You may have some people that may not be performing to the top notch way that they should be and doing everything correctly. We have an obligation to check into that. But im not going to throw the entire fbi under the bus. And im not going to name individuals at this time because thats what were looking into. All right. Congressmen, again, great work for your heroism yesterday. Thanks so much for being with us this morning. Great for those families. Thank you. Thanks to our International Viewers for watching. For you, cnn newsroom is next. For the u. S. , new day continues right now. Good morning. Welcome to your new day. Why waste time . Unprecedented public clash between President Trump and the nations top Law Enforcement officials over releasing that classified gop memo alleging sur is have a lance abuses. In a rare statement, the fbi is expressing grave concerns about the accuracy of the memo. I know you just heard a congressman say Christopher Wray had no problems with the accuracy. Thats not true. Its serving their political purpose of getting this memo out. The Justice Department warned last week that releasing it would be extraordinarily reckless. The man who gave the warning was an appointee of President Trump. The top democrat on the House Intel Committee now accuses republican chairman devin nunes of secretly altering that kop controversial memo before it was september to the white house for review. All of this comes as questions continue to grow on whether nunes is working with the white house on the memo. He refuses to answer the question. Theres another Big Development to tell you about in the russia investigation. The New York Times reports special Counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on an alleged cover up of the new famous meeting between russians and Trump Campaign officials. Did a top aide to the president try to obstruct justice . And we have two cnn exclusives. First, sources tell cnn that President Trump asked Rod Rosenstein, are you on my team . Is that an attempt to gain support. The fbi agent whose Text Messages have led to the allegations of bias in the Mueller Investigation played a key role in reopening the Hillary Clinton email probe just days before the 2016 election. We have all of these stories covered for you. Lets again with Cnns Abby Phillip live at the white house. Abby reporter good morning, alisyn. All eyes on the white house this morning as we wait to see how and when that gop motorcycle might be released today. Sources tell cnn its likely to happen today, even though the fbi and the Justice Department have expressed concerns. The fbi putting out a statement saying they really dont want this memo released because of factual inaccuracies. Overnight, new drama is unfolding in this ongoing saga. The top democrat is accusing the republican chairman devin nunes of secretly altering that controversial memo before he sent it to the white house for review. This is not about the facts. This is about a narrative that the chairman wants to put out, misleading narrative to undermine the if you can, undermine the department, and ultimately undermine bob mueller. Reporter schiff writing in a letter to nunes that it was materially different than the version of which the committee voted. He called it a strange attempt to on thwart the publication of the memo. The back and forth unfolding on the back and forth about whether nunes coordinated with the white house on the memo. I asked the chairman did he work with, and i asked all the preliminaries, you know, coordinate, discuss. And he said not to my knowledge. I asked did your staff. And then he became quite agitated and said im not answering that. Did devin nunes work with anybody in the white house on that memo . Not that i know of. He was a member of trumps transition team. He was asked to step aside the committee after rushing to the white house to discuss intelligence related to the probe. Nunes was eventually cleared. The memo setting up an unprecedented showdown between the president and his handpicked fbi director chris wray. They asserted they have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy. They warned it would be extraordinarily reckless to released. Chief of staff down playing the concerns. It will be released shortly and then it will be released. Dont worry. 100 . Reporter a source tells cnn the white house may release the memo as early as today, possibly with some redactions. It is not clear if it would address concerns about it being incomplete. They informed the president they want to talk about the now infamous statement on Board Air Force one. A former spokesperson plans to tell them that hope hicks sat on a Conference Call that don jr. s emails with the russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton will never get out. Leaving corallo concerned hicks could be contemplating obstruction on of of justice. In december, fbi director rosenstein was in a meeting in which President Trump asked him if he was, quote, on his team. He is the person in charge of the russian probe. He made testimony before congress saying that no one has ever asked him for a loyalty pledge. Today, President Trump is going to be going to West Virginia to speak before a gop retreat with lawmakers. He said march 5th is rapidly approaching and the democrats are doing nothing about daca. They resist, blame, complain and obstruct and do nothing. Start pushing nancy pelosi and the dems to work out a daca fix now. So the president has been silent for quite some time. But this is a key opportunity for him to show how exactly hes going to work with democrats on this immigration fix as he promised tuesday night in his state of the union address. Abby, thank you very much for all of that. We have john avlon and cnn counterterrorism analyst phil mudd. Before we get into all the new details about this memo, i want to get your take on what this means, the the fact that the president is now publicly fighting with the heads of the department with Rod Rosenstein, with christopher wraeu, head of the fbi, steven boyd, department of justice official. What does this mean . Hes not fighting with the heads of those agencies only. Hes fighting with the entire executive branch and an organization that has been around 110 years. Hes been in office 13 months. This is a setup. It is not about chris wray or the Deputy Attorney general. If Robert Mueller comes out with additional indictments, i guarantee you the president will come out and say i told you all along. This is a witchhunt by deep state bureaucrats opposing the mandate for me to run this country. He handpicked people. His handpicked republicans he calls deep state bureaucrats. Thats right. My point is he handpicked these individuals. He is setting it up as the executive branch, the white house against organizations that they have said are incredibly honorable. If you look at polling data how the americans viewed the fbi, it is apples and oranges. He is trying to change the dynamic saying you cant trust them. This is left and right and these institutions are the democracy. Very unusual. It was such oh, come on moment. This guy saying we want the information to get out this congressman says. You want the information to get out. But you havent seen the information. You havent read the facts. You havent seen the fisa application you are saying was dirty. But you want facts to come out. It is such a come on. Of course. But for part answer talking points are easier to remember than facts. Thats a big core problem in our politics right now. The dividing lines were seeing really are stunning. It is trump world against the rest of the world as they see it. Hes fighting with his own executive branch, his own employees. Cant simply dismiss that as a conspiracy. Hes fighting against congress. Certain members of congress are following in with trump world. They see it ativdvantageous in short run. There are designed to be checks and balances. And pandering saying it is all dirty. Trust no one. Lets not call it a deep state anymore. Lets call it conspiracy theory. That is what is being fomented. Rhetoric has to be reality. Thats not going to be on their side. Phillip mudd, lets talk about this memo. They changed it. After they voted to release it and accepted it of to the white house, they then changed it. If you believe devin nuness people, they changed it minorly, just tweaks. If you believe adam schiff, they changed it substantially. Either way, they changed it. How can anyone trust this memo when released to the public. Lets take it back a step. There are thousands of fisa applications every year on counterintelligence and terrorism cases. Thousands. My guess is in this case theyre looking at some related to the investigation on russia, obviously, and related to individuals connected with the Trump Campaign and saying among these thousands, among these few we will pick a few facts and persuade the American People who dont understand the fisa process and shouldnt based on a couple of facts that the entire process is wrong. I can tell you from the start thats what we call cherry picking that happened in 2002 going before the iraq war when people cherry picked intelligence. We lived it 15 years ago. We will live it again today. Cherry picking. The first is another push for loyalty by the president , john avlon. This time Rod Rosenstein, are you on my team . And timing matters. In december he was up there to talk about his testimony on congress about what was going on with the investigation. Rosenstein supposedly answered, were all on your team, mr. President. Technically right. He is part supposed to be on the same team. But this is another one. By itself, people will write this off as trump being trump. And a really ignorant idea about how people from new york speak. 0 to prosecutors, it could be a piece in a puzzle of corrupt intentions. Why is he asking this question . What is he trying to get out of these executives. This is clearly part of a pattern. This is loyalty oaths part,000. Sit not a verbal tick from a guy from new york. Why not . This is how he divides the world. Are you on my team or not . Are you going to do a nice story on me. Is he saying are you going to help me get out of this investigation or not . I get it. It is about america versus the world when its george bush. With donald trump, are you investigating me and are you going to be kind to me and my friends. That is the fact person pa. Everybody knows he is furious about recusing himself. So lets not be too clever here. It is what it is. A verbal tick is when he goes forget about it. Its how he sees the world. If you ran into him today, he would say are you on my team or not. Obviously hes the president. This is the the stakes are higher. But this is how he divides the world. Context matters. He is about to go in and testify. One word comes out. Im not saying its appropriate. Prosecutors are looking at it because they think it is more than just a tick. More information came out that you wont hear much from the republican side pushing the memo. It is, phil mudd, that strzok was involved with the clinton he mail investigation. And theres now information that that letter that comey put out publicly, that they were reopening the case, just a gut shot to clinton at the end of the campaign. Strzok was involved with drafting the early version of that. And that he wanted to aggressively pursue the emails that were found on Anthony Weiners laptop. By the way, they wound up being highly duplicative and not anything new. He wanted to look at them. But he was against comey making them public. Significance . The significance is you have someone ironically charged with trying to undermine the Trump Campaign who was involved in the most significant step that partly destroyed Hillary Clintons success. You couldnt have made that up in a novel. The other quick thing i would say, people have the impression that someone can initiate an investigation, get a fisa to intercept email. Peter strzok couldnt have made any of these decisions alone. No one should think ez the wizard of oz behind the curtain. By the way, i would never pick you for my team. I want to make that clear up front. You know why . Im not loyalty to you. Im loyal to the truth, my brother. Thats the road that divurges with me and that yellow tie. I love phil mudd. Hes one of the best guys we have. The New York Times with another big scoop. Mueller investigating a possible on cover up of the trump tower meeting between russians and the Trump Campaign. Joining us on the phone is cnn political analyst and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. Maggie . Reporter chris, thanks for having me. I insist to bother you late at night and early in the morning when you are with your family. Thank you very much. The headline matters. Tell us what you know and what you think it means. Reporter sure. Look, mueller will be the one who can decide how significant all of this is. We have learned more about how things went down in terms of drafting, the statement that was crafted aBoard Air Force one about the trump tower meeting. We know mueller has been asking people about it. Some prosecutors are not prosecutors, excuse me. Some people involved in the interviews are a little bit puzzled as to why because the argument is that being, you know, not candid with the press is not a crime but not that it would be. And that was not the issue here. It was simply the former. We also know of a Conference Call that took place the day after the statement was drafted with the president supervising it essentially between the president , hope hicks and mark carolla of the president s legal team. He told people he resigned. Supposedly during this call hope hicks referring to emails that don jr. Exchanged with something trying to set up the meeting with a russian lawyer. It was said to be about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton with the russian governments help. This is all said in the email. She said they would never come out. Her lawyer said she never discussed destroying documents. There is a scenario where she is talking about it getting out into the press. Right. But whats going to matter is who said what to mueller. Her lawyer, trout, an established guy, used the language that would exactly echo a carveout in the statute for obstruction of justice. He used those words on on purpose. And zealously representing his clients interest that she wasnt doing what would trigger that statute. Understood. Thats right. On the other side of this equation, you have someone equally respected. Corollo worked there. Contextually, it will be relevant to mueller. He will make a good witness in terms of why he would be concerned. It is not just some remember p. R. Flack. Youre right, maggie, it ultimately comes down to what did she mean and what is your sense of whether or not shes already talked to them. So what does it mean this is still something theyre looking at . I think what it means is first of all, im not sure they were even going to talk to carollo. Hicks was getting a phone call or gets called back. Again, it still comes down to one persons word against the other. It is a huge open question right now. All right. Maggie, thank you so much once again. Thanks, guys. All right. Concern in congress and the fbi about that devin nunes memo and its expected release. With print Services Done right. On time. Guaranteed expert tech support. And this week all dell pcs are up to twenty five percent off save even more when you purchase a dell monitor. And make sure you protect your investment. Office depot® officemax. Officedepot. Com taking care of business the chairman devin nunes of secretly altering a memo alleging fbi surveillance abuses before sending it to the white house. Is nunes working on this controversial memo . Joining us is senator blumenthal of connecticut. Thank you for being here. Thank you, alisyn. I know youre not in the house, or on the house intelligence committee. You are very involved in the investigations. What do you know about the changes made to this devin nunes memo . We know they are unauthorized by the minority. The democrats meaning. Exactly. And so the memo is different than the one approved by the committee. But we also know very, very importantly that the department of justice has said that it would be extraordinary reckless. And the release of this memo is really reminiscent of the darkest days of the mccarthy era. It endangers methods and sources of the Intelligence Community and reflects an effort to distract from the Mueller Investigation, which now is tightening its vice with this interview with mark corallo. The spokesperson for the Trump Legal Team and mark corallo are expected to be interviewed in the next approximate two weeks. We just had maggie haeberman on from the New York Times. They will ask about the aftermath of that summer meeting with don jr. And the russian lawyer were then on air force one they tried to craft a statement that it wasnt about sanctions. It was about adoption. And that hope hicks reportedly, according to the New York Times sources, said those emails will, quote, never get out. One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence really stuning, was donald trump j