Page 23 - Jim Clapper News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Earlier that month had issued instructions to suspend all u.s. security assistance to ukraine. neither omb or the nfc staff knew why this instruction had been issued. senator mcconnell said the other day that he spoke with the secretary of defense and secretary of state, and he didn't know why the instruction had been given. doesn't that strike you as suspicious, director, that no one on the national security staff, no one in the senior leadership, apparently, of the party here in congress that approved the aid understood why the president was suspending aid? doesn't that strike you as just a ...

Department that essentially says the president is above the director. therefore, the president is not subject to the jurisdiction of the director. therefore, it doesn't meet the definition of urgent concern. therefore, the inspector general is done. the inspector general can't investigate anymore. that's the inspector general's reading of the public opinion, that he is no longer allowed to investigate this. is that your reading as well? >> not necessarily the president, but the allegation has to relate to the funding and operation ability with the director of national intelligence. >> i'm tryi...

Activities in the office of the director of national intelligence. the president of the united states does not fall under the director of national intelligence. >> jim clapper was on the show earlier, and he said he never read it that way. but it is a point of dispute. but, ana, the question is where does it leave you? at the end of the day, as we showed tonight, we had mr. leschenko on the show, one of the people that rudy giuliani was fingering. he was at the center of his conspiracy theory, but he couldn't remember the guy's name. the guy rebuts every single allegation of rudy giuliani, and...

Hearsay? >> well, we don't know what the report says, and if i recall, we do have the ig or the dni are going to go before congress. what they reveal is completely going to be governed by the law, and there is a lot of legal discrepancy right now in terms of whether this law with the inspector general even applies to something that might involve the president of the united states. the law says it has to fall under the guidelines of activities in the office of the director of national intelligence. the president of the united states does not fall under the director of national intelligence. >> ...

In russia for us now? >> it's only bad, and you can hear that from the public comments of director jim clapper, former director of intelligence on cnn last night. this is already a hard thing to do. it's hard to recruit foreign intelligence sources anywhere. particularly hard in a country such as russia which as you know very well is a police state. enormous amounts of surveillance. it's hard to meet up with these people. >> putin himself a former spy? >> he knows a thing or two about intelligence and how to get it and how to block it. it's difficult in what they call denied areas. now that yo...