Obviously the investigators are still trying to figure out what was behind this, who the bomber is. Im told theyve identified a male as the bomber but theyre still trying to learn more about him. What is most striking to you . What was the bomb made out of . Because that leads you to oo lot of conclusions. This is the deadliest Terror Attack since july 7th, 2000 fiv 2005. And almost certainly a Hydrogen Puraukside bomb. Because the signature of al qaeda and isis are these kinds of bombs. So where was it made . Because you need a commercial refrigerator often the store the chemicals. Theyre very toxic if youre making these kinds of bombs, youre oftenb wearing a gas mask. Theres a whole apparatus i would be looking for. We dont know if its a hydrogen
peroxide bomb. Would it be a loan wolf scenario . Or how likely would that be . Im skeptical. Weve had people in this country build those bombs and kill themselves. Its difficult. You need training. Ive been in Bomb Making Courses where it takes many hours. The proportions are very, very careful. This is not something you can just read on the internet and make, usually, by yourself. Ive spoken to british counterterror officials repeatedly over the last several months and they talk about a constant level of threat and a number of plots toward it in recent months. Theyre already on the highest level you can imagine. At the end of the day is difficult to prevent. I would say impossible. If you think about the United States and what wrooeeve heardm all 50 states thousands of cases, i would estimate ive worked with European Security services, theyre sitting on at least 10 times the threat per capita. You have questions about how many people i can follow and the toughest question, intent. Im looking at a subject saying ive got to choose between 100 people, which ones i have to cover. Within two weeks that individual may say im transitioning from im interested in jihad to im killing somebody. And youve got to determine which of those people youre triggering youve got to follow. 200 cells, 2,000 suspected jihadists. 10,000 suspected supporters of jihadists. You dont have the man power in a country like that and you saw that in france. They cant follow all of them, even if they have a suspicion. And phil, i think you would know this in your own experience. Do do a bombing, it probably looks like you have some kind of support system. Its not a single actor is more likely to do Something Like using a car to mow down people, as you saw outside the Houses Of Parliament a couple of weeks ago. So at this point, talking to Law Enforcement officials, their initial suspicion is that were going to see the high likelihood that this person had a support system, probably had some kind of training, as peter burgen was mentioning and so theres a lot more here to get to the bottom of. And how concerning is this for u. S. Law enforcement . All Law Enforcement in the world is understaffed when it comes to trying to track all the people that may do something. So more than to narrow that down. They cant follow everybody and rely as much as possible on intelligence, on individuals cooperating in the community to
tell them of suspicious persons and electronic capability and of course then we have the other argument in a free society about civil liberties. Do we want Metta Data Being stored, nsa wire tapping international calls. All of that type of thing kicks back in. So its very concerning. And we dont know because its early. A question thats going to be addressed is was this inspired or directed . Was this someone who became self radicalized, maybe found some of the recipes in effect for the bombing online . Or if they had some sort of contact at home. The truth is both of those is unsettling and alarming in its own way because the self radicalized are harder to track and the directed ones means theres a line back to the organizations in syria. Theyve directed all of their followers all over the world so they dont have to micromanage each individual case or have this person saying are you
ready, do it today. They dispatch them like zombies. Was there involvement that led them to a particular target . And was there anything recently coming from isis, which we know has been calling on followers in europe to launch terrorists attacks. Osama bin ladens son has called for these kinds of attacks recently. School shooters look at other school shootings. So we have an attack at a concert hall, similar to that of bataclan in paris and it was an American Star as it was an American Band in paris. Theres a copy cat aspect here. Weve had 850 brits go to get training in syria. We dont know we obviously dont know at this time but
brits have been pretty lucky so far. Certainly you have both heard from british officials that they have hundreds of these guys that have come back and as isis gets pressured in iraq and syria, more of them are coming back and theyre very particularly worried about them in places and concentrating in places like manchester and midlands and london because thats where theres a Support Network. And no one is off limits. Scle clearly the target was womenen and children. Its pams reporting that they have an idea on who they believe to be the suicide bomber. Theyre now i imagine looking at his connections. Walk us through what the Law Enforcement process is now. Youve guatemala enforcement intelligence. The first tear is are there co consphe conspirators. The question is are there
conspirators involved in the tack tomorrow . Where did the money go to . The most critical element communications. I wauncnt a cell phone. I want a laptop. Second tier would be who radicalized Support Network and youre looking down the road. Is there a tether that goes back Someplace Else . Might be western europe, might be syria. Can we get enough information against a safe house in syria among the people who might have been involved. And youve got to be worried in a couple hours people are going to go to work in london whether or not there could be other people who might be Waiting In The Wings to do something just like this. Squh you look at other attacks, weve all coveringed t covered the paris attacks for instance, look for other contacts. And look for how big the web grows. Theres a possibility of a loan actor. One of the possibilities we saw in paris and brussels was that in those neighborhoods almost no contact with people very isolated. So they had a difficult time getting operation and you could argue One Way Or Another whose fault that may be. But they had isolated communities that had been there for a couple of generations and not really assimulated. So the question now is is manchester in a similar situation. Do we have an isolated neighborhood where people dont feel assimilated, they feel like foreigners. So we havent heard that part of this yet of the Police Relationships in those neighborhoods. You have the profile of the folks who were the average local teen. You have that uk, you have that here. Who were assimulated and and isis attacks in europe
have been a phenomenon. All these people went through the belgium prison system. You have britain is partly proteched by the channel, partly protected by a very good Intelligence Service and maybe a little bit of luck. Unfortunately this is a new development that is pretty worrisome. For a while we have seen a lot of brits go to iraq and syria for training. The numbers for french and belgium is much larger. The french have a better handle on what tom is talking about is definitely a problem in the uk. Theyve certainly done a better job of trying to infiltrate and keep an eye on those people coming back. You never know its a resource problem. In russia and tonight is the
night that we have developments sadly. We certainly do. We have Breaking News in the trump russia investigation. Cnn can confirm that President Trumpt personally asked officials to publicly deny collusion and were told the request was made back in march and the director of National Intelligence and the National Security agency refused to comply and special Counsel Robert Mueller has been briefed on secret memos from fired fbi director james comey and that includes the memo in which comey documented his claim but the president asked him to end his investigation of fired National Security advisorer, Michael Flynn. Tonight a key house supervisor showing flynn lied to investigators about who paid for his trips to russia, including a 2015 Speaking Engagement that he falsely claimed was funded by u. S. Companies, this as hes
defying a subpoena and invoking his Fifth Amendment right to testify. The panel isopen on the possibility of holding flynn in contempt of court. This is certainly stunning information. We learn the president made calls to his two top intelligence officials to try to knock down what james comey said publicly. So we learned that he made a request to the fbi director. Knocked this story down and the fbi directorer said no and wrote it down in a memo. We confirm tonight as first reported by the Washington Post that after comey made that famous Testimony March 20th where he confirmed in a public setting that fbi was investigating whether members of the trump team had communicated and colluded with russia in the campaign, that he made calls to dan coats and to the director of the National Security agency, Admiral Mike Rogers and asked
them to publicly state that there was no evidence of collusion. They both refused that. And they were uncomfortable with it, my sources tell me. Felt this was undue pressure that president was putting on them with an investigation underway. And with this report joug, it show as pattern because as youll recall, we reported that Reince Priebus called the fbi to publicly reporting about communications between russia and trump and what really stuck out to me in particular reading this article in the Washington Post was that white house officials reached out to the fbi, people in the fbi trying to get them to end the investigation into Michael Flynn. It means this is spreading. Obviously you have a boss. The boss is really unhappy. Hes ubseszed with this. Hes reaching out to everybody he can because he still thinks hes running the trump
organization rather than be president of the United States. Hes telling his people cant you talk to people over there and put a stop to this and the Washington Post reporting says that these white house officials did that. We know about Reince Priebuss outreach, which he has explained. He did that, i believe last february but this is a plural. This says they sounded out top intelligence officials about intervening with comey. So suddenly this is spreading. I think part of the problem is the president has had a lot of frustration about the fact that he thinks theres information that shows theres no collusion and he wants look, in his last Press Conference he mentioned that he can only speak for himself. The first time hes used that language. Hes suggesting other people have problems but not he
himself. I think one of his great frustrations has been he knows comey has briefed members of congress and among the things he did not say to them was that donald trump was personally under investigation and hes suggested he is not. And why cant comey come out and say that . Thats what the president s frustration has been. And hes been hanging on, james clapper, the former director of National Intelligence who said some of the same sentiments. Testimony before multiple committees, he would not rule out the possibility of the president himself. Tomorrow will be a key moment, both dan coats and mike rogers are appearing in separate hearings on separate issues on capital hill. Coats will go before the Armed Services committee, Lindsey Graham also sits on that committee. So you may hear concerns from republicans on this issue of
whether the president tried to undually pressure his chiefs to bat down these stories. The commonality in all of this is that a pattern of interference. At a minimum, right . You can debate the definition of Obstruction Of Justice and thats a fair debate because thats a legal question but you have a pattern, at least of a president going to the fbi director, we know, going to the heads of Intelligence Agencies during an active investigation. Didnt anyone say you cant do that . They did refuse the request. Shouldnt he know he cant do that. Either he knows and is okay with crossing the boundaries or he just doesnt understand the rules. There are boundaries beteen the white house and the fbi for a reason. Talking to white house officials, you can hear their frustration because i think theres been an effort to try to threat president know heres what you can do and heres what
you cannot do. Roger stone is still in touch with the president and weve heard from other people under investigation in this investigation who are still talking to the president. This is something because of the appearance and theyre talking about the weather. It does not look good. And how he fired one of the u. S. Attorneys from new york. He tried to call berock before his firing and he thought that was inappropriate. And did not take the call. But the president seems not to have gotten that message when he talks to the other investigators. We have a special counsel of course, Robert Mueller and your reporting today was thatd he has begun to look at the comey memos, right . So look at the fact that the president interfered with comeys investigation. Thats right. Im told by a person familiar that part of this probe will
likely focus on Obstruction Of Justice and hes less than a week into his special role as special counselal, hes already been briefed on his memos and one memo in which he wrote that the president asked him to end the Michael Flynn probe and now the former director, comey will be a witness in this investigation. It raises the question what about him testifying . He has given the Investigation Indication to Congressman Chaffetz today that he wants to talk to mueller before he testifies because now hes a key witness. So even if he continues with his plans, it raises the question that mueller and is there concern that he might not be able to appear at all. Theres concerns about what he may say. I spoke to one of the members of the Senate Intelligence community and he said thats a concern. What can james comey say publicly . The top democrat had a chance to talk today. He said that mueller and comey were having a discussion in terms of what comey could say publicly. If mueller had it his way, he wouldnt testify at all. He wants to tell his story. This is not a shy person. This is somebody who kept these memos and has a story ing. Insisted on a public testimony as well. Exactly. He has a story he wants to tell. So while he cant talk about the investigation or he cant talk about what he was doing, but he can talk about what was in those memos, it would seem to me. And whether the white house tries to assert any kind of executive privilege. There is some waving of that privilege that has already been done at least in the view of legal experts who watch this kind of stuff. But we can probably expect there is somebody at the white house who is looking at this and
trying to figure out a way to reserve that. Buse we dont know Everything Else comey has in these memos. Certainly the white house doesnt know everything in the memos. Untlsz lless the lawyer, the House Counsel has talked to him about what he toads comey. And makes you wonder if mueller will tell comey not to reveal anything else because theyre considered evidence in the investigation. The president is on his first overseas trip. Hes had a moment to shine, i imagine, with a big arms deal with saudi arabia. Hes gone to the western wall in jerusalem. Theyve talked about peace in the middle east but hes going to come back in a few days and comey appearing and dragged back into it very quickly. This was supposed to be a reset and in many ways it was. The president s had, so far, a very successful trip. And so what theyre trying to do is reset. You saw that Reince Priebus high tailed it back here because theyve got budget coming out tomorrow. I dont have to tell you this. Theyve got lot. They want to deal with tax reform and the president hasnt been tweeting on this at all because hes been abroad which may be a blessing. So when he comes back, hes going to im sure hes aware of this post story and hes going it get back in the thick of it. He was obsessed about it before, i dont think its going to lessen any given this story about dan coats and he kept the story alive today by in the meeting with netanyahu he said that was a trouly remarkable moment. In effect confirming that israel was the