Don jr. Meeting with the russians . A stunning new report says the special counsel had hear from a former trump insider about potentially damaging conversation aboard air force one. Failed missile defense. Missile intercepter fails to hit the target in a live fire test. Could that serve to embolden north korea . Im wolf blitzer, and youre in the situation room. This is cnn breaking news. We begin with breaking news as the president moves towards release of the controversial republican memo alleging fbi surveillance abuses. Top white house aides fear Christopher Wray could quit if the president takes that step. Given the fbi publicly stated warnings about the memos accuracy and omissions of fact. Sources say the president believes releasing the memo could help his effort to discredit the entire russia investigation. Democrats openly worry that the next step could be the firing of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Ill speak with a congressman of the intelligence kmeecommittee, we have full coverage of the situation. Jeff, whats the latest . Wolf, we know the president has read this classified memo himself, and we also know hes poised to ignore the warnings from his own fbi director. As you said, hand picked, only six months on the job today. N now, there is fear at the white house this forces the fbi director out of his job, to leave his post. This comes as the memo is expected to be released as early as tomorrow. President trump not talking tonight about the extraordinary feud raving with the fbi. As the president moves closer to declassifying a highly controversial House Republican memo accusing federal authorities of mishandling the russia probe, cnn learned aides are worried and wray could quit in protest. He made frustrations clear, officials say, but not directly threatened to resign. After returning from the gop congressional retreat in West Virginia today, the president did not answer questions about his fbi director. Mr. President , are you worried the director may quit over this decision . Reporter tonight, cnn also learn the president has told friends in recent phone calls this could help discredit the Russian Investigation by expo exposing bias in the fbi. Not all republicans agree. This memo is not indictment of the fbi, of the department of justice. It does not impugn the Mueller Investigation or Deputy Attorney general. Reporter the latest showdown between the president and Justice Department is embroiling washington, and grave concerns about the o mamissions of fact. They down played the magnitude of the concerns. The president and advisers have reviewed the three and a half page memo to make sure it does not give away too much in terms of classification. A Senior Administration said, who added on friday, the white house will Tell Congress the president is okay with it. The white house has gone to Great Lengths trying to showcase due diligence, even after the president was captured on camera after the state of the Union Address tuesday night suggesting releasing the memo was a fore gone conclusion. As Democrats Join the Justice Department and fbi in saying this release poses a National Security risk, paul ryan dismissed concerns. This memo is is congress doing its job in conducting legitimate oversight over a very unique law, fisa, and if mistakes were made and individuals did something wrong, then it is our job as the legislative branch in government to conduct oversight over the executive branch if abuses were made. Reporter the memo poured more fuel on the already politically combustible House Intelligence Committee. Accusing the republican chairman nunes of altering the document writing, it is clear the majority made clear changes to the version sent to the white house that Committee Members were never apprised of, never had the opportunity to review, and never approved. Nunes a close ally of the president who served on the Trump Transition Team admitted to editing the document, but called that a bizarre distraction insisting changes were limited to grammatical fixes and two changes remmed by the fbi and minority themselves. They are bound to keep the investigation alive. Despite he claims innocence, no collusion, and ongoing effort by the white house and president to discredit and stop and end this contribute cam investigation, which is the only way hes going to prove his innocence, by the way, which is the bizarre thing here. Reporter so, tonight, the question is not if the memo is going to be released, but it is when. That could be as early as tomorrow. Now, tonight, one Senior Administration official told us about the redactions not believing theres substantial redactions to the memo. They want to get this back in congresss hands and the committee, House Intelligence Committee expected to release it publicly after the president gives his final signoff, wolf . Thank you. I want to bring in our justice correspondent, Jessica Snider, new reporting that the fbi still is not happy at all about this memo being released, even after some redactions. Yeah. The white house might be talking about redactions, might be talking about accommodations, but a u. S. Official that i spoke with familiar with the stance of the fbi say its not good enough, the stance of the fbi yesterday is still the stance today, and theres still serious concerns here. This is what the official said to me. He said, the fbi said in their statement that this memo contained material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy, they continued to say there may be editing of the text to the memo, but does not change the overall false narrative. It sounds like its a spin to justify the release of the memo. There are still grave concerns about this memo. Grave concerns, wolf, exactly what the fbi said about the memo yesterday, sticking with that stance yesterday despite changes or redactions. Yeah, they dont want the memo out because they suspect its basically false and misleading and provides a negative image of the fbi. You also have some new details of other breaking stories about the explosive report suggesting that the special Counsel Robert Mueller will soon get details of an alleged coverup of the controversial trump tower meeting in new york city during the campaign . Thats right. We know among inquiries here, investigators have been keyed into that trump tower meeting, and the circumstances surrounding the subsequent two statements released. Of course, the first one was misleading, did not tell the whole story, and now a new report suggests that hope hicks, the White House Communications director, might have been part of the possible obstruction of justice. Im mark corallo. Tonight, the legal team is getting ready to talk to mueller and point the finger at one of the president s closest aides according to the New York Times saying mark corallo plans to talk about a conversation he had with the president and White House Communications director, hope hicks, in which corallo grew concern that hicks was planning obstruction of justice. It happened last summer after President Trump huddled with hicks and others to draft what would be a misleading statement about donald trump jr. s meeting with a russian lawyer in trump tower in june of 2016. The president weighed in as any father would based on limited information that the he. Reporter down playing the meeting discussing a program about russian adoptions with no mention of what would be revealed, that the russians set up the meeting offering dirt on hillary clinton. In a comp call with the president and hope hicks, it warned the statement obscuring the purpose of the meeting would backfire because emails would eventually reveal the truth, but according to corallo, she replied, quote, those emails will never get out. At the time, he was alarmed at the implication. Hicks attorney fired back with this statement, she never said that, and the idea that hope hicks ever suggested that emails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false. Corallo reportedly wrote down comments about the emails never getting out and shared concerns with steve bannon according to the New York Times and left his job thereafter. The words and recollection could factor into muellers obstruction of justice investigation. If part of the intended audience was not simply the news but also for Robert Mueller and his investigative team, were they trying to steer them away from a trail, mislead the investigation . Reporter the president s newly new newly revealed comments to Rob Rosenstein could be part of the probe telling cnn that President Trump asked rosenstein in september if he was, quote, on my team, and asked where the Russian Investigation was heading because rosenstein oversees the special counsel. Cnn learned rosenstein responded, of course, were all on your team, mr. President. Shortly after this conversation . Rosenstein testified on capitol hill and denied any requests of loyalty from the president. Is it appropriate for the president of the United States to demand that a department of justice official or fbi director take a loyalty pledge . I dont have any opinions about that, congressman, nobody asked me to take a loyalty pledge other than oath of office. He did testify before congress that there was no loyalty pledge demanded to him, but could have interpreted it somewhat differently when the president said, are you on my team . He may not have interpreted that as a pledge of loyalty. Hes going to have to explain, in other words, the differences. Reporter we know the Deputy Attorney general rosenstein was interviewed by the special counsel over the summer in the role of firing james comey and learned that mark corallo will be interviewed within the next two weeks, but, of course, the Additional Details about possible obstruction of justice, wolf, could come to the forefront in the interview. A significant interview with corallo, spokesman at the white house, quit at some point, and the counsel wants to know precisely why he decided to quit that job. Could be very significant indeed. Thank you very much for that report. Joining us now, a key member of the House Intelligence Committee, democratic congressman of california, eric, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me back, wolf. An fbi source telling jessica theres grave concern about this republican memo, that there may be editing of the text, redactions, but it doesnt necessarily change that concern. Whats your reaction to that . They have a right to be gravely concerned, wolf, were in a first world democracy, and in democracies, you dont go after the police when they are investigating you. You dont sick the police on your political enemies. Thats what the Trump Administration and now with the help of House Republicans are doing. Thats a real problem. A lot of people ask, well, this looks dirty and wrong. What does it mean . Its the rule of law being just absolutely pulverized by a wrecking ball. We have to do all we can to guard it and stand up for it. Im just really, frankly, ashamed that so many of my republican colleagues are allowing this to happen and are looking the other way, putting heads in the sand, or actually paddling in the same direction as the white house. I expected a lot better of them and the American People do too. As yousisting its the role congress to engage in legitimate oversight of the executive branch of the u. S. Government, and when they see something inappropriate or wrong, its their responsibility to report it. Thats what they say they are doing right now. They saw abuses going on by the fbi. Well, theyll be judged by history, wolf. I have seen the evidence in realtime. There is not a shred of evidence that theres been an abuse of the surveillance process. However, the fbi and the democrats are asserting that this memo puts out false assertions that would poison the well of public sentiment, that would hurt bob muellers investigation, and how the fbi is perceived. We actually thought, well, why dont you at least let us put out a counterer memo putting this into focus. Our memo is ten pages with footnotes, goes into great detail about who occurred, and the republicans voted to block the American People from seeing that. You have to ask yourself, what are they afraid that the American People would see . What the American People would see is new, unseen evidence that rebuts their points and bolsters the fbis credibility and seriousness of the vision. What do you say to the speaker, palm ryan, insisting this republican memo does not imp kate rosenstein or mueller . What this memo does is it seeks to torch every floor of the fbi build ping to protect the president. Thats what it will do. Its unfortunate the speaker would take that tact. We expected better of him. I cant tell him how many times im asked at home we thought paul ryan would the adult in the administration, not the person to look at other way, and now worse, you know, working with the president to allow this to happen. As you know, your colleagues, house democrats, they are insisting there were material changes made to the republican memo, not just grammar or along those lines. Can you tell us what the material changes were . Yes. I was briefed on the changes. Just so people understand, we voted to send out to the public, democrats voted against it, you know, this memo. Nunes sent to the white house a different altered memo. That was not approved by the congress. There are at least five material changes that we have found. They omit very important information. They cause further confusion as to what is going on. Again, we believe that this just shows they are not honest brokers in this. They are working with the white house to pedal this narrative theres a taint, theres a problem at the fbi solely to protect the president. Its wrong. Its time i was going to say, when were the changes to the republican memo made . Before or after the vote by the committee strictly along party lines to release it . The vote was on monday, and the colleague asked nunes directly, voting on word for word memo reviewed last week . Nunes said yes, sending the content to the white house. We later learned and they acknowledged that thats not the memo they sent to the white house. Again, this should tell you everything you need to know about whats going on here. Are you concerned that the work of the House Intelligence Committee right now as a whole on russia and other matters could be compromised by this so that the u. S. Intelligence community, the Justice Department, the fbi, other agencies in the u. S. Government may now become reluctant to share classified information with the House Intelligence CommitteeGoing Forward . Wolf, as you reported in your opening segment, we have threats from north korea and all over the world that are not russiarelated. We just broke an agreement with the fbi that we had that we would not release sensitive materials by voting out and releasing these sensitive materials. If we conduct oversight as speaker ryan is so concerned about, how are we going to expect them to come forward, the intelligence community, and give us the nations secrets and allow us to look at whether they are violating Civil Liberties or acting in accord with the constitution if we broke trust with them . Effects may not be felt today or tomorrow, but i promise you, they are more guarded when they come forward because we have shown that we cant be trusted and that were willing to do the work of the white house to protect them rather than to protect the constitution. Should nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, be forced off that panel . Yesterday, yes. Yes, wolf. When he went over to the white house on march 20 when james comey testified to congress to work with the white house is when he should have been gone. I hate saying that because i enjoyed working with him in the years before this, but he never left the transition team, and what this caused, collateral damage, is the House Intelligence Committee is in a position where our members are not we dont trust each other. The democrats dont trust the republicans anymore that they will do the right thing, and the leader is nunes, only speaker ryan can remove him, and, again, as we sit here today, speaker ryan is endorsing everything that nunes and the white house are doing. When you say transition team, you mean the Trump Transition Team. Nunes a key member of the trump transition, helping in the transition from the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration, so he was a key inside player for the then president elect in that transition. Whats your news, congressman, to the your reaction, i should say, to the news that white house aides now are deeply concerned that the fbi director, chris wray, on the job for six months, could resign in pr