>> that willingness yens experts say, may have been the whole point. >> a lot of my sources, current and former intelligence officials believe this meeting was a test by the russian intelligence services to see how the trump team would respond. >> when you tell someone, we have dirt, you're testing the waters to see what their response is. and once you get a yes, a positive response to that, you have hooked your fish. >> if it was a sophisticated intelligence operation, does that mean the russian lawyer was a government operative? nbc news's richard engel asked her in the spring of 2018 about her government ties. >> you said your relationship with the prosecutor general is -- what? >> translator: i am a lawyer. and i'm an informant. >> she referred to herself as a government informer. and i think what she meant by that is that like a lot of people in russia, she does not work for the government.