. As errol points out, secretary pompeo, steve began, they have been working with the north koreans to get to an agreement before the president went. Not like he decided to drop in. The state department put a lot of work into this. I get it. It didnt bear fruit. They are going to continue to talk. Pompeo went a number of times. I hear you. They all seem appalled the president has taken the word of an autocrat when it comes to the death of otto warmbier. Listen, thats incredibly regrettable. Whether kim jongun knew about it, the fact remains that a Young American student was kidnapped, captured, murdered by a dictatorial regime in north korea. I think the president should have slammed his fist down on the table on that one and said, look, we are going to hold people accountable and push to find an answer here. I do think he should have been stronger on that point. Okay. On the reporting this morning for the times and the Washington Post, errol, the president s denial that he got involved in the security clearance issue with Jared Kushner, despite a contemporaneous memo we learned from john kelly, should any president bigfoot Security Professionals ever when it comes to this . There is substantive danger to it. He has all these top aides. People come out of meetings with the president and feel they have to write things down, take notes about it. His white House Counsel, chief of staff, former fbi director. People are clear they are getting instructions from him directly or indirectly that really trouble them. We dont know what might be there substantively. Why is it that the fbi keep saying this man cant have top security clearance . Its a good question. I dont know the answer to it. What i do know is right now Jared Kushner is at what seems to be a critical point in middle east peace negotiations. Right. That makes all of this an even more important question, right . Ri