Page 42 - Stephanopoulos News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Welcome to friday. everybody exhale. i'm bill hemmer inside "america's newsroom." >> sandra: i'm sandra smith. the bombshells out of james comey's book two days ahead of an interview. we await a federal hearing on the search warrants on the f.b.i. raiding the home and business of trump's personal attorney. what is the white house angle or spin on the latest comey book excerpts? >> what they're basically saying is he is not under oath. he is out there trying to sell a book. take what he has written with a grain of salt. that said, the president to be fair has been decidedly less measured in his...

He had reopened it and she had been elected that would have been an immense scandal he concealed the fact it was reopened. he didn't know what would be on wiener's computer. i'm not sure the way the republicans and rnc is handling this is a good idea. >> bill: they have a president is punching back and maybe the rnc is taking their cue from him. a lot of focus on the loyalty dinner. where is the focus on russian collusion? was that addressed in the stephanopoulos interview or not? >> no, i don't think that comey adds anything to collusion narrative. it is extraordinary what has been going on r...

Public people would question their objectivity. this is hillary clinton's fault he found himself in that position. elizabeth harrington and wendy osefo are here. wendy, isn't there enough reason to say he should probably, if he is out there on the book tour answering questions to george stephanopolous, shouldn't he answer questions in front of congress? >> there is evidence there. i think he sort of dug his own hole by bringing it up in the book and speaks to how he is very candid and honest. while this may raise concerns to individuals about what is going on with loretta lynch it speaks to so...

Intelligence operations. i believe they're working through that. >> why not wait until that was subscribed the same way that the republican was so they could both be put out at the same time? >> well, the information wasn't ready to go. we decided to release ours. people can criticize that decision. >> are there things in the democratic memo that need to be cleaned up, scrubbed, as stephanopoulos put it? >> i wouldn't put it that far, the memo was well written. put together. i think it provides context and ultimately balance to the republican memo. i think the objective here is that going forw...

The knowledge of those officials? >> as far as i know, absolutely, yes. never took any initiative without the blessing of the campaign. >> when the papadopoulos plea deal was first unsealed in october, trump's defenders pushed a rush to downplay his role in the campaign. >> this was a campaign volunteer. he wasn't somebody who was a senior adviser, as many of you want to bill him to be. he was somebody who played a minimal role, if one at all, and was part of a voluntary advisory board. >> he was not a person who was involved in the day to day operations of the campaign. >> i never heard of pa...