That we now know is just a small part of a much larger investigation into the Trump Campaigns ties to russia. We will get to all that shortly but we begin a few miles away from here in lower manhattan. An attack in new york city this afternoon now being called an act of terror has taken the lives of 8 people with 11 more injured. According to new York City Police commissioner james oneill, a man driving a home depot pickup truck entered a bicycle path coming from houseston street. The truck drove nearly a mile striking multiple pedestrians and cyclists who were using that path there. The vehicle collided ultimately with a school bus at chambers street injuring two adults and two children. This is an image of the truck with investigators standing nearby. These videos appear to show the scene and the subject after he fled the truck but prior to his apprehension. The suspect who has since been identified as siayfullo saipov, living in patterson, new jersey exiting the vehicle holding two objects which Officials Say appeared to be handguns. According to Law Enforcement officials the suspect yelled allah akbar. He was shot in the abdomen, was wounded, taken to a local hospital. A paint ball gun and a pellet gun were recovered at the scene, according to officials. Within hours new york city mayor bill de blasio and the governor of the state, andrew cuomo, assessed the tragedy and the current belief that he is not part of any wider plot. Let me be clear based on the information that we have at this moment. This was an act of terror and a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives who had no idea what was about to hit them. We know that this action was intended to break our spirit. But we also know new yorkers are strong, new yorkers are resilient, and our spirit will never be moved by an act of violence, an act meant to intimidate us. Theres no evidence to suggest a wider plot or a wider scheme, but the actions of one individual who meant to cause pain and harm and probably death and the resulting terror. Police commissioner oneal said security is tightened for tonight. Annual halloween parade in downtown just about a mile or so from there. President trump has been briefed on the matter and earlier tweeted looks like another attack by a very sick and december ranged person. Law enforcement is following them closely, not in the usa. We must not allow isis to return or enter our country after defeating them in the middle east and elsewhere, enough. We should note that we have no present knowledge that it was, in fact, isis that was connected to this attack. Kristen dalgren joins me with the very latest. What are things like down there . Reporter still a lot of activity down here. Weve got the crime scene vans that are just heading into the area to start to process the scene. Weve also got barricades going up and going up in many areas around the city tonight. You mentioned the halloween parade. Its been sort of a dichotomy where you see all the Police Activity and flashing lights and then youll see little kids walking by in their halloween costume. So if the idea of terror is to keep people in their homes and afraid to go out, were not seeing that tonight. Still a lot of people out here on the streets. That halloween parade in Greenwich Village a few blocks from here is going on tonight although torAuthorities Say thes going to be a heavy Police Presence there and at different points around the city. Earlier today we were down along that bike path and a lot of people asking where was the protection. There are stanchions along some parts of that bike part and other parts, particularly the twoblock area here that the driver went up, there was nothing protecting that bike path. And so thats where Authorities Say he went up onto the bike path hitting pedestrians, hitting cyclists. Weve seen bicycles strewn across the path there and mangled and the witnesses describing to us just the carnage that they saw after this and then they heard those gunshots. That was Police Taking down this suspect after he brandished what appeared to be a pellet gun and perhaps a paint ball gun. But just a terrifying scene for them. You asked about whats going on right now and a lot of people back out there and determined to keep living their lives here. Kristen dalgren where tonight she said is the halloween parade, that is still going on, one of the best nights in new york city, i have to say. Glad that is still happening. Nbc news justice correspondent Pete Williams joins me now. What do you know about the status of the investigation, who this was . So the investigation is proceeding along several fronts right now. Authorities know who this was, they knew so shortly after the suspect was shot. Youre looking at the booking photo from a previous runin with the law with sayfullo saipov. Hes 29 years old. He came to the United States in 2010 as an immigrant from uzbekistan. Hes here with a green card, a lawful permanent resident. He has a truck driver license and had been working as a truck driver and as a driver for a ride share service, and he is now in the hospital with his wounds. We understand that authorities are preparing to question him tonight, so thats one area of the inquiry, talking to him himself. Secondly, the vehicle that he drove today was a rented pickup truck from the home depot. We now know that it was rented at the home depot in passaic, new jersey. Police are there now looking at the records that he signed to get that vehicle and then try to trace the movements. So we dont know when it was rented. You can see the vehicle there all smashed up. We dont know when it was rented. Thats something theyre trying to determine right now, what sort of i. D. He showed, that kind of thing. Its interesting that he did have a truck driver license, so that would make home depot or any or rental agency more likely to rent a truck to somebody who had a Truck Drivers license without asking them a lot of questions. The third avenue of inquiry is to try to look at friends and relatives. Now, we talked to one of his friends, someone who knew him in florida and knew him kept in touch with him and had seen him just a couple of weeks ago and described him as a very friendly person, somebody who did not to this friend seem like a terrorist. He doesnt express terrorist views. He was a happy man he said. So this friend is completely mystified that saipov would do this, would be accused of doing this. Then finally something thats going to take longer, chris, is to look at his social media, his internet as much as because a b big question is were these people in touch with foreign terror groups. Was it a direct attack, inspired attack. Was this person consuming isis or other terror group propaga a propaganda. How did he get the idea to do it, why did he do it, did he tell anybody about it, was anyone else helping. Those are all questions. This investigation is moving very quickly including the fact theyre going to try to interview him in the hospital as soon as they can do that after whatever his treatment for the gunshot wounds renders him sufficiently able to talk to them. Thank you. Joining me congressman jeffries of new york who represents new yorks 8th district. Congressman, your reaction to what happened in new york tonight . These are definitely very challenging times in america. It seems like, chris, we careen from one crises to the next, from the congressionalbased wall shooting to charlottesville to las vegas to new york. We are a resilient city and resilient country. Were new yorkers, were tough. Were the city that never sleeps. Were going to continue to move forward. We want to make sure that we can support the families of those who were tragically killed today, support the victims who are recovering, support the First Responders. The nypd has done a tremendous job not just today but in terms of keeping a city of 8. 5 Million People safe. Well figure out what happened and well also find a way to better protect the city of new york in an era where lone terrorists want to create mayhem as was done in the city of new york today. I should note that that of course is the halloween parade happening right now here in lower new york. Really honestly blocks from the site of where this happened earlier. Congressman, the president tweeting about isis, not letting them into the country before theres anything in the investigation, any facts or details i think i probably privately or publicly at least publicly connecting them to isis. What do you make of that . Theres no evidence, as you point out, chris, that the individual was inspired or connected in any way to isis. I think the president was premature in perhaps trying to draw a connection to whatever Foreign Policy initiatives he may have as it relates to the war on terror overseas and perhaps was even alluding to his unconstitutional muslim ban in his commentary earlier today. There will be a time and place for those types of policy discussions moving forward. 8 people were tragically killed today. Several others were injured. We dont know the extent of those challenges. Some may be possibly lifethreatening. So i would urge the president and everyone to be responsible in their rhetoric in their observations, in their commentary. As new yorkers as a country, we should all come together, lock arms. People, as you point out, chris, are going to be out at the halloween day parade in the village. Its a tremendous gathering of the gorgeous mosaic of new york city. But we want to just be there for the families and moving forward and i would suggest that the president should leave his commentary to simply expressing his thoughts, prayers and condolences. We should note that in none of the three iterations of the ban that you referred to as uzbekistan, the country, the alleged salient appears to have come from. Thank you very much. Thank you, chris. We have the lead correspondent on slislamic terrorism at the new york times. Youve covered different truck attacks, attacks that range from directed by International Terrorist organizations, inspired, to lone wolf. What do you make . A couple of interesting things happening here. Number one, just yesterday isis put out a series of posters that were translated in four different languages that called for attacks on halloween. It was issued in french, in russian, in german, and in english. So that happened just yesterday. I find that curious. The second thing that is indicative i think here of a possible terror link is he screams allah akbar. This man is allegedly from uzbekistan and lived in america so presumably he speaks russian and english, he does not speak arabic as far as i know. He chooses to scream god is great in the arabic language, right . That could suggest that he has been in these chat rooms and understands that this is the cry that one who is affiliated with these groups would make. That said, there is no climb of responsibility from isis. None of the official isis channels have made any pronouncements about him. So the investigation needs to further show these links if they exist. We just got some reporting from an nbc reporter in new york saying that there was a note in the truck claiming he did it for isis. Thats the first that im hearing of that. If thats the case, then that matches almost exactly what was said in ra mia which is isiss english language magazine in a couple of issues ago. They specifically said to do truck attacks. They showed images of trucks saying dont use a car, its not heavy enough, use a truck, and to be sure that people know that it is isis, leave notes, and they suggested throwing them out of the window of cars. So who knows . This is also a style of attack that al qaeda actually pioneered and so, again, its too early to tell. But if that is the case, that seems to point in that direction. Theres also im not quite sure what to make of the spectacle of this individual running around having just murdered allegedly a bunch of people and then having on him a paint ball gun and some other sort of not actual gun and just its just a very bizarre thing. Has Something Like that happened before . The instructions that isis gives is that you should use a truck to go and kill as many civilians as you can and then you should get out of your truck and try to have a confrontation with more civilians using a gun or a knife. And the idea is to be martyred, evening that youre supposed to invite enemy fire. That didnt happen. Thank god he wasnt killed because now they can question him, right . That does present a ripple here which is that isis in general does not claim attackers if theyre in custody. Remember the chelsea bomber. I was able to get copies of the chelsea bombers journal which specifically mentioned mohammed aisle a al ago nanny who was claiming attacks overseas. Fascinating. Thank you for joining me. My pleasure. Still to come, the day after the indictment there are developments in the trump russia investigation. How George Papadopoulos is only a small part of a much wider investigation. Today we learned the names of just who else is caught up in that web. And more on how new york city has learned to fight terrorism over the last 16 years. Had. The classes, the friends, the independence. And since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise pressure relieving comfort, and our 90day, complete satisfaction trial, will make tossing and turning a thing of the past. Plus, during our veterans day savings event, save up to 500 on select Adjustable Mattress sets. Find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic. Com. Swho live within five miles of custyour business . 54, like these two. And that guy. Or maybe you want to reach women, ages 18 to 34, who are interested in fitness. Namaste. Whichever audience youre looking for, well find them were the finders. We work here at comcast spotlight, and we have the best tools for getting your advertising message out there. Anywhere, any way your audience watches. Consider them found. Is just the kind of vehicle versus civilian attack that both isis and al qaeda have encouraged their followers to execute. As nbcs tom costello reports, such attacks are difficult for Law Enforcement to prevent. Reporter its a growing terror tactic with devastating results. July 2016 a truck on the boardwalk in nice, france plowed through crowds of people on holiday. 86 killed, 200 injured. Similar tactics used on the London Bridge last may. 8 dead. Another 5 killed in march. Around the world attacks in barcelona, stockholm, berlin, and in the u. S. Last year at ohio state university, 11 injured. For years, isis and al qaeda have called for just this type of low tech attack using cars and trucks to mow down and kill as many people as possible. These small scale attacks using tools, not even weapons but tools that are widely available make actually suppressing this entirely not just difficult but truly impossible. Reporter in new york last may it wasnt a terror attack but a december ranged suspect on drugs who killed a woman and injured 22 after driving through a crowd in times square. Nypd commissioner james oneill told lester earlier this year the threat from trucks is top of mind for the nypd Critical Response command now using city trucks to wall off large public gatherings, including thanksgiving. We had a ring of sanitation trucks around the whole route to make sure there were no unauthorized vehicles on the route. We did the same thing on new years eve and the fourth of july is always a challenge. Reporter after isis called for targeting new yorks thanksgiving parade last year, police visited 148 truck rental facilities telling them to be aware of any suspicious persons who might try to rent a truck. That was tom costello reporting. Todays attack appears to be the deadliest in new york city since 9 11. Much more on that next. To get through the day. This guy feels like he can take on anything. This guy isnt sure he can take it anymore. Unwavering selfconfidence. Stuck in a 4door sedan of sadness. Upgrade your commute. Ride with audible. Dial star star audible on your smartphone to start listening today. Dealership has Great Customer service. muffled voice . And has great deals . And has. Complimentary donuts. Thats the one cars. Com. Over 5 million expert and user reviews. We have been tested before as a city very near the site of todays tragedy, and new yorkers did not give in in the face of these kinds of actions. Well respond as we always do. We will be un detestified. Mayor bill de blasio described todays incident as an act of terror. The suspect was apprehended blocks from the World Trade Center. The apparent terror attack would be the deadliest in new york city since september 11. Chief Investigative Reporter and contributing news correspondent michael daily of the daily beas beast, Pulitzer Prize winner for his work on the september 11th attack. As a lifelong new yorker, my first thought today was we have gotten so i mean, a combination of extreme vigilance and luck on the part of new yorkers for 16 years that a bunch of things that were planned or tried to execute didnt happen. There have been more than 20 plots that the city has seen since 9 11. Most of them thwarted. A few of them isolated like knife attacks and now this with 8 People Killed and 11 more seriously injured by what appears to be a lone actor. Everything were hearing appears to be isis inspired. Were told from Law Enforcement sources the suspect left a note in the truck that he rented that truck at 2 00 this afternoon in passaic new jersey across the hudson river, about a 30minute drive to the city. He took that truck right into manhattan and carried out the attack. Striking to me the sort of evolution of tactics on the part of Counterterrorism Forces and nypd who have huge amounts to try to protect, now adapting to the truck threat. You would think the thing today was the big parade. I was walking from the subway this morning looking at the barricades thinking, these guys, they love death, they hate life. I started thinking maybe they would take a run at this thing. Thats what you would figure. You would never figure that theyre going to get the bike path down along the hudson river. I guess the main thing is the trade center is still there. Thats still the focal point. He came right through that tunnel. If there had been a breakdown in the tunnel those people wouldnt have been killed. The guy would have never gotten through. You got to think some of those people never knew what hit them. You dont look behind you when youre riding a bike. You might have heard a sound but theres all that traffic on the west side highway. Its loud, so you wouldnt really Pay Attention to a truck. You got some poor person going along probably never knew what hit them. Although if you look at past targets, the chelsea bombing, who would think someone would set off a Pressure Cooker bomb. In a dumpster on a side street. And targeting officers who were on routine patrol posing for a photo. I think were somewhat past that and anything goes. Knuckle heads is what they are. Theyre not wolves. Theyre knuckle heads. This plot consists of the guy going to home depot and driving through the tunnel. Writing a wrote and pulling off the act. Over the years the nypd has built up a counterterrorism unit. How big a focus is this for the department . You have the whole world there. I dont know if you heard the scanner, you probably listened to it going down. The whole world, shut this down, close this down. S srg there, src, the koupter terror, bomb squad, the fbi was there. The whole world responded to this and it was one guy, one knuckle head that rented a truck. Theyve called hundreds of truck and car rental places asking them to keep an eye out. I didnt even realize that there had already been some protocols put in place on the front end of truck rentals. Theyre constantly checking buildings, calling people. Theyre doing everything they possibly can which is why you havent had a bunch of attacks. Theres no way to protect against a guy like this. You have 1,000 Police Officers every day, their only job is counterterrorism. That doesnt count the intelligence unit, the nypd officers who are stationed overseas with Foreign Police departments sharing intelligence in real time. So they are operating side by side working hand in hand with the federal government doing all they can because they know new york remains the number within target. I thought about over the course of the last few years youve seen these stanchions sprout up everywhere. First they were outside federal buildings. Now you got them everywhere. I remember when the times square thing happened which was not someone who was on drugs or alcohol, possibly out of his mind, the thing that stopped that was that he eventually hit one of those and weve seen those come up all over the city and those prove to be remarkably important in these kind of circumstances. Could have used a couple of them today. The thing that really struck me, that whole thing down there, they shut down all the schools. Theres a Grammar School right there a block away from this thing and they had it on lockdown. You had all these parents waiting for their kids on halloween. Youre sitting there for three hours waiting for these kids. They werent even born when the trade center got knocked down. Theres the Freedom Center behind them, these terrified parents and the kids are going to come out and you wander are they going to go trick or treating. One came out in tears. One seemed determined. She said trick or treat, smell my feet which i thought was the best line of the day. That was her saying youre not going to ruin my halloween. Stuyvesant high school was down there. A school bus was targeted because the police say that guy drove the truck deliberately you can see it was broadsided. If you were going to aim at a school bus thats where you would hit. We still dont have the victims identified. 8 fatalities, 11 injured at this point. Hopefully that number stays right there. Jonathan and michael, thank you for joining me. Next, the amazing scene happening just 15 minutes away from todays attack where new yorkers are carrying on with their lives just hours after that attack in lower manhattan. Stay with us. If you have moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. If other treatments havent worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works by focusing right in the gitract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. While not reported with entyvio, pml, a rare, serious brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. 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Anytime we are responding to a structure fire, one of the first calls you make is for pg e for gas and electric safety. Its my job to make sure that they have the training that they need to make the scene safe for themselves and for the public. Its handson training actually turning valves, turning systems off, looking at different wire systems all that training is crucial to keeping our Community Safe and our firefighters safe. Together, were building a better california. In less than 90 minutes that parade will kick off. We will proceed with the parade and certainly weve added more resources, more Police Officers, heavy weapons teams, blocker vehicles on the street leading to the route as well as more sand trucks. Theres also heavy weapons teams being deployed throughout the city at key iconic locations. New york city did not cancel the halloween parade in new york citys Greenwich Village, a more that 40year tradition which got under way tonight just blocks away from the tragic and deadly attack in downtown manhattan. Police said there would be increased presence in the area and throughout the city. Nbcs Gotti Schwartz joins us live from the parade which i grew up going to and love as much as anything that happens in the city. Whats it like down there . Reporter so many people out here love this parade. I want to show you what you were just talking about. Thats the World Trade Center over there and this is where the hyatt is. Let me show you whats going on right now. Talk about resilientsy. This parade was not going to be stopped by terrorists. People here saying this they didnt want the terrorists to win. In fact, if you look over here, you can see the crowd doing the thriller, Michael Jackson thriller. If i take you over here, you can kind of see along this line there are officers about every 10 to 15 feet. There are also officers on the other side of the street. We saw them earlier talking to each other saying, make sure that youre keeping an eye on all the windows that are open. Theyve been very vigilant. Theyve got teams all throughout here. I want to talk to some of these families out here. This is keanu, ex wing fighter and his father jeff. Jeff, what happened a little bit earlier today, so, so tragic. Tell me, why did you bring your son out here . We got to love and we all got to survive, man. Just got to come out and enjoy ourselves. Whatever happens, what happens. How important is a night like this for a family, for you and your son here . Say again . How important is it for a family to come out and see this . This is a tradition for so many people. Right. You know its been going on for many years. We all got to come out here and enjoy ourselves. Thats the bottom line. We got to live, love and survive. This is a school night. You got homework to do, right . I did it in school. You already did it at school so you can stay out later . Yeah. Got it. Thank you very much. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. May the force be with you. Thats just one of the families out here. Youve got literally thousands and thousands of families and check this out, these are the officers that are going down. We see them coming by periodically checking the rooftop. Helicopters above. The security around here is so tight, and again, you can see so many people out here enjoying themselves. Chris, back to you. Gotti schwartz, almost drowned out by the strains of thriller there. That little boy there, 33 years ago i think i was down there im pretty sure in a Luke Skywalker costume. Some things never change. We will continue to monitor the developments stemming from todays attack in new york city. Up next, the day after the indictments, there is more big news coming from the mueller investigations. Stay with us. When you have a cold stuff happens. Shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. I was playing golf love golf. I used to love golf. Wait, what, what happened . I was having a good round, and then my friend, sheila, right as i was stepping into the tee box mentioned a tip a pro gave her. No. Yep. Did it help . It completely ruined my game. Well, the truth is, that advice was never meant for you. I like you. You want to show me your swing . Its too soon. Get advice thats right for you. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. Distance himself from george pap pa papadopoulos, the special counsels investigation is already moving closer to the inner sang tum of the white house. A onetime Foreign Policy adviser to the Trump Campaign, papadopoulos pleaded guilt to lying to the fbi about his efforts to work with russian proxies during the campaign. According to Court Filings, he was told in april 2016, crucially two months before the dnc hack became Public Knowledge that russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Today the president who called papadopoulos a, quote, excellent guy after he joined the Campaign Later attended a meeting with him at trump hotel in d. C. , tweeted few people knew the young low level volunteer named george who has already proven to be a liar. Senior Campaign AdviserMichael Caputo tried to downplay papadopouloss role as well. I never heard of papadopoulos. He never showed up at trump tower, never had any interaction with any of the Campaign Leaders around me. And the leaders of the Washington Office of the campaign didnt even know who he was until his name appeared in the press. The guy was the coffee boy. Try to distance themselves from papadopoulos all they want but they cant distance themselves from the people implicated in his guilty plea, some of who are senior members of the trump administration. Sam clove advice, the campaigns policy director who is now the president s nominee for chief Scientist Department of agriculture was questioned last week by Robert Muellers team. He testified before the investigating grand jury. Cloe advice who is not a scientist and who has been working at the white house verified today that hes the individual identified in Court Filings as papadopouloss Campaign Supervisor with whom he corresponded regularly about his outreach to those russian representatives. When papadopoulos emailed the campaign, he just met someone he thought was Vladimir Putins niece who wanted to set up a meeting between Campaign Officials and russian leadership, it was cloe invest who responded, great work. Jake sullivan, Senior Policy Adviser to the Clinton Campaign in 2016 and one of the people ringing the alarm bells louder than anyone else, first your reaction, having watched all this developed, having thought about the degree of the russian involvement, your reaction to the facts that we learned yesterday . Well, the first thing that i thought about was how far weve come, chris. The Trump Campaign and trump himself initially denied that there was any interaction with any russians at any time. That fell by the wayside. Then the interactions that there were with the russians they said had nothing to do they didnt talk about the campaign in any way, that fell by the wayside. Now theyre trying to say, well, this is just some low level volunteer, but of course thats already falling by the wayside as we see from muellers investigation that it actually reaches further up into the Trump Campaign. And the bottom line is what we have suspected for months is now clear, that the russian government offered help to the Trump Campaign to help him win and to hurt Hillary Clinton and the Trump Campaign was eager and willing to accept that help. And that wasnt just George Papadopoulos. It was others as well. And its entirely consistent with the previous stories about don jr. And the meeting he held at trump tower. So, whether you use the word collusion or not, what you have here is the russian government serving up assistance to the Trump Campaign and the Trump Campaign chasing that assistance and that is making common cause with a hostile foreign power to interfere in your election. I want to play this clip that i played last night and i think its worth playing because we now know that there was georgia papadopoulos emailing other people in the campaign, including manafort saying ive got this person who says theyre representing the russian government and theyve got Clinton Emails and they dont know what to do with it. Then you have the email from don jr. Saying the russian government is trying to help your father and we have dirt on Hillary Clinton and then the hacks become public and this is what donald trump said on the campaign in the debate. Listen. Shes saying russia, russia, russia. Maybe it was. It could also be china but it could also be china. It could be lots of other people. It could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay . You dont know who broke into dnc. Is it plausible to you that the president , then candidate trump, did not know . Its completely implausible. It was implausible to me during the campaign when the Intelligence Community came out and said it was russia and he denied it, and now after what weve seen from Robert Muellers investigation, it defies all kra duty that donald trump was not aware of the fact that the russians were serving up hacked and stolen emails and that donald trump was doing his best to take advantage of it. He referred to the podesta emails, the wikileaks hacks 164 times in the closing weeks of the campaign, cheering on russias interference in the election while all the while denying it. What about the idea that these were low level people and you had this kind of one of the most charitable interpretations of people who arent advocates of donald trump, this campaign at this point, particular lly in march, was a mess. They were pulling people off the shelf to serve as Foreign Policy advisers. How much do you buy that . Im not going to say that George Papadopoulos was the Campaign Chairman but it certainly seems like he may have been in contact with or at least his information was being passed to the Campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort. Thats an important fact. Moreover, everything about the papadopoulos story is totally consistent with the don jr. Story where an outsider came and said the russian government wants to help your father get elected and weve got dirt on Hillary Clinton and don jr. Said, great, come on by. And who joined them in that meeting . Paul manafort and jared kushner. So the idea that somehow this was cabin to George Papadopoulos makes no sense. This was clearly understood at the senior levels of the Trump Campaign and they should have to answer for that because at the end of the day they know its deeply wrong what they did which is why theyve been denying it all this time. Jake sullivan, thanks for being here. Still to come ill talk with two prosecutors to break down the legal implications. Stick around. I love kiwis. Ive always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. Super poligrip free. It creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. Even well fitting dentures let in food particles just a few dabs of super poligrip free is clinically proven to seal out more food particles so youre more comfortable and confident while you eat. Super poligrip free made even the kiwi an enjoyable experience try super poligrip free. The revelation that a Trump Campaign aid secretly cooperated with the special counsel investigation for months, two veteran prosecutors weigh the legal implications for the president and everyone around him, next. To keep their globas connected. And why a Pro Football Team chose us to deliver fiberenabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. And why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their Dealer Network streamlined and nimble. Businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. When you clock out, ill clock in. Sensing and automatically adjusting to your every move. There. I can also help with this. Does your bed do that . Im the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Lets meet at a sleep number store. I am a First Responder tor and iemergencies 24 hours a day, everyday of the year. My children and my family are on my mind when im working all the time. My neighbors are here, my friends and family live here, so its important for me to respond as quickly as possible and get the power back on. Its an amazing feeling turning those lights back on. Be informed about outages in your area. Sign up for outage alerts at pge. Com outagealerts. Together, were building a better california. George papadopoulos was first detained over three months ago but bob muellers Team Successfully argued to keep his arrest secret because he was a proactive cooperator, in other words, he was helping them. I want to bring in two former prosecutors who litigated multiple cases of public corruption. Jennifer, let me start with you. Weve identified it looks like some of the people that were in those emails with George Papadopoulos. Cor Corey Lewandowski was in some of them. Hes unnamed in the complaint in the affidavit, sam cloevis and Paul Manafort. It depends on what the rest of the investigation is showing. We know that papadopoulos was proactively cooperating. We also know that hes been providing information that didnt make its way into the document so we dont know all of what hes been telling the authorities about these guys and their actions. We know that at least to some extent they were informed of these activities that papadopoulos was doing with the professor and others trying to get kind of information from russia. So that is not good news from them. I mean, that still remains to be seen about whether there was actually a crime here that can be charged but collusion such as it is, not necessarily criminal, but collusion such as it is is looking more and more like what happened given what weve learned. Theres a detail you were pointing out about Paul Manafort that i thought was pretty fascinating. Am i right that somewhere in the filings they said he has three passports . Thats right. You must read twitter in between segments because i literally just tweeted that a few minutes ago. Yeah, manafort has three passports. He was using multiple phones. He was using alias emails. Thats what we get from the Court Filings. He literally reminds me of the Drug Cartel Members that i used to investigate when i was a junior prosecutor. Its very much indicative of a knowledge that youre doing something thats criminal. Why else would you need all of these phones, multiple aliases, three passports. Its very unusual, very suspicious and why him confined. So yesterday youve got the announcement on manafort which i think was not surprising to people. Then gates as well, which is probably a little more surprising. Then the papadopoulos plea. What do you make of this sort of strategy, jennifer, here for how mueller is proceeding . It was very interesting, of course as you said you get the manafort gates indictment, which while not surprising that manafort was being charged, i thought the substance of it, the heft of it was surprising. What do you mean by the heft . Its a very strong indictment, it carries a ton of jail time. Its just more in terms of charges than i think people were expecting, obviously because they actually picked up an investigation that had been going on for some time, and there was a lot of evidence collected, otherwise theres no way that mueller starting in may could have put all this together in that amount of time. So i think the kind of heft of the indictment was a little bit surprising. And then of course you had that come out and the reaction from the white house of saying, oh, but this has nothing to do with us, it has nothing to do with collusion, then boom, comes the news that there is an indictment that has directly to do with that conduct. Right. Im not sure whether mueller wasnt planning to release that until the comment from the white house. I suspect he was all along, actually, because, you know, this is just his first kind of, im here, im working, were being productive, and you can expect were going to be continuing to be productive. Renato, its funny, jennifer said heft, prosecutors, the way a craftsman might admire a fine piece of furniture, were talking about the indictment and its heft. One thing one prosecutor said to me was, theres a lot of years on the table here and its very narrow what the government has to prove. For instance, hes not actually charged with tax evasion, which is a much more complicated thing to prosecute, because youve got usually an intermediary and an accountant and youve got to get testimony and things like that. Theyve tailored this to pack the maximum amount of years for the minimum amount they have to prove. I think thats fair to say. Theres certain counts there that i would call a backstop, chris, that are very straightforward. Like for example, either you disclose that youre a Foreign Agent or not. Thats very straightforward to prove. Either you have these foreign accounts or you dont. Those are going to be very tough to get around. One thing your viewers may not know, as a federal prosecutor, you dont need to bat 1,000, you dont even need to bat 300. If you get a conviction on one count, the judge can consider a lot of this conduct at sentencing or all of the conduct really as part of the characteristics of the defendant at sentencing. Really the defense has to kind of clean the table there, theyve got to bad a thousat a. Then theyve got that huge conspiracy that pumps the numbers up and allows mueller at trial to get a lot of evidence in over a tenyear period. Yeah, its very weighty. What struck me, chris, yesterday we heard all this bluster from the Manafort Defense Team about how this was ridiculous and so on. What it told me is theyre angling for a pardon, because no defense attorney, unless a pardon was on the table, no defense attorney would have that sort of ultraaggressive, dismissive attitude towards this indictment. If i was representing a client facing this indictment, and there was no pardon on the table, i would tell that client they are facing a very long prison sentence, its going to be very hard to win, and we need to look seriously at cooperating with mr. Mueller. What do you think of that . Well, i think its certainly irresponsible to behave that way. I dont know whether he things a pardon is on the table. A defense lawyer should be saying, you know, weve pleaded not guilty and were going to so that struck you too, that kind of like, this is crazy, coming out and saying, donald trump has been vindicated, which is the first thing he said . He sounded more like a trump spokesperson than a manafort defense lawyer. His client is man affoaformanaf. He should have said, we look forward to defending these charges in court, and then he should have shut up, and think about cooperation, think about pleading guilty, think about what kind of deal you can get. Rather than being out there getting headlines. Hes not doing his client a service there. For federal crimes, theres been some reporting indicating that the attorney general of the state of new york, Eric Schneiderman has worked in tandem with mueller because there have been open investigations on some of the financial things, which would mean he would be able to swap those in as a way to sort of deal with any pardon the president might give, although thats getting slight ahead of ourselves. Jennifer rogers, renato marriotti, thank you very much. He stated unequivocally he knew of no attempts by the Trump Campaign to collude with russian agents. Let me state this clearly, colleagues, i have never met with or had any conversation with any russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump Campaign. But sessions was present at a march 2016 meeting with George Papadopoulos, who we now know pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about efforts to cooperate with kremlin proxies. And at that meeting, according to the Court Filings, papadopoulos stated to that group in sum and substance he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between thencandidate trump and president putin. Jennifer rubin, a columnist for the washington post. Jennifer, we should note that whats described in that plea document is not papadopoulos saying, you know, we can collude with the russians on something untoward. So it doesnt, you know, in and of itself show sessions to be lying or not realizicalling. But it puts sessions in some peril, dont you think . It does. People associated with the Campaign Making contact with the russians, that would surely encompass somebody trying to set up a secret meeting between putin and the president. Then when you combine that with the fact that clovis, who was the senior policy person, is encouraging him to go down this route, you certainly have people at the higher levels of the campaign who knew what was going on. And remember, all of this preceded by quite a bit of time before we even knew that there were hacked emails, when papadopoulos is saying, yeah, i knew there were thousands of emails that they were potentially in the possession of. So their effort to distance themselves both from papadopoulos and also from all of these representations that they made about no one knows anything about russia, trump didnt know anything about russia, he was sitting in that meeting too, so he knew they were trying to make connections with russia. You know, the level of lying here is pretty stunning. And if you dont think clovis and others are going to testify to more of this sort of thing, i think people are deluding themselves. Well, to that point, we should say the paper that you write for, the washington post, just breaking this, that papadopoulos continued to be invited to campaign events, that in late june, early july, this is 2016, last year, he attended a dinner at the Capitol Hill Club along with several National Security advisers from the Trump Campaign. Sessions also attended, papadopoulos was seated to sessions left, a spokeswoman for sessions declined to comment. It seems to me that sessions, its going to be very hard for him to distance himself from what happened here. Absolutely. And remember, were not just talking about lies under oath. He was also intimately involved in the leadup to firing james comey. Why was James Comey Fired . Trump told us he had russia on his mind. What sessions knew is there was reason for trump to be worried. He himself had witnessed connections with russia. This puts him in a very tight spot. No wonder he recused himself. And i think were approaching the point where he has some legal where hear did jeopardy. I think this is going to get very interesting. I keep thinking about putting myself in the position, in this campaign in any way, peripherally exposed, whether at high levels or more medium levels, to the back and forth, to the don junior meeting, to papadopoulos. Whats going through your head, when the news starts coming out, when the dnc hacks start coming out, when there starts to be reporting that russia is behind it, when wikileaks comes out, the intelligence committee. Even if you werent involved, you have to start thinking to yourself, whoa, what were other people in this campaign up to . Examinctly. What you do is you start throwing a lot of dirt and you Start Talking about Hillary Clinton and uranium and everyone else you can this of and everyone else starts running for cover. Thats the beauty of a federal prosecutor, he didnt care about all that dirt, he doesnt care about uranium one. Hes methodically going person by person. Hes now got clovis. He matches peoples testimony. He matches that written material. And he slowly puts together a case of who was lying, who knew what, and why it was that trump felt so compelled to get rid of james comey. Do you think republicans on capitol hill, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, theyve got their fingers in their ears. Are there any actions mueller can a take that would change that . You know, i used to think there would, but im beginning to doubt that. I think these people are so far into the spin and so far into the delusion that they have just latched themselves to trump and to this presidency. So frankly, i would be surprised if they ever get off the ship. Its going to be an issue in 2018. The voters have a say. Jennifer rubin, great to have you. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, thank you, my friend. A bunch of news has broken late today and into this evening, stories were continuing to follow as developing news stories. That includes the federal court in washington, d. C. , unsealing a new batch of documents in the special counsels criminal case against Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump Campaign official rick gates. The 12count felony indictment against them was unsealed yesterday alongside a guilty plea from a more junior Campaign Official who now admits he lied to the fbi about his russia contacts during the campaign. That was all yesterday. This new