spy christopher steele and the justice department top lawyer bruce ohr worked on an unsuccessful effort by the united states to flip russian oligarchs against vladimir putin. the paper reports the fbi tried to turn one into an informant on russian organized crime. according to officials of him, they saw information from the oligarch again, this time on possibly collusion between russia and the trump campaign. the times reports that deripaska was the subject of many of the contacts between steele and ohr between 2014 and 2016. now, trump has repeatedly claimed that the contact between ohr and steele proves there's a conspiracy against him, but even the president himself acknowledged in this tweet yesterday that the work between the two men began before he announced his candidacy. >> joining me onset, nbc legal