Trump-Russia Relations; FBI Chief Meets with Top Lawmakers
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Freedom to me means not having to apologize for being who I truly am, to be able to express myself fully without fear and to be living my life the way I choose to without giving a flying (inaudible) what anybody else thinks.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Freedom to me means being able to express yourself in the best way that you can without being negated by anything, outside force. (Inaudible)</s>VAUSE: CNN is teaming up with young people around the world for a unique student-led day of action against modern day slavery with the launch of My Freedom Day on March 14.</s>SESAY: Driving all of this is a simple question, what does freedom mean to you? Send us your answer via text, photo or video across social media using the #myfreedomday. Now, new information has emerged about computer communications this summer between servers owned by a Russian bank and the Trump organization.</s>VAUSE: CNN's justice correspondent Pamela Brown has late details.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We've learned FBI investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there is a computer connection between the Trump organization and a Russian bank called Alfa Bank according to several sources familiar with this investigation. Now, this is the same server mentioned in a Breitbart article that a White House official said sparked President Trump's series of tweets last Saturday accusing investigators of tapping his phone. CNN is told there was no FISA warrant on this particular server. But questions about the connection between the server and the Russian bank were widely dismissed four months ago as an attempt by Alfa Bank to block spam. But we have learned that the FBI's counterintelligence team, the same one looking into Russia's suspected interference in the 2016 election is still examining it. And one official I spoke with said the server relation is seen as somewhat odd and perplexing and investigators are not ignoring it. But the FBI still has a lot more work to do to determine what was behind the unusual activity and whether there is any significance to it. The FBI declined to comment and the White House did not respond to our request for a comment.</s>VAUSE: Thanks to Pamela Brown for that report. And as the Trump campaign's issues involving Russia continue, FBI director James Comey met with eight of the nation's top lawmakers on Thursday. These are lawmakers who have access to the most highly classified intelligence.</s>SESAY: They reportedly discussed Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. Sources on the Senate Intel Committee tell CNN they want all Trump associates who allegedly spoke with Russian officials to testify before the committee.</s>VAUSE: That's going to be a lot of people turning up by that time. For more on this we're joined now by Wendy Greuel and John Philips. Wendy is a former L.A. city councilwoman and John is a CNN political commentator and talk radio host. I think you write an article or two for the Orange County newspaper.</s>VAUSE: And also a Trump supporter, the busiest man in show business. Ok. So this secret meeting on Capitol Hill which everybody seems to know about. The FBI director, he huddled with senior lawmakers in both Houses, John, but still no meeting with the President. Why wouldn't Donald Trump just want to sit down, talk to James Comey and find out everything there is to know about wiretapping?</s>JOHN PHILIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because I think we are heading in John Burcher (ph) territory -- could be, might be. You saw in the piece that the FBI dismissed this connection between the computer in Russian and the computer at the Trump Organization before because the likely scenario is that it is spam. I probably have a lot of communication on my computer with Romania because of all of the Viagra ads they send me via spam.</s>WENDY GREUEL, FORMER L.A. CITY COUNCILWOMAN: Too much information -- yes.</s>PHILIPS: It doesn't mean I have any actual communication with Romania just because they are trying to sell.</s>SESAY: Let's move -- let's move away from there. Wendy -- the fact that Director Comey went to Capitol Hill to meet with these lawmakers, the fact that it was clearly a public yet secret meeting. What do you make of that? Is that about sending a message to the White House? Why not have them come to the CIA? How are you reading it -- the optics at play here?</s>GREUEL: Well, I think, you know, there were comments by Congressman Adam Schiff saying that Director Comey was not being completely honest or forthright in sending information or sharing information that was appropriate. And so I think it was important to have that meeting today. This is Republicans and Democrats. He's not just meeting with the Democrats. And I do believe, you know, if Trump wants to know if somebody actually did a wiretap for him he can pick up the phone and talk to the FBI director. That person is easily accessible to him. And I think it's benefiting him, he believes, by not -- by having it out there in the ether and nobody necessarily knows any answer to that question even though Obama himself has said there was no wiretapping. The FBI director said there was no wiretapping. So I think Trump doesn't want to know the real answer.</s>PHILIPS: Obama didn't say that. Obama said that he didn't order the wiretapping.</s>VAUSE: -- which was the accusation.</s>SESAY: Yes, it was the accusation that Trump has --</s>PHILIPS: But that doesn't mean that someone in the executive branch didn't do it.</s>SESAY: But again, not what he said and I mean the charge he's laying is that his predecessor was, you know, up to McCarthyism style tactics. I mean that's very different.</s>PHILIPS: But if it came from the executive branch, who cares? I mean what Obama said was very specific. He said that he himself and someone from the White House didn't do it. But what does that mean for the DOJ? What does that mean for the FBI? What does that mean for the CIA? We know there was a FISA request in June to tape the Trump administration or to tap his line that came from the executive branch. We believe that another one happened again in October. We don't know the details as to who exactly they wanted to tap in that one. We know that James Rosen of Fox News did have his phones tapped by the Obama administration. A reporter from the Associated Press had the same thing happen. And we know that Obama supporters within the administration or at least many of us believe that they leaked information in the phone conversation with the President of Australia, the phone conversation with the President of Mexico and Flynn's conversations with the ambassador from Russia.</s>VAUSE: (inaudible) TV to find out what --</s>VAUSE: Ok. Another day and another dodge for the Vice President and that really tricky question which they're now even asking over at Fox News.</s>BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: You think it's possible that President Obama ordered the wiretap on candidate Trump?</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we'll just let the congressional committees review that and answer those questions. Those are knowable answers and the bipartisan congressional committee is going to appropriately review the facts.</s>VAUSE: So John, tell me -- who in the White House actually believes the President at this stage?</s>PHILIPS: The President when he is at Mar-A-Lago.</s>VAUSE: Besides the President.</s>PHILIPS: Look -- whether or not Obama did it himself, that has not been proven. We do know that the Obama administration used wiretaps on a variety of instances to try to gain information on their political opponents.</s>VAUSE: Wendy?</s>GREUEL: There is no proof that they were doing that for the political opponents for the reason of actually infiltrating or having some impact on the election. Whereas on the other side from Russia and the others engaged in the Trump election -- so I think, really, when you look at what Trump said he was specific about Obama, called him a sick man. I mean, that is just unacceptable from the President of the United States to be tweeting that on a Saturday morning and still has refused to say where he got that information and no one from the administration is saying it either.</s>SESAY: So you put it out and then now what we are seeing is kind of limited availability to the press. It's kind of like he decided this --</s>VAUSE: No appearances for six days.</s>SESAY: Is this the course -- is this what we're looking at now? The President -- in like bunker down mode until these hearings are done, until we get an answer?</s>PHILIPS: Well, one thing that we heard from the intelligence chiefs over the weekend on the Sunday shows is that there's no connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. We also heard the confirmation that that FISA court request did happen in June. I think they should release that request. I think we should know exactly why the Obama administration wanted to tap Donald Trump's phones when Donald Trump was the Republican nominee for president.</s>VAUSE: Ok. Let me get to some alternative facts du jour. This comes from the new head of the EPA talking about what causes climate change.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe that it has been proven that CO2 is the primary control knob for climate? Do you believe that?</s>SCOTT PRUITT, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: No, I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there is tremendous disagreement about degree of impact. So no, I would not agree that it is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.</s>PRUITT: We don't know that yet. We need to continue to debate, continue review the analysis.</s>VAUSE: Wendy, Pruitt is wrong. There is consensus. But is this a sign that the Trump administration wants to roll back not just climate change policy but scientific fact?</s>GREUEL: I believe so. I mean this -- scientists have demonstrated what causes climate change. It's global warming. I mean this is not something that you can say doesn't exist. The actual facts are out there. And I believe that when the EPA administrator was selected he was selected for that reason because Donald Trump didn't believe in climate change either. And I believe there are scientists all across this country that are worried on a number of levels that their facts and figures are not going to be considered by this administration. It's going to be political and not about the facts.</s>VAUSE: Very quickly you want to --</s>PHILIPS: The gas bags in Washington, D.C. are far more damaging to the environment.</s>SESAY: We knew what you're going to say -- you know that.</s>VAUSE: Wendy -- thanks so much.</s>GREUEL: Thank you.</s>SESAY: All right. Quick break. Coming up here on NEWSROOM L.A., Donald Trump's second attempt at the travel ban is facing legal action from state officials.</s>VAUSE: Also and a church which says it will protect undocumented immigrants no matter what federal officials say. More on that when we come back.</s>SESAY: All right. And before we go to break let's show you some pictures from South Korea where protests continue. Protests here in support of President Park Geun-Hye who has now been ousted -- the constitutional court upholding a decision to impeach her and people clearly not happy. Those are her supporters out on the streets of Seoul, South Korea right now. We continue to follow that situation for you. Stay with us.