Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Outnumbered Overtime With Harris Faulkner 20180216

In the runup to yesterdays devastating Florida High School shooting. Welcome to outnumbered overtime, i Melissa Francis in for harris faulkner. The fbi now saying they were warned that the suspected gunman was a threat and potentially wanted to attack his old school. About the information was not acted upon. Steve harrigan is live in parkland florida. Steve . This is an absolutely stunning revelation by the fbi, they are saying, admitting that they received a call to the fbis tip line on january 5th from someone who was close to nikolas cruz. That caller said this man has guns. This man has erratic behavior, this man is posting disturbing items on social media, this man is talking about shooting up his own school. The fbi said protocol was not followed. What that means is the miami office was not notified and a zero followup investigation took place. One month, more than a month before the school shooting, the fbi gets a warning on its own tip line that there is a person, a disturbed person with a weapon talking about shooting up the school. That is a stunning admission and fbi director wray says he intends to get to the bottom of it. It comes at a time when the fbi is under a great deal of scrutiny and a a great deal of criticism. A typical wednesday, school day just before the final bell rang. An ordinary day and suddenly students and some teachers were faced with life or death decisions and some of those teachers we are hearing now performed heroically. Here is one of them. At that point i looked down at the shooter, he looked at me, pointed his gun at me and started shooting. I pushed all the kids inside my door to save as many of them as i could. As i was doing that, all of a sudden the shooting stopped, i looked down, he was reloading. I yelled run. And then i ran behind as many kids as i could. When i got to the door at the top of the stairwell, there were two codoors. The closest door, i put my foot there to stop it from opening, hoping to buy my kids some time. As i was leaving, after my kids made it down at least two flights of stairs, there was a girl on the ground, shook her. Said hey, tried to get her attention, no response. Try to find a pulse of some sport sort, nothing. At that point i decided i did as much as i could for the kids, i now have two make sure i am breathing. Went to the second floor, into the Conference Room and hid in the mens bathroom until the police came through. A remarkable response by that man. Today at 10 00, the first of 17 funerals began. The wounded still in the hospital, one remains in critical condition. Melissa, back to you. Melissa thank you so much. And previous to this new development, there was another red flag after a person with the username nikolas cruz left this on a mans youtube channel. I am going to be a professional school shooter. That man contacted the fbi. The fbi sent out a couple of agents to my office pretty immediately, they took down what information i could give them. I hope they opened an investigation from there. I have never seen a post that disturbing or that brazen. Im not going to say they dropped the ball, i feel like i gave them very limited information on my end. Melissa a retired nypd lieutenant, lets start with that one. It seems to me, wouldnt the fbi have asked google for the ip address or youtube or whoever. You can there are so many Internet Companies through that i couldve told you where that was coming from. They went to interview this gentleman, go a little further. Its not like its john doe name, it is seven names. It wont take that much to follow up on those seven names. We have this, you may not want to look into it. Had they give them that information, if sheriff israel compiled it from what he had, maybe they couldve put some of these red flags together. Melissa right now . Okay. I am sorry, standby. We want to talk about this other breaking news story right now. Jason chaffetz is standing by we want to ask you about this press conference thats coming up in a few minutes, we are going to hear these indictments from Rod Rosenstein having to do with at least 13 russian individuals that were connected with some sort of interference in the election. What is your take on that . Look, i am glad its happening. This is very encouraging. I think a lot of people were very concerned even at a small level that this was happening. Devin nunes been talking about this for a couple of years. President obama kind of poohpoohed the idea that anybody could interfere but i think clearly there the more weve learned after the election, yes. There were people improperly trying to manipulate the election, even if they werent successful. I dont think theres been any indication that it wouldve changed the outcome of the election but the fact that they were trying, i am glad there are going to evidently be some indictments and i hope they are prosecuted and put in jail for a long time. Melissa the indictment charges all the defendants, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and five defendants with aggravated Identity Theft. As i give you any more clue . Look. Identity theft is very serious and if they are going after wire fraud, there is evidently some money that is been moving. The question is where was that money moving from, where did it go and where was it spent . I think it will be very interesting to see the social media companies, how they were dealing with this. This is very encouraging, i look forward to having the details and im glad the fbi and the others are moving forward on this. Its very encouraging. Melissa if anything, what does it tell you about where this investigation is . We were just talking about that in the last hour, there is been so many interviews and really this is the one that counts. But so much of it is being kept close to the vest, what do you think . Look, you got it let the investigators continue to do their work, it is a very tangled web. Who were these people communicating with, where were they getting their directions, weve got to be able to deal with that internationally and domestically. There are people here in the United States improperly trying to put their thumb on the lever on an election, weve got to take that with the utmost seriousness. Melissa steve bannon, questioned her 18 hours, answered every single question. We dont know anything about that testimony, how do you think this plays into that at all . I dont know. The 18 hours, i dont know if he answered every question, i dont know i think thats assuming a lot. I am very concerned that he was not willing to answer more than what ive heard our 25 questions before the House Committee on intelligence. Hearing mike conaway, a very accomplished member of congress who is helping lead that investigation. You dont get to cherry pick which questions you get to answer, thats not the way this thing works. If it happened before the president became the president , you dont have executive privilege. That is not an excuse you can give. You can plead the fifth but you cant blame executive privilege. Melissa you have these things going on simultaneously and anything you say to congress can be used in this other investigation. In his defense, i dont know that it makes sense to do that much. Youve got to tell the truth. If you continue to tell the truth, whether its congress or a special investigator, it shouldnt really matter. But you can plead the fifth if you are uncomfortable with that. What i am uncomfortable with is the executive branch claiming they have executive privilege on items that relate to prior to the president becoming the president. I dont think you have executive privilege when you are not the chief executive, you are not the president of the United States. Melissa jason chaffetz, thank you so much. Robert driscoll is a former Justice Department official, what do you think of the way they are laying out the charges . We are obviously waiting for a lot more information, there is a press conference coming up in a few moments. As we said, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, aggravated Identity Theft, conspiracy to defraud the United States. I just spent some time reading the indictment just now. It seems this is focusing on our federal election violations, and Foreign Agent registration act violations. One thing that struck me is a section about destruction of evidence in there as well that apparently counts and other evidence was deleted when this alleged group of conspirators were found out by the fbi. From a first read through, i couldnt get all the way through it, it seems what they are being charged with is essentially a group of russians conspiring starting 2014 to affect the 2016 president ial election, and it did so through a number of fake account set up for Identity Theft and did not register as Foreign Agents under the Foreign Agent registration act. You are required to register with the department of justice if you are a foreign entity trying to affect Public Opinion in the u. S. Melissa does that make you think the Identity Fraud had to do with being someone else online or getting an identity and going to vote. Everybody always wants to know, are they trying to influence the electorate are get inside the ballot box. What i saw from the indictment is that they were trying to create u. S. Identitie identities, u. S. Online identities and act like u. S. Citizens online and essentially become generate followers and things like that to influence social media discussion online. Obviously its way too early to tell, you cant analyze it yet but i imagine there will be all kinds of First Amendment and other implications here which i think is why the government is trying to focus on the conspiracy to evade it federal election law. And things like that. That essentially could be an inkind contribution to a campaign as well as the Foreign Agents registration act. Melissa whats interesting about that is all along weve been trying to figure out what is the investigation focused on. Is it focused on trying to take down President Trump or trying to figure out where the russians tried to influence the political process. This looks like a piece that perhaps could be totally unrelated to the president and would give you the idea that the investigation is just going after what their mandate was which was russians meddling in the election in any way. I think so. Weve had a lot of people talking past each other, this week is a great example. The Administration Officials this week from the Intelligence Community, all testified they had no doubt that russia attempted to influence the election and would attempt to influence elections in the future. I think on the other hand, President Trump and his staff are adamant that they didnt collude with any of this so whenever the term russia even comes up there is a skepticism with them. The people on the ground and in the Intelligence Community have been well aware for some time that the russians were trying to stir the pot so to speak in the u. S. Elections and i think that part of it is what we are seeing in this indictment. It doesnt appear to have anything to do with the president , it looks like the russians to the extent they preferred anybody were preferring the president and Bernie Sanders, trying to sow discord and take on the establishment. Melissa the essential question as its been broken down is we know pretty much for certain that the russians were bad actors in the last election trying to metal and almost anything in the question is, which if any americans cooperated with them. And like you said that question gets muddy to because everyone feels like they are being accused of collusion. We are looking for who did collude, we dont know who it was, maybe it was nobody. Whats the difference between someone who colluded and someone who was duped or was unmarked. For russians trying to influence things. Its one thing if somebody follows online an account that ends up not being legitimate and what promotes with that account is saying unknowingly, its another thing if there are agreements being made with campaigns to have these kind of activities undertaken. There is no evidence to the second part of that, right now youre just looking at the russians, the defendants in this case having trying to have a social media presence, having to do it covertly and through fake names. Melissa its interesting trying to point out trying to contact you as a mark. It has struck me that the russians meddling in the election is almost akin to an online phishing scheme. Just trying to see who they can get to respond and try and get them to cooperate. Is that may be a fair of how a lot of it operated, do you thin think . I dont have the evidence bob mueller has but from what we are seeing publicly, thats more of what weve seen. I think theres been some fairly clear evidence for some time that theres been some attempt to have an Online Presence and get involved in president ial politics and things like that. But that is more Public Square activity, traditionally. What makes a criminal would be conspiracy to either run as and evade federal election rules, have Foreign Agents Foreign Agents are prevented from trying to influence u. S. Public policy without registering with the department of justice. That would make it criminal, the rest of it is what weve all known, clearly there were people in russia and elsewhere trying to generate online frenzy over certain issues and essentially create chaos. And division in the u. S. Melissa thank you so much, robert driscoll. We want to go now to Catherine Herridge who is standing by right now. Hopefully she can get us a little insight into what is happening. We got a very short notice request by the Justice Department to come to the executive floor, theres a short notice News Conference from the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein. All of that has unfolded in the last 35 or 40 minutes. In the meantime we have this 37 page indictment, the focus of which is 13 Russian Nationals as well as three russian entities and the allegation is that they conspired to interfere in the u. S. Election. Two big takeaways here at the end of last year, when the Intelligence Community reach the conclusion that russia tried to interfere in the election, it didnt have the level of specificity that we see in this indictment. The special counsel feels they have sufficient evidence to bring a criminal case, thats a fairly high bar, for these Russian Nationals. Its a long indictment but i want to draw your attention to one area in particular. On page 28, because it goes to communication between these russian entities who were using fake u. S. Person, fake identities, if you will, to interact with Trump Campaign officials. They set on or about august 19th 2016, a supporter of the Trump Campaign sent a message to the Organization Control march for trump. Their twitter account, but a member of the Trump Campaign, only identified as Campaign Official two who was involved in a Campaign Board operation and invited Campaign Officials to use the email address at the domain donald trump. Com close web. Whats not clear here is whether this was known to the Trump Campaign at the time or that they kind of fell victim to this russian conspiracy end of the idea that they were dealing with a u. S. Person when in fact it was a Russian National attempting effectively to obscure their identity. Bottom line is that weve got the indictment from the special counsel of these 13 russian individuals, three entities, it says there is sufficient evidence to bring a case in a criminal court, that is a high Legal Standard for interference in the u. S. Election and based on the documents weve read so far, it does document communication between these individuals and members of the Trump Campaign. Based on my reading so far it does not present evidence that members of the Trump Campaign knew they were dealing with russian individuals at the time. So i have not finished on the paperwork quite yet. I think we are getting close to the twominute warning, i will throw it back to you. Melissa can i ask you a quick question. The fact that that person was in florida that they are talking about, the Campaign Official, does that tell you anything . At first glance you are thinking thats not a highlevel person because they are not in new york but you know the president had a big stronghold down in florida. Does that give you any clue at all who we are talking about . I havent read the whole document yet so i dont want to speculate for people, its too important to be speculating upon but what i will tell you from what i have read is that the special counsel says there is evidence that this decision by the russians to interfere in the u. S. Election dates back to mid 2014. They had a twoyear advance where they were planning to interfere in the u. S. Election and it says in the indictment that the intent was to help the candidacy of donald trump and disparage hillary clinton. That is not an entirely new idea because that was the assessment of the u. S. Intelligence community but again, youve got an indictment which says the special counsel believes they have sufficient evidence to bring a criminal case against these individuals and are this is a significantly high bar to do so, melissa. Melissa Catherine Herridge, fantastic. We will come back as soon as the sockets underway. Lets bring back jason chaffetz, the former utah congressman and a fox news contributor. What do you make of what you just heard . Look. We still need to go through all of the indictment and we will hear from the department of justice in a few moments. Part of what i was able to read is that they were trying to disparage marco rubio and ted cruz but they were also supportive of Bernie Sanders and donald trump. I think this does go at least to one theory, they wanted chaos in the United States and it will be im very interested and want to know about the bank and wire fraud. You have at least five counts of aggravated Identity Theft, i want to learn more about those details. Its one thing to go online and pose as somebody else, i think that happens pretty frequently but its a whole different level and its a foreign entity or a Foreign Government and what were they using those four, to generate ads and chaos and put out a message that was far and wide . Was a 5,000 or 5 million . I dont know yet but those of the kind of details i think will illuminate a lot of the problems that may be were injected by the russians. It seems like based on this indictment, they were set in motion a couple years before the election. Melissa catherine make some great points, they need their identity and they were reaching out and trying to get in contact with the Trump Campaign is what she saw. No idea whether the Trump Campaign thought it was the fake identity, or actually knew who was behind it. What level they cooperated if any and sort of that idea, is it collusion or a mark . Like i said at the beginning, a fishing scheme to try to get a reaction, try to infiltrate, try and go to the two candidates that upset the establishment the most and turned the country upside down the most, that would be Bernie Sanders and donald trump. Those of the people that would turn everything upside down. Its interesting that they were going against ted cruz, against marco rubio, for donald trump or Bernie Sanders, where was all that money flowin flowing . Whose identities were they stealing and why were they stealing them . With a posing as somebody else . Where on the campaign ladder were they trying to eject themselves . The field office in florida, its a whole different thing if its the headquarters of a Major Political campaign, i think thats a whole different level. Melissa they mention to wire fraud, was it payment to create an identity and by things like that or were they trying to make a contribution to a campaign to keep up and try to increase their influence and keep up their false identity . Obviously a lot will be made about the money, where did it go . But also to what extent were they able to keep the facade of their fake i. D. . Were they able to buy ads in certain markets or try to penetrate something, you social media or other types of things, were they encouraging or paying others to try to do the same . I dont know. These are all questions, all speculative but i am encouraged the department of justice is on this. If it is true i want these people to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This is new territory. I havent heard of cases like this, particularly social media in a campaign posing as somebody else, using Identity Theft or money flowing in. It really is pretty fascinating. Melissa there is a big difference between creating an identity online and trying to get something trending or trying to influence thought. And buying ads, thats a much more powerful weapon and we certainly heard a lot about that with regards to facebook and other entities during the election. You often see that people will actually go out and buy followers so they seem to be more influential and they get more attention online. Maybe thats why this was going as well, i dont know yet. Melissa we want to bring in Warren Davidson of ohio as we wait for this. I dont know how much of this youve been able to hear but this idea that Rod Rosenstein is about to announce indictments against russian individuals for posing as americans during the election. End of the that it sounds like from what we can see so far, we are still waiting for clarification, that they were in trying to create support for both donald trump and Bernie Sanders. What do you think . I think this is good its coming to light, one of my one of the pieces information out there is finally coming to light in this indictment, its not in question whether russia tried to influence our election, thats not anything new back to the soviet days. The question is what is the bar for saying collusion. Everyone is trying to turn this into a conversation about donald trump and his campaign and the important thing is we go into another Election Year is understanding how russia has tried to influence american thought related to our electoral process, our confidence and rule of law and our election system. I think we need to take serious action to mitigate that risk and deal with the threat. I think Holding People criminally accountable will be a good step. Melissa i want to ask you about this specifically because you would know from campaigning, Catherine Herridge dilated that at least one of these individuas trying to make contact with the Campaign Official, when you talk about people that might be in the field offices of a president ial campaign, i wonder about the level of sophistication. Especially a campaign where it wasnt a welloiled machine that had been in place for a long time, a lot of it was volunteer driven. Somebody is reaching out and pretended to be someone else, whats the level of sophistication on the campaign side in what might be a field office . Only in six counties i campaigned in and we had those same problems. When you are in campaign mode, the answer is of course yes, i will meet with you. Its a fairly low bar. You get these superficial levels of connections and people want to make a lot of hay about superficial connections on social media. The question is how much deeper did that go, at what level . I think we will find the truth and really hopefully keep side of the big picture, what has been the russian influence in our process . And how can we make sure all of our elections are protected so the American People have confidence that their vote counts. Melissa as you see Rod Rosenstein come out and make this announcement about these indictments, what does it tell you if anything . About where we are in this investigation, the American People have been hearing about it for a long time and they would like a conclusion. I think the good news is, people have had a hard time hanging with attorney general sessions over a number of things related to this investigation in particular. But we saw under the previous administration, weve seen some real concerns about the department of justice as we talked about memos and things like that. Attorney general sessions was right to say look, we want to appoint a special prosecutor, hopefully we do a better job of making sure the special prosecutors offices seen as above reproach and is in fact above reproach. If this is turned from an investigation into an inquisition. I think this finding end of this initial indictment shows that it really has been an investigation what exactly russia has been. A lot of us had concerns that have been narrowly focused on trump and not broadly focused on the bigger problem. Melissa is there any chance that was misguided . The idea that it was focused on the president . When he looked back at the indications that that was the case, wasnt about about the witnesses that were called or what do you think . Its been about the leaks for sure, its been about the structure of his own team. If you look at his team it wasnt she wanted to create a clear distance so the department of justice was seen as not politicized like it was under the previous administration. When mueller was picked and the number of clinton allies that wound up on that team in a town full of lawyers, its amazing how many people on his team melissa im going to stand you by, we are under way and indictment presented by the special counsels office. Three Russian Companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States political system. Including the 2016 president ial election. The defendants allegedly conducted what they called Information Warfare against the United States. With the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general. According to the allegations in the indictment, 12 of the individual defendants worked at various times for a Company Called Internet Research agency llc. A Russian Company based in st. Petersburg. The other individual defendant funded the conspiracy through companies known as concorde management and consulting llc. And many affiliates and subsidiaries. The conspiracy was part of a larger operation called project, others targeting foreign audiences in multiple companies. It employed hundreds of people in its online operations, ranging from creators of fictitious personas to technical and administrative support personnel with an annual budget of millions of dollars. Internet Research Agency was a structured organization handed Fire Management group and arranged in departments including graphics, Search Engine optimization, Information Technology and finance departments. In 2014 the company established a translator project focused on the United States. In july of 2016 more than 80 employees were assigned to the translator project. Two of the defendants allegedly traveled to the United States in 2014 to collect intelligence for their american influence operations. In order to hide the russian origins of their activities, the defendants allegedly purchased space on computer servers located here in the United States in order to set up a Virtual Private Network. The defendants allegedly use that infrastructure to establish hundreds of accounts on social Media Networks such as facebook, instagram, and twitter. Making it appear that those accounts were controlled by persons located in the United States. They used stolen or fictitious american identities, Fraudulent Bank accounts and false identification documents. The defendants posed as politically and socially active americans. Advocating for and against particular candidates. They establish social media pages and groups to communicate with unwitting americans. They also purchased political advertisements on social Media Networks. The russians also recruited and paid a real americans to engage in Political Activities from both political campaigns and stage political rallies. The defendants and their coconspirators pretended to be grassroots activists. According to the indictment the americans did not know they were communicating with russians. After the election the defendants allegedly stage rallies to support the president elect while simultaneously staging rallies to protest his election. For example, the defendants organize one rally to support the president elect and another rally to oppose him, both in new york on the same day. On september 13th out of of 2017, soon after the news media reported that the special counsels office was investigating evidence that russian operatives had used social media to interfere with the 2016 election, one defendant allegedly wrote we had a slight crisis here at work. The fbi busted our activities so i got preoccupied with covering tracks together with my colleagues. At the indictment includes eight criminal counts, count one alleges a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States by all of the defendants. The defendants allegedly conspired to defraud america by impairing all lawful federal election commission, the United States department of justice and the department of state. Those organizations of the u. S. Government are responsible for administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities. Count two charges conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud by Internet Research agency in the end it individual defendants. Counts three through eight charge aggravated Identity Theft by Internet Research agency and four individuals. There is no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election. I want a continuity caution yot everyone charged with a crime is assumed innocent until Proven Guilty in court. At trial prosecutors must produce credible evidence to prove each defendant guilty beyond any reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury. The special counsels investigation is ongoing. There will be no comments from the special counsel at this tim time. This indictment serves as a reminder that people are not always who they appear to be on the internet. The indictment alleges that the russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine Public Confidence and democracy. We must not allow them to succeed. The department of justice will continue to work with other Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies and with congress. To defend our nation against similar current and future. I want to thank the prosecutors working on on this case for their Exceptional Service and im happy to take a few questions. Reporter is their concern that this will undermine the outcome of the election . There is no allegation in the indictment, of any effect on the outcome of the election. Reporter on page four of the indictment, paragraph six it talks about the Trump Campaign, saying that defendants communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the term campaign. My question is later in the indictment, Campaign Officials are referenced, not by their name, by Campaign Officials one, two, three. Were Campaign Officials cooperative or where they duped . What is their relationship . There is no allegation in this indictment that any american had any knowledge in the nature of the scheme was that the defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that the they were ordinary american political activist, even going so far as to base their activities on a Virtual Private Network here in the United States. Have you had any assurances from the russians that they will provide an individual for prosecution . No communication with the russians about this, it will follow ordinary process. Melissa wow, okay, i am florida. That was amazing. That was Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein laying out the case they have against the russians in describing a very elaborate scheme, a company back in russia called Internet Research agency that employed hundreds of people with different groups like graphics, i. T. They had a Management Group with finance, their entire goal was to meddle in various elections. They set up to interfere in the u. S. Election and pose as american individuals. He talked about at one point staging a rally in new york, one that was protrump and one that was antitrump on the same day in new york. Just to sow discord. He also said there is no evidence in this indictment of anyone cooperating on the u. S. Side and that it didnt influence the outcome of the election, he was careful to say that. Lets bring back our chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge for more. What we learn from the News Conference is the allegation that this conspiracy by the russians to interfere with the u. S. Elections, the seeds were sown back in 2014. But picked up steam in 2016 when about five dozen Russian Nationals were assigned to this project which was being operated through a Shell Company and the amount of money involved was upwards of 1. 2 million. What i found noteworthy in the News Conference is that it was very politically neutral. Based on the indictment, the Deputy Attorney general said none of the americans who had contact with these Russian Nationals masquerading as american citizens knew about the conspiracy and he said there was no indication in the indictment that this interference changed the outcome of the election. And then the Deputy Attorney general seemed to go to some pains to make the point that these individuals were seeking to in effect harm the president elect, organizing rallies to help the newly elected president but also organizing rallies to undercut his credibility and his standing. The bottom line is that this really is a classic example of what intelligence officials call the gray zone and Information Warfare. The gray zone is a battle space between peace and conventional warfare where they so discord and undermine democracy. This indictment as well is 13 russian entities makes that case. I was able to ask the Deputy Attorney general whether there had been any assurances that they would provide these individual for prosecution. That was a question i kind of knew the answer to, they will take the normal steps, the normal processes. It does seem a long shot that the russians will provide the prosecution in the United States. The indictment is a road back for map for what happened in 2016. Melissa i want to ask you, based on your past reporting injuries doing this, when they describe the sophistication of the company that they set up, down to finance, they had everything but hr. For all we know they had an Hr Department and people had parking spots. Does it surprise you or know . Is this what you would expect . This is entirely what i would expect from the russians. I use the term the gray zone, the battle between peace and conventional warfare. Where countries like russia and north korea and iran go to play because they cannot compete with the level of Playing Field on the battlefield with the United States in terms of economic and military strength. They use Information Warfare to level the battlefield so they can compete with the United States and they do that by sowing discord. The russians are patient, the chess players in international relations. They have a plan and they sow the seeds for that based on this indictment. And i think its noteworthy that the Deputy Attorney general said that they wanted to bear this in mind for any future activity which i think is a clear and obvious reference to the upcoming midterm elections. One of the big annual hearings where they talk about the threats facing the United States, it was very clear from the witness testimony. That was confirmed by what we heard from the Deputy Attorney general. Melissa it sounded like a scene from the show the americans which i thought was fiction but is apparently dead on. Thank you for your wonderful reporting. Lets bring in robert driscoll, a former Justice Department official. Whats your take on what we just heard . Having just lost over the indictment, it was trying to so discord, the indictment it looks like a pretty sophisticated operation. It looks like the bank and wire fraud had a more to do with Identity Theft and setting up fake paypal accounts to evade paypals security measures. Again, these groups functioned trying to present themselves as americans. They had enough clout online to try to get in touch on a couple of occasions with members of the Trump Campaign. And help organize various kinds of rallies. It looks like they werent against trump according to Deputy Rosenstein. Melissa he went out of his way to point out there was a rally on the same day, 14 and one against. The idea was to so discord that no one in this indictment cooperated with the i can feel President Trump wanting to tweet right now. Is that premature . I think you have to listen carefully to what Deputy Rosenstein said it. The indictment does not allege that this affected the outcome of the election . What hes saying is that the indictment does not allege that any americans knew. That doesnt mean the special counsel doesnt have other parts of this case or other tentacles that may pick up americans at some point. But in terms of this indictment, the end indictment is not alleging there is any outcome to the election or that an american had anything to do with this other than as people who were duped. Melissa a lot of times these indictments can turn on somebody higher on the food chain. These individuals are not even in the country. I would imagine if they are not here now, the likelihood is zero. That will be my advice if they called me for it. Not to travel to the u. S. For any of them. These kinds of actions can serve a number of purposes. One of them as to get this information out for the department of justice a we are onto this type of scheme. And maybe it will be a brush back pitch for future elections. That may be the hope. Even if the odds of expedition might be low presuming all these people are out of the country now. Melissa what does it signal to you with your professional viewpoint as to where he is in the whole investigation . Thats the big question. Are they going after other people . This is going to be a talking point for the side that yes, there were factors involved. What do you think . I think the investigation is multipronged. This area of the investigation clearly according to that press conference we just saw doesnt have any negative implications for the Trump Campaign. I imagine they will tout that as i would if i were them. There are other aspects that are still, a plea deal with rick gates hanging out there right now, the flynn plea deal, all those cooperations, all that aspect of it is kind of separate apart from this and i think those things still need to be resolved and you can see that the special counsel is still working its way up the chain, talking to steve bannon this week and negotiating terms to possibly talk to President Trump either by written request. Melissa thank you so much for joining us, lets bring back jason chaffetz, a former utah congressman nanda fox news contributor. What do you think this signals about where we are in this investigation . Several things. I think it would be naive to think this is the only thing the russians were doing and consequently my guess is that mueller and his team are looking into other avenues. I am struck with the brazen nature of how the russians will be so aggressive with so many people. I am i applaud the applaud the department of justice for bringing forward this indictment, i hope these people are prosecuted. Im concerned that it went that far without them being able to thwart the attack if you will prior to it happening. We are finding it more than a year after the election. I think its telling that the russians would continue their activities after the election. I do think it dismantles the democrats a narrative that this was all about trump. Its all about the United States of america and sewing discord and i think thats the narrative that is miraculously portrayed here. I think it is good news that there were no americans that were willingly involved in these types of efforts. Melissa as we know so far. In terms of this one indictment, they are not named in this indictment. They havent said the investigation is over so they are obviously still looking at more things but there is a chance for the two sides to stop sniping at each other if you could say yes without question, obviously we have an abundance of evidence that russia tried incredibly hard to so discord and chaos with relation to this election. But this looks like they were trying to make it insane on both sides and get everyone fighting with each other and upset. To a certain extent it feels like they succeeded. It proves i think what mitt romney was trying to say in 2012. Mitt romney was right, russia it really is one of the biggest geopolitical flows. With devin nunes eight years ago, holding up the red flag saying russia is trying to manipulate us. That was poohpoohed by president obama. I did a real disservice and i think helped take down peoples guards but hopefully its backup now. Lets bring in our power panel right now, kayleigh mcenany, spokesperson for the rnc. A former candidate for a gnc chair distinguished fellow at the center for leadership at barnard college, thanks both of you for joining us. Today marks the day that the democrats, russia collisions conspiracy unravels. We learned the russians were organizing for Bernie Sanders, their goal was to so discord and chaos, not to promote a certain candidate and that no americans were involved in this plot they uncovered. This is astonishing, backs up what the democrats have said all in along, it was based on rumors and newspapers but not necessarily evidence. Democrats deceived this country and they were caught today. Wow. That is a little difficult to respond to, i have to go back to your initial reaction, melissa. Your three word reaction which was this is a big deal. It is not a hoax, its not a witch hunt, anyone who has used those terms and i believe my fellow guest here has use those terms quite often, this is the russian government. Spending an enormous amount of resources to interfere in our election. I dont know who has brief President Trump on these indictments but hopefully he will finally stand in front of the American People and say what he has refused to say, what he has refused to acknowledge. How the russians have been trying to interfere in our democracy. For the American People melissa both sides are cherry picking what they want to hear out of this. Everybody was right and everybody was wrong. The russians did metal in the election without question. The left is grouping that with and thats why he won the election. We just heard that they were staging rallies on the same day. One for him, one against him. They want to Bernie Sanders. The left can give up the idea that this is why the president won. And the right can agree that the russians yes had a very sophisticated, elaborate scheme to so discord. We are all on the same page, no . Hang on. I will give you equal time to respond. Melissa, first of all the president has said yes, the russians have meddled in our election and its a very serious thing. That is documented, that is accurate. What jehmu is trying to do, she is deceiving the viewers. Melissa she is saying that he wouldnt admit it. Maybe she missed that day but he did admit it. She is trying to confuse viewers here. Melissa can you both agree that the russians meddled in the election to so discord and thats what it was about . It was not for a particular campaign and they were not colluding knowingly with President Trump. What we learned today was that they were just trying to so chaos and they definitely did i it. I do have some advice to my fellow democrats and it would be to keep calm and mueller on. To your question, i think there is no question that the russians went all in against hillary clinton. The outcome of the mueller investigation, i dont think this is the end of it. As many republicans want. I still think we need to allow this investigation to see its course. And that is what the trump administration, republicans in congress, devin nunes, top of the list have been trying to stop. Theyve been trying to investigate the investigation. Lets just stick to the facts, lets just let the investigation go. The indictments fall wherever they may fall. We all want the investigation to continue but we need to be serious about this. We have interviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, before we even consider the mueller investigation. Peter strzok said there is no there there after ten months of investigation. Lets get to what this was really about. This was about democrats wanting to thwart the will of the American People, they elected President Trump and now melissa its about trying to so discord. If you are walking on your monitor, it is working. Maybe we should stop with the fighting with each other. Heres the thing, melissa. If its working in this conversation, what do you think it did in the 2016 election . It worked. And that is the reality that is going to be hard to swallow. I get it. Im not feeling for you. Country first, america first. Melissa we are going to take a break. Playing a little hidenseek. Cold. Warmer. Warmer. Ah boiling. Jackpot. And if youve got cutrate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. So get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem. Like me. Mayhem is everywhere. Are you in good hands . Having mplaque psoriasise is not always easy. Its a longdistance run. And you have the determination to keep going. 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Melissa its been an action packed hour. It was like a scene straight out of the americans on fx. Thanks for joining outnumbered overtime. Have a great weekend. Come join me and my friend david at 4 p. M. On fox business. Heres dana perino. Dana fox news alert. The department of justice announcing just a short time ago a series of indictments against Russian Nationals accused of interfering in u. S. Elections. Hello, everyone. Im dana perino and this is the daily briefing. A federal grand jury delivering those indictments all charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Tin tkaoeugtment alleges that the russian conspirators wanted to promote discord in the United States and under mind Public Confidence in democracy. We must not allow them to succeed. The department of justice will continue to work cooperatively with other Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies and with congress to