White House in Chaos; Did President Trump Commit Obstruction of Justice?; Officials: Trump Will Not Push Moving Israel Embassy
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We are going to begin this afternoon with some breaking news in our money lead. You're going to look right now at live pictures as we await the closing bell on Wall Street, the Dow plunging more than 300 points today, as controversy and uncertainty continues to swirl around the Trump administration. CNN's Cristina Alesci joins me now. Cristina, what do experts say is spooking the markets?</s>CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it looks like Jim Comey's excellent record-keeping is actually what has got investors nervous today. We're down on the Dow 376 points right now. This has been declining all day, and the major indices across the board, the Dow, the S&P, the Nasdaq, we're closing right now. You're hearing the closing bell -- 369, that is quite a drop, Jake. That is a big, dramatic move. I mean, just to put this into context, though, we're still up on the year. If you look at the Dow, the S&P and Nasdaq, major indices, we're up on the S&P and Dow about 4 to 5 percent, and on the Nasdaq, we're up about 13 -- 12 -- 13 percent. I haven't done the math on these numbers that just happened. But that's the general context, so we're not in freak-out mode yet, but there is a general nervousness around the fact that President Trump may not be able to execute on this very aggressive legislative agenda that he put forth, including tax cuts. Tax reform has been top of mind with all of the CEOs that I speak to on a daily basis. They want to get their tax bill down. They say they can put that money into hiring people, into making investments, and that will in turn boost economic growth, but you saw a lot of skepticism today, especially in the financial sector, bank stocks particularly hard-hit, because people think they won't get that economic growth that the president has been and his administration has been talking -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Cristina Alesci for us, thank you so much. President Trump spoke to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy's graduating class of 2017 earlier today, where the commander in chief complained about how unfair the world and especially the media have been to him.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No politician in history -- and I say this with great surety -- has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can't let them get you down. You can't let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.</s>TAPPER: Let us forget for one moment that the service members in the audience about to put their lives on the line protecting our coasts might not actually feel that bad about a politician who has been criticized in some sharply worded editorials. Let us focus instead on why the president is where he is. It is not because of anyone in particular being unfair to him or bad staffing or poor communications or an aggressive media. It's because of things the president has said and things the president has done. Case in point, former FBI Director James Comey, whom the president fired one week ago today, Comey wants to tell his story, a source close to him tells me. Comey wants you to hear it in an open, not a closed, congressional hearing. And as of now, it's not clear where wand when that might happen, though the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Oversight Committee have invited him to do so. Comey, the source tells me, kept detailed memos, ones he wrote contemporaneously, especially of encounters with President Trump -- quote -- "particularly the ones that made him feel uneasy," the source tells me. That would include a memo that Comey wrote after a February 14 meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump who, after saying goodbye to the vice president and attorney general, told Comey -- quote -- "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go" -- unquote, according to the memo. That's according to the source who has seen the memo. This was one day after Flynn had resigned for lying to the vice president about the content of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And of course it is in the midst of this FBI investigation into possible collusion. Now, the president told Comey that Flynn had not done anything wrong. And Comey became, according to the source, concerned that the president was trying to stop the investigation. The source goes on to say that Comey hopes the president's threat that he has recordings of their conversations is true. Comey would love them released. He only wrote the memos to corroborate these uneasy situations with the president, but the source says, tapes would be even better. House Speaker Paul Ryan today said that Congress needs the facts, but also had a question for Director Comey.</s>REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It is obvious there are some people out there who want to harm the president, but we have an obligation to carry out our oversight regardless of which party is in the White House. And I'm sure we're going to go on to hear from Mr. Comey about why, if this happens as he allegedly describes, why he didn't take action at the time.</s>TAPPER: I asked the source close to Comey, why did he not take action at the time after the president asked him to let the Flynn investigation go? The source said -- quote -- "Because it wasn't a very successful effort by the president and Comey thought he had pushed back on it. Living with this president is about standing up and pushing back. Comey was very sensitive to how difficult this was going to be to work with this president. He also thought he could do it" -- unquote. At the same Coast Guard event today, President Trump was given a ceremonial saber and Homeland Security Chief John Kelly was caught on open mike recommending its best use.</s>JOHN KELLY, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Use that on the press, sir.</s>TAPPER: "Use that on the press," Kelly said. I might recommend that anyone be careful when using a saber like that one, especially anyone who has a propensity for self-inflicted wounds. For more on this fast-moving story, CNN's Jessica Schneider joins me now live. And, Jessica, it does look as though we all may be hearing from Director Comey directly in pretty short order.</s>JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, Jake, lawmakers are clamoring to get James Comey on Capitol Hill to speak publicly in an open hearing. And if James Comey accepts the invitations, we could hear from the fired FBI director as soon as next week.</s>SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Sources tell CNN the former FBI director documented his February 14 meeting with President Trump detailing the president's plea this way: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He's a good guy. I hope you can let this go." The president's alleged request to shut down the investigation of Michael Flynn came just one day after General Flynn was fired as national security adviser, and sources say Comey documented several of his interactions with the president, particularly the ones that made Comey uneasy. It is well-known inside the Justice Department that Comey had a penchant for keeping records. E-mails leaked to "The New York Times" in 2009 show Comey wrote to then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales four years earlier arguing that torture tactics were a bad idea and that Justice officials would regret being pushed by the George W. Bush White House to approve them. Last week, when President Trump suggested there might be tapes of his January 27 meeting with James Comey, the former communications director for Obama Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted this: "One thing I learned at the DOJ about Comey, he leaves a protective paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. Stay tuned." Now lawmakers want to see what Comey wrote down. Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee are formally asking the FBI to provide all memos relating to Comey's interactions with his superiors in both the Trump and Obama administrations. Plus, they want White House counsel Don McGahn to hand over all White House records that show when Comey discussed either the Russia investigation or the Clinton e-mail server investigation with administration officials or the president himself. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also joining those calls for documents and asking Comey to testify publicly.</s>SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: I think we're going to have to take this sequentially. Let's see if the memos exist. Let's see if they are accurate. Let's hear the testimony from former Director Comey. He deserves to tell his story to the American people.</s>SCHNEIDER: House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz tweeted this afternoon that he wants Comey to testify next Wednesday. The last time Comey went before Congress earlier this month, he was specifically asked about interference from the Trump administration.</s>SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Would you tell this committee if there is a lack of cooperation on the part of the White House?</s>JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: I won't commit to that.</s>SCHNEIDER: Now questions are emerging about whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy A.G. Rod Rosenstein knew about Comey's memos when they recommended firing the FBI director. Rosenstein is scheduled to brief senators behind closed doors tomorrow.</s>SCHNEIDER: And the president is meeting with four FBI director candidates this afternoon at the White House. On that list, the former Democrat-turned-independent-Senator-from- Connecticut Joe Lieberman and two other names that haven't been mentioned before today, Frank Keating, the former Republican governor of Oklahoma, also a former FBI agent, and Robert McFeely, a career FBI agent who once led the criminal and cyber-branch and retired in 2014. The president will also meet today with Andrew McCabe, who is currently acting director of the FBI. And, Jake, we do know that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has in fact spoken with all four of these candidates -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Jessica Schneider, thank you so much. The White House just breaking their silence on the reported Comey memo for the first time. What did Sean Spicer have to say about what Comey claims in that memo? That's next.