This is the form sessions filled out. On page 76, which i hold here in my handled, it required sessions to list any contact with a Foreign Government or its representatives over the past seven years. It includes specific mention of embassy and consulates. Sessions met at least twice with the Russian Ambassador last year alone. On this form he didnt list either meeting. This as the New York Times reports the russians tried to use Paul Manafort to influence President Trump. We are covering these breaking stories from all details and we begin with Phil Mattingly on capitol hill. Want to begin with manu raj u on the breaking news about attorney general sessions. What are you learning . Erin, Justice DepartmentOfficials Say attorney general Jeff Sessions did not disclose meetings he had last year when he applied for the security clearance. Just another example. Remember earlier this year he came under criticism after it was revealed he didnt disclose meetings with ambassador kislyak. He didnt note those interactions on this form, which does require him to list, quote, any contact he or his family had with a Foreign Government or its representatives over the last seven years. His initial failure to disclose these meetings led to sessions recusing himself on all matters related to the russian investigation. He says he does not recall discussing Campaign Matters with kislyak which is why he said he didnt disclose it. Looking at the questionare it says complete the following if you or any member of your immediate family in the past seven years have had any contacts with a Foreign Government, its establishment such as an embassy, it says did you have a contact. How could he not have disclosed those meetings . My colleague was told that initially sessions did list a years worst of meetings with foreign officials on the security clearance form. Then he and his staff were told by an fbi employee. The fbi would not comment but we got a comment from a legal expert, mark zaid who assists in filling out these forms including with some senators. He said that senators would still have to reveal the appropriate Foreign Government contacts, assuming they were not at a foreign conference, which, erin, these meetings were not at a foreign conference. They were not. Initially when he listed meetings do we know if the Russian Ambassador was among those listed or not . Reporter we dont, erin. And we know that theres been other issues here with other trump associates, including trumps soninlaw with his own security clearance form. Remember, he he committed his own security forms of Michael Flynn also being investigated for not disclosing payments f m frofrom russians on his own form. He could be questioned. This testimony something that actually Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer called for last month. Look, i there are lots of questions about Jeff Sessions. Thats why i called for him to resign. Id be happy if they brought him before the committee and had him testify. Reporter the big question lawmakers have is over Jeff Sessions role in firing of fbi director james comey. It was brought up with deputy general rod rosenstein. Rosenstein im told was asked about this but declined to discuss sessions role. Its something that bob mul oar may look into as well. Erin . Thank you very much. I want to get to the other breaking story. Russia tried to influence Paul Manafort according to a new report in the New York Times in the fast hour. Russia tried to do the same to Michael Flynn. Phil mattingly is on capitol hill. Phil, what are you learning . Reporter this showed that intelligence officials were aware of intercepts of russian officials talking about how they could influence top trump advisors in order to get more access to the president himself. This first became public yesterday when john brennan, the former cia director testified that evidence made clear there were potential attacks here. Adam schiff, i asked if he had seen the intelligence and if he could confirm what john brennan said. Take a listen. Yes, it is the case. Have been able to review it and i think the director quite appropriately provided that information to the fbi and i think the fbi investigation was initiated for good and sound reasons and i think it continues for good and sound reasons, but yes, the agency has been very cooperative in the request for information and documents. Reporter his perspective about what that contained. Was the way he summarized it concern the way he summarized it . Certainly. I think his testimony was accurate and based on what he was privy to it was perfectly appropriate for him to provide that information to the fbi for analysis and further investigation. Reporter this becomes increasingly clear that for Michael Flynn, the issues in congress are not going away anytime soon. Two new subpoenas trying to gather documents from him has been served. Adam shichl telling me that the House Intelligence Committee will be issuing subpoenas soon as well. The effort ramping up after the special counsel bob mueller was name. Thanks very much. Out front now, david berg en, juliette kai yam and jason mifrl. I want to talk about this breaking news about paul manfort and Michael Flynn. First Jeff Sessions. Complete the following. If you or any member of your immediate family in the past seven years have had any contact with a Foreign Government, its establishment such as an embassy or its representatives inside or outside the u. S. Is there any question in your mind that multiple meetings with the ambassador would be included . Not in my mind. Those are pretty rigorous reviews. I do think this is significant in and of itself. If those were oneonone meetings in particular as his capacity as an advisor to the Trump Campaign, which it appears that they are, thats different than to say i was on a senate committee, which you can imagine there is an exception what i would like to know and it would be good to figure out is if other senators or congressmen or women who became members of the trump administration, what they disclosed. If they disclosed meetings that they had and sessions did not, it undermines sessions argument that everyone was doing this, nobody was saying anything. I think this is one of those other things that this data point with other data points matter. Once again, sessions becomes a focus in terms of this investigation and in terms of his influence during the campaign. And lets just be clear, david, because sessions did make this same claim, right, in the confirmation hearings for his position as attorney general. He excluded this information and heres how he answered the question to senatorial franken. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. David, of course, the reality as we know, is that he was a surrogate for the campaign. He was saying the campaign didnt come up. Advisor for the Trump Campaign, meetings with the russians, not disclosed there and not disclosed on this form. Does it add up to anything to you . Sure. Headsup to the fact he wasnt truthful. He didnt fully disclose. In his defense i must tell you i havent filled out some of the those forms for a long, long time. But theyre exhaustive. You need legal help frequently. Just remember when you read that question out it was on page 76. Yes. That means there were at least 75 other pages in this disclosure. I think juliette is at the right point which is this particular question is a serious question. It jumps outs on the form saying were talking to a Foreign Government and it does not exclude you, does not give you a pass if youre a senator or a house member of the house of representatives. Every citizen fills out the form has to disclose in a information. Im baffled why he didnt list it, especially sings he said it was innocent. It adds to the sense of these guys werent playing straight. Jason, if how do you get around that, that it adds to the sense that they werent playing straight. He had these meetings while he was advisor to the Trump Campaign. It would be remiss that this is an example of a leaked document put out there. This would most certainly result in jail time. Thats a fair point. Thats a fair point. Even as we talked in a moment about the New York Times story, they go out of their way to point out that whoever leaked the information could be prosecuted under law. Getting back to senator sessions for a moment. This was a form filled out in 2016 in anticipation of coming in to the administration, and i think the important point here is the fact that senator sessions had dozens of interactions with folks who whether they be ambassadors or different emissaries from Foreign Countries and the fbi employee he was working with said a number of those didnt need to be listed, so he followed that counsel. Clearly they should have been listed on there. Look, if this was a real problem or a real issue they would brought it to him right away. Dont you think if it involves the russians and he knew that was a big issue at the time wouldnt you just say im going to put that on there, to never have this problem. If theres nothing to see there, then put the there out there. Does that make sense to you . The senator followed the guidelines put out in front of him and the recommendation from the fbi employee who told him and i think at a certain point theres a relevance factor, an importance factor about what was discussed. I have to go back to i believe it was juliette who made the comment that a lot of this was while he was a surrogate for the campaign. If he meets with someone in his senate office, hes not acting a surrogate. Hes acting as a u. S. Senator. I think the way that this came out today tells you everything that you need to know. It was a deliberate effort of state leakers. Juliette . Let me ask this can i ask one question, and that is do you think these forms ought to be filled out truthfully . Is that for me . Yes do you think the forms should be filled out truthfully . Absolutely. I think its smart to get counsel, Legal Counsel or someone to work with you in the fbi to make sure youre fully filling it out. If now attorney general sessions was given advice to not list some of these again we werent in the meetings and dont know what was discussed, although we know the former senator and the attorney general says the campaign was not discussed but he was adviced not to list those and he involved advice. Juliette, do you buy that or do you buy that look, it involved russia, russia is a special interest. Put it on there. You would think. It wasnt like russia was a big surprise nor their attempted influence on our elections. With the other stories today, on the New York Times this is the paul manfort. Paul manfort we picked up russian intelligence that they were trying to focus their efforts on changing policies. What needs to be chloroand is there are a series of things that russia did, right, that we know. The wikileaks, the fake news, trying to get manfort, the meetings, all that stuff. Theres a group of things that the Trump Campaign and his surrogates and maybe trump did. Promoting wikileaks, hiding the meetings, bringing the ambassador through the back door, not discussing financial dealings. Those two things are different pieces of evidence. What this investigation is doing is figuring out if there are linkages of all of this. Its just jason, are you surprised to learn that paul manfort and general flynn as weve reported and now the New York Times is reporting were actively being sought after by the russians to influence donald trump . Again, lisa be clear with what the story says. Its from highly classified information that was ilare legally leaked out it says there was a group of russians who thought they could be a target on them. It doesnt even say in the story that there was even any action to go and try to do anything with them or to try to go after them. I almost have to stick up for him in a sense that its saying that some folks essentially conspired with them to use them as pawns, but they never actually anything happened there. It doesnt say anything of the story but listen this goetz broader narrative of what were seeing in the media right now where its become for too many in the media and too many in this Administrative State for people in washington, this has now become a beyond thunderdome death match where only one of two things can happen. Either President Trump can lose or the administrative folks and the members of the media can win. This is a specific effort to attack President Trump. I think most people reading the story get that. Or is this an effort to get at the truth so people can decide for themselves. The Deputy Attorney general, an appointeedecided that you needed a special counsel to get to the bottom of this. He doesnt think this is a great war. What hes trying to figure out is are there individuals who have crossed the line and what were the russians up to and did they collude with did they persuade, did they manipulate people . It seems to me we dont know where this is going to end up. But what if h there are two or three people singled out in the end, manfort may have been one of those. There are a lot of different outcomes which will not be a victory for the president state, quote. But i think we have to wait and see. Look, if somebody fails to fill out a form properly, that his violation of the rules of getting a security clearance and the public deserves to have some knowledge of whats going on behind the scenes. Thats what we have in most investigations in the past. Its not just Administrative State playing for prurchl. How do you explain after maybe the people involved havent been forthright. Well, do you think they did a service . Look, these are i think that after an illegal b leak trying to tear down President Trump. But i think the hey. Yeah. You didnt when it was attacking scene of the accident books secretary clinton because that was terrible but now its quote unquote telling the truth or getting at President Trump, now its ok. Juliette . I think we can have that debate about the facts and where the evidence is going. A better way to look at the leaks theres no evidence. Theres no evidence. Excuse me. Excuse me. That what this also is about is concern about potential obstruction of justice at this stage. We know that that is what is likely part of the investigation. We have a lot of sort of bodies on the side at this stage now including comey and yates. So part of this so long as the white house continues to try to undermine or stop an investigation, whether its the senate and house leadership or the Administrative State leadership, you would anticipate these leaks. You cant just throw out leaks are all bad or all good. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I want to go to will hurd, former cia officer. A lot to talk about. Congressman i want to start with this form that we now know Jeff Sessions did not include information about his meetings with russians. When you filled out this page, reegt . I would assume. You were a krail agent. Yes. Does it surprise you to hear that he did not list any contact he had had with the russian ambassad ambassador. I think the intense scrutiny he knew he was going to go under, oversharing is probably better than undersharing. A lot of these forms you talk about close and continuing contact, that those are the kinds of people that you report on the form, because you dont report lets say you have a favorite restaurant and you go there every night and the person that is your favorite server is somebody from spain. That person is not going to go on this form. Right. In this instance, so we have to remember that. We also have to remember that 23 million of these forms were stolen by the chinese a year and a half ago and everybody was outraged. Whether its 23 million of those forms being revealed or one, we should have we should discourage this kind of sharing of information of leaking. Yes. And i want to ask you leaks are bad. On page 59 they ask you about close and continuing for yourself. This is professional activity, so on this page, page 76, i want to be clear, it actually doesnt ask if its closed or continuing. Its just have you had any contact. So this is getting to the point of oversharing, i guess. We know he had more than one meeting with the Russian Ambassador that would certainly fit this description. Again, knowing the focus and the scrutiny that you can receive, oversharing is probably a good strategy and especially now this in line with the revelations earlier where he had to go back to the senate to talk about his mischaracterization of some of the contents. This fits a broader narrative that many want to drive but i think that this is an issue that ultimately rocket mueller would be looking into to do a broad review of the russians in our elections. Development news tonight. We now know tha