Donald trump once called really incredible he is now calling mean. And the boat goes on as the 11th hour begins. Beat goes on as the 11th hour begins. Good evening once again from our headquarters here in new york. Day 145 of the Trump Administration. It was all eyes on the attorney general today. His testimony today in front of his former Senate Colleagues was at times heated and combative. At times tedious and deeply unsatisfying. Jeff sessions vehemently denied that he clued with russia and with voices raised at one point he and oregon democrat ron wyden sparred over something that james comey had just said about sessions while under oath himself last week. The suggestion that i participated in any collusion that i was aware of any collusion with the russian government to hurt this country, which i have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an apauling and detestable lie. I recuse myself from any investigation into the campaign for president. But i did not recuse myself from defending my honor against secure lous and false allegations. General sessions, respectfully, you are not answering the question. What is the question . The question is, mr. Comey said that there were matters with respect to the recusal that were problematic, and he couldnt talk about them. What are they . That why don you tell me . There are none, senator widen. There are nonele i can tell you that for absolute certainty. We can you tell this is a secret innuendo being leaked out there about me, and i dont appreciate it. People are suggesting sort of innuendo that i have been not honest about matters and ive tried to be honest. There were also many questions sessions refused to answer, not claiming executive privilege exactly. Thats up to the president. But instead d. O. J. Policy, a policy he never quite explained to the satisfaction of several of the senators. It is a long standing policy. The department of justice. Not to comment on conversations that the attorney general has had with the president of the United States. Just so im understanding does that mean are you claiming executive privilege here today, sir . I am not claiming executive privilege because thats the president s power. I am not stonewalling. I am following the historic policies of the department of justice. You took an oath. You raised your right hand here today, and you said that you would solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And now you are not answering questions. You are impeding this investigation. The attorney general was also pressed on whether trump is recording white house conversations. He said he didnt know. And there was a rather stunning back and forth over how much sessions even knows about russias interference in our 2016 election. Even more stunning when you remember before joining the Trump Administration sessions was a member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Do you believe the russians interfered with the 2016 elections . It appears so. The Intelligence Community seems to be united in that. But i have to tell you senator king, i know nothing about what ive read in the paper. You never asked for a briefing or attended a briefing or read the intelligence reports . You might have been very critical of me if i as an active part of the campaign was seeking intelligence rhetting to something that might be relevant to the campaign. Auto im not sure that would have been im not talking about the campaign. Im talking about what the russians did. You received no briefing on the russian active measures in connection with the 2016 election . No, i dont believe i ever did. When we say todays testimony was at times unsatisfying, heres what we mean. There were a lot of questions he could not answer or chose not to answer. I did not have any private meetings. Nor do i recall any conversations with any russian first at the Mayflower Hotel. I did not have any i do not have any recollection, i do not remember that. I do not remember that. If i remembered it or it actually occurred, which i dont remember that it did. I dont know about these reports. I dont recall it. Its conceivable that that occurred, i just dont remember it. I still do to the recall it. Not to my recollection. I dont have any wreck. I dont know. I dont know. Well, id have to rack my brain but i dont recall it. I dont think i had any direction involvement. So i dont recall that. I cannot say with certainty i did not. Have no recollection of a discussion. I dont recall any such meeting. I dont recall any such conversation. I dont recall it. I have racked my brain and i do not believe so. I dont recall any. I dont recall it. I dont recall. I dont recall. I dont recall. I dont not recall. I dont know. Im not sure. Okay. I dont recall. I dont know. I dont recall it. I dont recall that. And are you aware of at this moment, i dont believe so. I dont recall whether that was discussed or not. I dont recall that being discussed. I just dont have a real recall of the meeting. I dont recall. Lets bring in tonights starting panel, robert costa, National Political reporter for the washington post, moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Julia aftery, staff writer for the atlantic. Her piece today, why did Jeff Sessions really meet with sergei kislyak. And jeremy bash former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon, also former chief counsel to the House Intelligence Committee. Welcome to you all. Resident costa, it was understood by people who watch this white house there were two audiences for that today, number one the millions of people watching at home. Even include in that members of the Senate Questioning the attorney general in front of the committee. Number two, and perhaps the most important audience an audience of one, the president of the United States. How are they saying he did . Based on my reporting, brian, the president remains frustrated at the socalled cloud which he refers to behind the scenes remains that these russians questions are not going away. And attorney general sessions testimony has in no way stopped the investigations toer the mounting political problems facing had and the Republican Party but they dont have a strategy yet how the deal with it. There is talk how to deal with the special counsel bob mueller. Really they dont know what exactly to do to make it all go away. Areamy, a two part question for. Part one, did you see a headline emerge to you from today . Part one, brian, i would say that the whole invocation of executive privilege or executive privilege light because he really wasnt invoking the privilege was very confusing. It was sort of a weapon of mass confusion that was detonated in hearing room. I dont think even the Justice Department understood itself what it was arguing today. It was saying if the president chooses to invoke this we wont answer the questions. And i think the senator is left with many more questions they still have yet to ask. That brings me to part two. If people were left wanting by sessions invoguing this rule of his choosing and not answering certain questions particularly per tin ta inning to discussions with the president , does that look bad for sessions if he is called before bob mueller. It does. Fundamentally whats at stake here, the attorney general said the president wanted my views on whether to fire comey and the president said he wanted my views. Then when he was asked what did the president say about the russia investigation . What d he say about the rationale for firing comey the attorney general refused to answer. That goes to the heart of the question of whether the president may have obstructed justice here. He do think it is an issue that bob mutualer and the special counsels office will be very interested in. Julia, your article came out at 5 00 a. M. Here is in what you wrote. It can be hard to get a stlat aeb out of attorney general Jeff Sessions. Answer the question for you that your headline poses. Why did he meet with the Russian Ambassador . I dont recall. Im kidding. Im so glad you stopped that audio. It was really intense. So the reason this hearing was interesting for a number of reasons. You will notice sessions has pivoted once again in terms of his explanation for what happened between him and sergei kislyak. First he said didnt happen. Then he said okay yes it happened but it happened as part of my senate duties. And i thought i was answering a question about my campaign duties and i wasnt meeting him as part of my campaign duties, i was meeting him because i was a senator on the Senate Armed Services committee. Today he has completely walked away from that and focused on a very narrow denial where he said i dont recall meeting him. I did not meet him in the mayflower. So leaving all of that aside. But that original logic that he presented in march when he was forced to recuse himself from the russia investigation is shoddy at best because if you look at actually sessionss spoegswoman turned over whole list, a schedule arc log of ambassadors who came and went from Sessionss Senate office who by the way yes he was on the Senate Armed Services committee but if you talk to other Senate Republican staffers including those immersed in Foreign Policy and National Security for years they say are you kidding me . This guy was never interested. He was never in on this stuff. He could maybe be dragged onto a bill to cosponsor it but he never really cared much so this idea that its part his regular duties, meeting with ambassador. But the interesting thing is he has named in march of 2016 as the chairman of the Trump Campaigns National Advisory committee. In april of 2016 he has his first meeting with an ambassador. He has no meetings, zero meetings in 2016 before he is named the chairman of the National Security council of the Trump Campaign. And he continues meeting with these people at a very fast clip until the election. And a few days after the election he has his last meeting and never meets with any ambassadors again. The ambassadors know this. Some of the diplomatic staff said we were absolutely going to him because of his position on the campaign. We had no idea as to their Foreign Policy positions visavis our home countries. We had no idea he was a senator. We het him we. Governor kasich didnt go to the Gop Convention this year in ohio. What were russians doing hanging out at the Gop Convention in ohio . Its a regular occurrence for ambassadors to attend political conventions. I saw many of them in cleveland and in philadelphia. They are trying to establish relationships with the incoming administration. The question for the Trump Administration is not whether its appropriate to meet with foreign officials. Of course foreign officials meet with Campaign Leaders on both sides of the aisle. Its about the nature of these relationships, the regularity of these meetings and conversations, and what the broader picture reveals about what russia or the Trump Campaign was perhaps trying to get out of this dynamic. Robert, let me play i think hold on one second. Let me play an he can change featuring the independent senator from maine who caucuses with the democrats, angus kipg, a very accomplished lawyer, and his questioning with sessions today. Any of your discussions with the president about the firing of james comey did the question of the Russian Investigation ever coming up . I cannot answer that because it was a communication by the president , or if any such occurred it would be a communication that he has not waived. Robert, that was that again that kind of frustrating lack of an answer that our friend jeremy telts us may not hold up. It may not be a good enough answer if this goes before mueller. Thats exactly right. The attorney general will need to answer a lot more about the nature of his relationship the ambassador kislyak. Brian, i was at the Mayflower Hotel during that Foreign Policy speech. I saw then senator sessions. And i saw i believe as i recall the ambassador and many other officials and russian related figures and other Foreign Policy figures at the Mayflower Hotel to see President Trump speak. But what was said, what was the nature of those conversations, thats what we hoped to hear today and we did not here enough. Julia, i interrupted. Go ahead. Thats right. I think this is the problem with this administration, there might actually be no there there. They might have had the same conversations that they had with the latvian ambassador or the french ambassador. But the fact that the impulse is immediately to lie and object few skate and not recall in this way that i have to say, it like blurs the line between executive privilege and Attorney Client privilege. He was in some ways today posing as the president s personal lawyer to come extent. But this lets kick the can down the road, its very russian, kick up smoke, deny it, point in other directs and then well deal with it once people catch up to the can that weve kicked down the road. So, you know, maybe mueller can be the grand jury that trumps this, pardon the pun. Maybe the press digs up other thing that sessions refused to deal and well dean with it then. But the first impulse is to circle wagon, not admit anything, and just hope it goes away. And jeremy bash, this becomes the predicate for all the other investigations that are watching and listening. Thats right. And you have of course the House Intelligence Committee investigation as well. One of the big headlines brian i thought that came out of today was that attorney general sessions said hey if i had known the russians were interfering with the elections i would have headed for the exits. On october 7th the department of Homeland Security and the director of National Intelligence put out a Public Statement saying it was the russian government that was behind the russian hacks. Its not credit that the attorney general never heard about this. He heard about this well in advance of election day. He said maybe, he said maybe at first maybe he would walk away and when he was pressed by a different senator he said yeah sure absolutely id walk away. But his First Response was not sure that i would. Lets tack our first break. As we go to break, a brief change of subject to let everyone know of a breaking news story we are following. Dawn is breaking in west london where we have been watching this tragedy. A 27 story residential highrise building fully involved in fire for several hours now. Moments ago this is what it looked like when fully involved. Just about every window showing fire coming from it. We dont know yet we do know the fire brigades responded to calls of people trapped inside. We dont know anything about god forbid a death toll from this. And obviously, questions will arise about sprinklers and Fire Suppression in this building. Again, 27 stories, west london, all residential. A massive tragedy underway as dawn is now breaking in hon done. 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I think he raised more questions than he