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I want to be clear on this, george -- i continue to not have conversations with the president of the united states regarding pardons. pardons have not been discussed, and pardons are not on the table. >> i'm in the oval office, week talking about that. he says he brought that up. he doesn't have to be pardoned. nobody around him has to be pardoned. he was making the statement about the power of pardon. >> the issue bubbled up when the "washington post" said the president was weighing whether he could pardon himself, his family, and close aides. the house and senate reaching a deal to hit wit...

Ana cabrera in new york live in the cnn newsroom. thanks for being with us. congress agreed to get something done, rare development in the nation's capital. we're not used to saying action and unity in congress in the same sentence. what motivated the bickering lawmakers to join together? russia. congress agreed on a bill to punish moscow for meddling in the 2016 election and if passed, the sanctions bill would also give congress unprecedented ability to block the trump administration from easing sanctions on russia. also new tonight, a stunning report on the most powerful law enforcement offi...

This is something that is happening. it is going to continue to happen and until the united states creates a deterrent to russia doing this, whether that's sanctions or preventive defense i have measures on the cyber security side, we're going to be in for this round two in the next election. >> you mentioned sanctions, tara. i want to get your rnse to the fact that now there h been a vote on additional sanctions. it went 98-2. this is what is in the new sanctions bill that just passed the senate. it targets individuals tied to malicious cyber activity and requires donald trump to ease sanctio...

Khan is london's first muslim mayor and very critical of the president. so it make as president's tweets and words look personal. but i need to move on because of time here. you have new reporting tonight that the white house looked into unilaterally the easing sanctions on russia's oil industry. >> well a top white house official, according to emails i reviewed by the state department had asked the state department wouldn't it be good to lift the russian oil sanctions because wouldn't that help the u.s. economy? and they had to explain to this official no. actually that would hurt the u.s. oi...

And now i'm reaping the benefits of that. that was one long troll of the united states and it puts donald trump in an awkward position because he has tried to pretend that we don't know who the hacking was done by. vladimir putin made only the faintest gesture toward that position when everybody knows and our intelligence community knows that russia and vladimir putin personally, as nbc news has reported, was involved in that. >> and he really tried to downplay it, saying simply that a 3-year-old could have achieved what was done allegedly in his mind. heidi, we have nbc news reporting that th...