Frontrunner. And the flynn connection. The fired National Security advisor keeps stirring up trouble for the Trump Administration amid new revelations about his actions before inauguration day. Why is the president still so loyal to flynn and reportedly sending him messages of support. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer and youre in the situation room. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Were following breaking news on the president s angry reaction to the appointment of the special counsel and the ramifications for the investigation into the trump camps ties to russia. In his first on camera response just a little while ago, the president described the probe as a witch hunt thats dividing the country. He again denied any collusion between his associates and russia. He also denied reports that he asked former director james comey to end the fbis investigation into the fired National Security advisor Michael Flynn. Also breaking, the Deputy Attorney general revealed to senators that he newcomby would be fired as fbi chief the day before he wrote a memo to justify the decision. Rod rosenstein sharing new details in a private all senate briefing. The Number Two Senate democrat says rosenstein couldnt talk about why President Trump fired comey because its part of a special counsel investigation. Also tonight President Trump says hes close to choosing a new fbi director and confirms that Joe Lieberman is one of his top choices. Sources tell cnn the former senator and former Vice President nominee now appears to be the frontrunner for the job. Were covering all of that much more this hour with our guest including House Intelligence Committee member jim heinz and our correspondents and specialists standing by. Lets go to sarah murray. Together with some other Television News anchors, i had lunch with the president today. He told us the special counsel, his words, hurts our country. He clearly is not happy about this decision. Reporter no he certainly is not pleased by this news. You can almost see the struggle that the president was having during this press conference today. Were on the one hand he wanted to pivot, he wanted to talk about his agenda and talk about the upcoming foreign trip but on the other hand he just cant move beyond questions about russia and his anger, frankly at the fact that a special counsel has been named. Believe me theres no collusion. Russia is fine. Reporter President Trump sieging today over the news that a special counsel will oversee the fbis russia investigation. Carefully insisting that he did not personally collude with the russians during the 2016 president ial campaign. While i respect the move but the entire thing has been a witch hunt and there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but i can always speak for myself and the russians, zero. Reporter many in washington cheered the news that former fbi director Robert Mueller would serve as special counsel. In the investigation into potential collusion between the Trump Campaign and russians. But the president stewed. I think it divides the country. I think we have a very divided country because of that and many other things. Reporter trump also sharply denying that he ever asked ousted james comey to back off his investigation into retired general Michael Flynn. Did you at any time urge former fbi director james comey to close or back down the investigation into Michael Flynn and also as you look no, no. Next question. Reporter and the president dismissing the notion that any of his actions could warrant criminal charges or impeachment. I think its totally ridiculous. Everybody thinks so. Reporter trumps defiant tone on thursday a far cry from the measured Statement Released as soon as the special counsel was announced. On wednesday night trump simply broet as i have stated many times a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know. There was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly but even as he decried the russia probe as a witch hunt, he appeared eager to turn the focus back to his agenda. There was no collusion and everybody even my enemies have said, there is no collusion. So we want to get back and keep on the track that were on because the track that were on is record setting. Reporter the president using his appearance with the colombian president to tout his upcoming foreign trip. Im going to saudi arabia as you know, and israel, going to rome and we have the g7. We have a lot of great things going on. Reporter and devoting part of his day for the hunt of a new fbi director as former senator Joe Lieberman emerges as an early frontrunner for the job. Were very close to an fbi director. Soon. Senator lieberman one of your top candidates . He is. Reporter now we are beginning to see an acknowledgement that this president may need more fire to defend himself now that a special counsel has been named, a close circle of trump advisors met today in washington to discuss hiring outside Legal Counsel for the president , wolf. Reporting for us from the white house. Thank you. Today we heard the President Trump once again defend his decision to fire james comey as the fbi chief. Listen to this. Director comey was very unpopular with most people. I actually thought when i made that decision and i also got a very, very strong recommendation as you know from the Deputy Attorney general, Rod Rosenstein but when i made that decision, i actually thought that it would be a bipartisan decision, because you look at all of the people on the democratic side, not only the republican side that were saying such terrible things about director comey, then he had the very poor performance on wednesday, poor, poor performance. So poor, in fact, that i believe and youd have to ask him because i dont like to speak for other people, i believe thats why the Deputy Attorney general went out and wrote his very, very strong letter. President referencing a now infamous memo by the Deputy Attorney general rosenstein this shortly after rosenstein revealed new information about that memo and the time of comeys ousting. Rosenstein gave a private briefing because closed doors to members of the u. S. Senate today. What did he tell them about that controversial memos. Reporter questions about that that you referenced really seem to dominate much of the discussion in that private closed door meeting today. According to many senators who left the meeting, rosenstein said today that he could not talk specifically about why President Trump wanted comey fired because and this is rosensteins explanation, because its part of bob muellers investigation and senators said he wanted to give mueller wide latitude here and we are learning a little bit more about the time line here according to multiple Democratic Senators leaving that briefing. They said that rosenstein knew on may 8th that President Trump wanted to fire james comey, that is one day before james comey was ultimately fired and importantly one day before rosenstein wrote that memo basically recommending that comey be fired. Of course as you know that memo was originally held up as explanation for why comey was ultimately dismissed. We also heard from republican senator Lindsey Graham tell us what he had to say about that briefing with rosenstein. Reporter not mincing words at all leaving that briefing today. He strongly believes that the congressional investigations that are going on up here on capitol hill have been severely limited in his mind. He believes this will make it harder to potentially subpoena people that might be brought in to the congressional inquiries and he says that he was left with the impression after listening to Rod Rosenstein that the Russian Investigation should now be considered criminal investigation. The takeaway i have is that everything he said was that you need to treat this investigation as if it may be a criminal investigation, so i think the biggest legal change seems to be that mr. Mueller is going to proceed forward with the idea of a criminal investigation versus the Counter Intelligence investigation reporter and that briefing today lasting a little over two hours and many senators leaving that briefing that they have many, many more questions here and now this goes over to the house. Tomorrow Rod Rosenstein will brief the full house as well. Thanks very much. Lets get some more of all of this congressman jim heinz is joining us. Hes a democratic on the House Intelligence Committee thanks for joining us. So the president told me and a few other reporters, believes the appointment of special counsel hurts our country because it shows were a divided, mixed up not unified country and we have very important things to be doing right now. Your reaction . My reaction is that thats exactly wrong, right . The entire country i would think would want to lift this cloud of suspicion and as we all know there are lots of questions about what contacts may have been made between the president s people and russia. Theres lots of questions. I wouldve thought that anybody of either party would say, lets move on. Lets get a good investigation with total scope to do what it needs to do so we can arrive at an answer to the question of whether there was collusion. This is one of the thing that really puzzles me as an investigator. He call this a witch hunt. Even my enemies say that there was no collusion. First of all, none of his enemies, in fact, none of his friends made that statement. Whats intriguing to me is, there have been investigations forever. When youre innocent and absolutely innocent, you say i welcome this investigation. This investigation should happen as rapidly as possible because it will clear my name. When youre less than innocent, you use words like witch hunt. You obfuse kate, maybe you fire the people who are actually running the investigation. None of that is proof, of course, that trump is guilty, but ill tell you, theres nothing about his behavior that suggests that theres absolutely nothing to hide here. He also told us it was simply an excuse for the democrats, youre a democrat, having lost an election that they should have easily won and thats the thats his explanation for the witch hunt. Go ahead and react. You know, what can you say. The president and ive been watching him pretty closely for these last 120 days or so. There is no venue whether its the Coast Guard Academy yesterday or a meeting with the foreign leader in which the election isnt the central motif in this mans mind. 240 years of american history, most president s have gotten elected, had a certain satisfaction with that and moved on to the questions of the day. Over here in the house, the investigation is being run by a terrific and very solid republican, mike conway. I dont think the fbi decides to originate an investigation because theyre angry about the president ial outcome. This is just one more example sadly of da lugs on the part of our president. Is there any concern on your part, congressman, that your house and Senate Investigations could actually wind up getting in the way of the federal effort or diminish it in any way because thats the suggestion that senator Lindsey Graham put forward today . I dont think theyre going to diminish each other. And remember were looking at slightly different things. The senate and the house investigations are really not primarily about, you know, about finding criminal wrongdoing and prosecuting criminal wrongdoing. That is what the fbi and the doj do. Here in the congress the issue is how did russia intervene, what do we do about it, was there a collusion, what does that say about our political system and potentially about the president s campaign . So its a slightly different focus. Now what we do need to be careful about and this is this is not a new problem, but if doj, if the fbi is investigating an individual, they may come to us and ask us not to interview that individual in open forum because that could compromise their ability to do what they need to do. So theres a long list of people obviously that i assume are of interest to the fbi because theyre of interest to us and i could imagine them saying, hold off on these people because were investigating them and we dont want you in our way. Senator graham also said he believes the Russian Investigation is now considered in his words a criminal investigation, director comey the fired fbi director, he said back in march, he said he was he described it as a Counter Intelligence investigation this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Do you see a difference between those two statements, what comey said and now what graham is saying . First of all, i think its hard to know for sure because i assume that theyre investigation is not close to being done, thats at least what director comey said a couple weeks ago. A counterintelligence investigation is when the fbi says we think we may have a spy thats spying on the United States and they do all the work that they do to determine if that is true. Their object there is two fold, one to find out who that spy is talking to, how theyre doing what theyre doing, what other people might be involved. It may turn out if that spy is an american, that they would then choose to turn it into a criminal investigation by bringing charges of espionage against an individual. You can sort of have both the counterer intelligence and a criminal Investigation Underway at the same time. But i dont think were going to get good clarity on that until well down the road with the fbi investigation. Have you seen congressman evidence of collusion between the Trump Campaign, Trump Associates and the russians . Wolf, i want to be pretty careful about getting into specifics of the investigation, which is, you know, much of this is happening behind closed doors with classified information. What i will tell you and this is no different if youre on the inside like i am than if youre on the outside scratching your head over any number of behaviors from this president , there are a lot of very, very serious Unanswered Questions that this investigation needs to get behind and answer. But i dont want to right now characterize really at the early stages of the investigation where its likely to end up. Without providing any Sensitive Information or classified information, its a simple yes or no. Have you seen evidence of collusion . Let me put it this way. I have seen things that cause me to say this investigation needs to continue. Im glad the fbi is doing what theyre doing. I was very worried upon the firing of jim comey about the signal that was sent to the people in the fbi who were doing that investigation. Thats a pretty unambiguous signal and the white house said it had to do with the Russian Investigation. If youre a member of the fbi or an employee of the fbi as special agent you got one heck of a signal. Bob mueller assures that has been remedy. To answer your question, wolf, there is plenty for us to continue to investigate here. Cnn just reported that your House Intelligence Committee has obtained access from data from the Treasury Department so you can investigate possible connections between President Trump businesses and russia. Heres the question, how important is this access and what will you be looking for specifically . Wolf, as you might imagine, i dont want to get into the kinds of information that weve received specifically but i will tell you that it will not surprise you that any time youve got an investigation that involves the possibility of linkages or collusions or people working together there is always the possibility that money changed hands. Particularly if youre in the world of real estate, real estate of course san area in which there is all kinds of Money Laundering going on and whats happening to that property so without in any way prejudicing what the conclusions may be, were going to want to see a lot of financial records that may involve a fairly large group of people who they may be getting money too. Im not saying that we know there was anything untoward there, you can bet your Bottom Dollar but well be interested in seeing that information. Have you seen any of that information yet . I personally have not yet looked at any particular financial information. We are in the process of looking at a lot of documents but i personal have not actually spent a lot of time looking at anything that is that is related to financial records. Your Committee Also is requested documents related to the former fbi director comeys dismissal and memos that he wrote. Have you received a response yet . Well, as you know, a lot of people on the hill, a lo