MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump says he never worked for Russia. That denial after a pair of explosive news reports over the weekend - reports that have landed the Russia investigation right back on top of the agenda in Washington.
NPR national security editor Phil Ewing is here in the studio to help jog our memories on what we do know, and what we don't, about the investigation unfolding and how these new developments may or may not advance our understanding of all this. Hey, Phil.
PHIL EWING, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So can we just start by pausing and noting what a remarkable moment we find ourselves in. The president of the United States, two years into his term, finding himself in the position of needing to explicitly say, no, I am not a Russian agent.
EWING: It's extraordinary. And in short, the reason is people inside the United States government thought he was, or he thought he may still be, depending on...
KELLY: Thought it was worth posing the question.
EWING: Correct, depending on where this leads. This is all from a New York Times story that appeared on Friday that said the FBI began investigating that question explicitly - that it opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump might have been acting on Russia's behalf when he fired the FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Then The Washington Post followed in short order with a report that said the president has taken unusual actions to keep people inside the government from knowing the substance of his conversations with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and including in one case, according to The Post, he took the notes away from an interpreter who was in a meeting with the two leaders.
The bottom line is that people inside the government don't know what Trump has been saying to Putin, and they were suspicious about that.
KELLY: Safe to say this pair of news reports landed like grenades over the weekend - grenades blowing up the news agenda. How - walk me through just how the White House has reacted.
EWING: Well, they reacted very strongly. But actually, you know, initially, there wasn't a denial. They called it absurd. And then on Monday, when the president talked with reporters, he made the denial, so there was a little bit of news in that.
KELLY: Today, yeah.
EWING: He also said the head of the FBI at the time this might have taken place was the then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who also was later fired after Comey. McCabe has been a villain for Trump and Republicans through this whole story. And he mentioned a top special agent and a top lawyer who exchanged text messages inside the FBI about how much they hated Trump. That story has really embarrassed the FBI.
And the president says this is all about bias. He called the people in the FBI, known scoundrels - that was his phrase - and, quote, unquote, "dirty cops."
KELLY: One question on my mind raised by these stories over the weekend, which is this - if the FBI runs a counterintelligence investigation against the sitting president of the United States, what kind of hurdles does that present?
EWING: That's a great question, and I don't know if anybody knows the answer. And I don't know if the FBI knew the answer. But this could explain some of the what appeared to be craziness leak out of the FBI over the past two years or so - people at the top of this bureau struggling with what they should do.
There's no rule for this, most likely. And the president, as you know, was the top consumer by, say, of intelligence he's built into the building. You know, he's the keystone of the arch.
KELLY: They report to him, ultimately.
EWING: That's correct. And if they needed to look into him, do they have the authority to do that? Can they do it without him knowing? No one knows, but that's what makes the stakes for this story so high.
KELLY: So looking ahead to what might be the next shoe to drop, Democrats are making noise about hearing from this interpreter who was at the Helsinki summit with Trump and Putin. In the past, Democrats have wanted to hear from her. They may be making a further push.
EWING: That's right. The change now is Democrats have a majority in the House. They have the ability to call hearings and compel witnesses, potentially. So if they start up that push again, it could have a different result from the last time we went through this.
And the other thing is there's a hearing tomorrow in the Senate Judiciary Committee with William Barr. He's the president's nominee to become the new attorney general. This, very likely, will come up. And who knows what other kinds of questions may get asked or answered when Barr goes before the Judiciary Committee?
KELLY: NPR's Phil Ewing, thank you.
EWING: Thank you.