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To be lower. made an impression on leadership in a short amount of time. you have senator angus king, independent from maine. you might remember he made some news with james comey several months ago, honestly, nicolle, feels like years ago, but pushing him on hillary clinton. so i think those are three people you really want to focus in on as the hearings start to unfold. >> and meika, at the substantiv level, is jim comey going to be able to speak to precisely what the president said to him, purported interactions in which he asked him to back off of mike flynn? >> i think he will. there's be...

Witness that has access to firsthand information. i want to under russian efforts. if there was collusion. keep in mind the question i asked before. direct with president trump, direct with his campaign or direct with hanger on folks who aren't official. those are three different things. i want to know the answer to all three of them. >> bill: is that like a carter page connection, the third one? >> i'm sure you have people in your life that claim to know you but they really don't. i suspect presidential candidates have people that represent access to them that really do not have that. >> bill...

I believe there's some surveillance programs that are up for reauthorization. what would you say to the american people as names or unmasked on the last day that people are in office and classified information appears on the front pages of major u.s. newspapers? how would you tell your constituents let's reauthorize this program again despite the fact that we have abuses? help us make that argument when we go home. >> you and your colleagues are going to have to make that argument based on the merits of the program and the importance of it to our national security as well as trying to send a r...

Newspapers. we're talking about prohibitions that you place on yourself with respect to identifying u.s. persons as part of our surveillance programs, right? >> that's correct. >> all right. >> yes. >> and you just cited some of the very important reasons that we do that. and i would assume that there is a process, a protocol under which the intelligence community goes through if they seek to unmask a u.s. person's name. >> that's correct. >> have you ever requested that a u.s. person's name be unmasked? >> yes, i have. >> have you also either approved or denied request of others that a u.s. p...

>> yes, generally speaking, yes. >> thank you. and with that, i yield the remainder of my time over to i believe mr. gowdy. >> thankful for my friend from utah. director brennan, why is it important to protect the identity of u.s. persons as part of our surveillance programs? >> because there is i think a right of all americans to privacy and that sometimes information is collected about u.s. persons who may or may not be involved in any manner of criminal activity. and therefore, respecting that privacy of u.s. citizens, the intelligence community goes to great lengths to cover the identities...