To cancel his summit in helsinki with Vladimir Putin on monday in the face of this, new charges brought by the Department Of Justice. Whats your take on this . I agree, he never should have taken the meeting to begin with. I mean we have no idea what he would hope to gain from this. What we know quite clearly, these were not lowlevel operatives, ali, who were indicted. These are highlevel people who worked very closely with the Senior Leadership in russia. We know putin knew this. Donald trump is only enabling Vladimir Putin by coming to this meeting, by participating in this meeting. If he does do it, and, you know, it wouldnt surprise me if he did, what he ought to do is hand him over these indictments, demand the immediate prompt extradition of all the defendants involved, and thats what he should be doing. He is playing into the hands of putin right now. The world is turned upside down,
as your prior person said. Yeah. Putin wants to destabilize nato, he wants to sow discord among our allies, he wants to sow discord at home. With Trump Trashing nato, atracking germany, attacking our uk allies, this president is playing into putins hands. Hes not only undermining our democracy, hes making america less safe. I have to ask you, im kind of amazed by the response from the white house quite quickly after this came out. Obviously the president knew about this so they might have had a response ready. Todays charges include no allegations of knowing Involvement Pie Anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result. Tom, does it strike you as strange that in the face of 12 indictments that the white houses response is, well, it wasnt us. Well, its long since time for donald trump to stop calling this a witch hunt. Attorney general rosenstein acknowledged that he briefed the president before he left for europe. So the president knew that these indictments were coming. And he still made witch hunt references. Putins righthand people were being charged by a federal grand jury. This isnt a witch hunt, its an attack on our democracy. And the failure to understand the difference between the attack on democracy and the suggestion that donald trump wouldnt have won the election otherwise, thats a separate discussion. It may be true that donald trump wouldnt have won the election without russian interference, but thats not actually at the heart of the issue here. The issue is that somebody was meddling with our elections. And the issue is, its not going to end. Why would you stop trying to do this when you had Great Success in 2016. You elected putins puppet as the president of the United States. Youre doing this elsewhere across the world. And so, again, this isnt simply an attack on United States
democracy, there are attacks on democracies across the world. And that is why its so important for us to be together with our allies. And what do we see happening . We see attacks on our allies and we see him he has this fixation with strong men around the world, whether its in north korea, whether its in russia or elsewhere. And that is why it is so important for us to understand that this isnt about republicans or democrats or independents, this is about the essence of our democracy. And if people think this is going to stop, that they have learned their lesson, think again. Theyre going to redouble their efforts because they understand that they have a president whos compromised. Have you heard from or spoken to Hillary Clinton since this has come out . I have not. There were a lot of people at the dnc, obviously this is before your time there, who ended up being targeted. Whats the sense, is this there are people who expected
Department Of Justice for over a decade, there are many more chapters to be written in this investigation. As you correctly pointed out a few minutes ago, this indictment already made references to interactions between the russians and roger stone and wikileaks, et cetera. So this is an important chapter that was released today, but this is by no means the last chapter. All right, tom, good to talk to you as always. Thanks very much. Tom perez is the chairman of the Democratic National committee. As tom says, were going to get into some of the details about the references made to people, some of whom are not named in the indictment but basically anybody with google can figure out who they are. Joining me now is adrienne elrod. Good to see you. You too. There are more than 300 people in the dnc who were targeted. As we read the details of these
indictments, it was effective, it was targeted, it was specific, and it seemed to have a goal in mind. The goal of defeating Hillary Clinton and spreading disinformation, compromising the campaign and helping donald trump. And then there are even things in the indictment which well talk about where there seem to be outreach from the russian agents to people connected to the Trump Campaign to say is this helpful . What do you think of the information weve got . Yeah. I think its helpful to getting us one step closer to actually figuring out what happened. Was there collusion, was there not collusion. You know, look, when youre running a campaign, especially a president ial campaign of the magnitude that we faced in 2016, you always expect challenges. You expect challenges with the ground game, challenges with Opposition Research. You dont expect an adversarial government, i. E. Russia, come in and influence results of the election. That is what we saw, that our president has no desire to get to the bottom of this. Its a huge issue. Obviously hes meeting with
Vladimir Putin on monday, he should cancel that meeting. But look, these i almost think the white house probably knew that this indictment these indictments were coming down and thats why they set up the meeting. But again, i guess if theres a little vindication here for those of us who were victims of being hacked, for those of us who, you know, had to figure out how to still run a campaign while also dealing with, you know, an email dump every single day of John Podestas emails and other campaigns emails, but again this is getting us one step closer to figuring out what happened. The white house is obsessed with vote changing. By the way, weve gotten as close as we are going to get to the idea, at least for now, that they hacked into some state election boards. They stole information from a Software Vendor to the state election board, so they have information about voters. So i wouldnt draw any conclusions yet that there wasnt voter changing, but thats what the white house is all about. Yeah. Did it change any votes. It sort of misses a much larger
issue that tom just talked about. It doesnt matter whether democrats or hacked or republicans were hacked. Correct. Someone was hacked by a Foreign Government trying to influence the outcome of an election. Its hard to debate this with the white house when they wont acknowledge thats actually the problem. Correct. What did Vladimir Putin in 2020 decides i dont want donald trump to be president anymore. Im going to hack into his Campaign Emails and hack into the rnc. The fact that our president has no desire to get to the bottom of this and only seems to lean into his relationship with Vladimir Putin is deeply troubling. The other thing that i think is going to be worth looking at as this Investigation Continues is when the russians hacked into the dnc, how do they actually manipulate the voter file . Thats obviously something that Democrats Use across the board to target. So yes, perhaps on election day maybe votes were not actually changed, but the targeting that our campaign, that the dnc, that Down Ballot Races use to figure
out which voters to target was a byproduct of this hack. The New York Times has done some good reporting on that. Well speak to them later in the show to discuss the congressional candidates who were targeted by some of these hacks as well. But it is frustrating that we are not all exactly on the same page, that this is really serious. This isnt about you and it isnt about somebody else, its really serious that someone has gotten into our Election Systems to consider victory that a vote wasnt changed, which were not sure about yet, is a little premature and a little silly. All right, adrienne, thanks very much. She is the former director of Strategic Communications for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign. To help me break down what all of this means, weve got ken dilanian, our National Security and justice reporter. Malcolm nance is our Terrorism Analyst and an expert on hacking. Ari melber is msnbcs chief Legal Correspondent and the host of the beat. Ken, let me start with you. The indictment was long and detailed, but if you had to tell it to somebody in short order, what would you say . Essentially, ali, the Russian MilitaryIntelligence Organization deployed sophisticated tactics to hack into the democrats, steal their email and disseminate it in a way that hurt them. You know, the russians its always been said that the russians are much better at cyber and hacking than the chinese. Im not an expert, but reading this indictment you can see evidence of that. You can see that they sought to cover their tracks and pose as third parties and erase evidence of the hacking and they used sophisticated tools to essentially capture the keystrokes of the machines that they infiltrated. And look, as other people have said, ali, we knew this had happened. Theres already been an Intelligence Assessment saying that this happened. But this indictment names senior russian officials. It doesnt say how the u. S. Government could prove that these officials did these acts, and thats a story of intelligence gathering and the
National Security agency capturing emails and listening to phone calls and potentially the cia infiltrating these places with human sources. But this was an extraordinary piece of Detective Work that has captured this information and laid it out for the public. Also extraordinary is the timing of this. Nbc news reported in march that this indictment was going to happen at some point. What i did not expect was for it to happen on the eve of a summit between donald trump and Vladimir Putin. For more president s this would be a good thing because he could go into putin armed with this evidence. Vladimir putin was personally involved in this operation and supervised it very closely. But for donald trump, he said today that this was the russia investigation was a rigged witch hunt that harmed our relations with russia. So it begs the question what his approach is going to be in this summit with Vladimir Putin. Another question i have is whether when Rod Rosenstein briefed donald trump last week that this was coming, what was the president s reaction . Did he try to delay it . Did he have any say as to
whether the United States of america was going to name foreign officials in the indictment . Because, ali, that is a big deal. Hes talked so much about the witch hunt in the last few days, i would have thought that would have influenced at least that discussion but again, its 2018, things are different than i remember. Ari, there are so many legal details i want to ask you about, but mostly i was fascinated by the response from the white house, that it wasnt us. You know, some version of nobody named us. They seem to be missing the Forest For The Trees here. Tell me how significant an indictment this is and perhaps what a serious response should look like. This is by far the most serious indictment by bob mueller since paul manafort, who was of Course Campaign chair and now is sitting in jail awaiting trial. Its much more significant than the social media indictment because this shows a felonious conspiracy to actually steal things and try to inject them into our politics. Watergate was a domestic breakin that ultimately brought down a presidency. Bob mueller here alleges the
same kind of breakin, but over a longer period of time with far more materials stolen and the international hook of a nucleararmed major foreign adversary of the United States leading the charge. It is impossible, i think, to overstate how important it is. We live in a world of hyperbole and there have been a loft expectations. But forget the expectations. Today is the day mueller is putting the Cards On The Table on that. He also names other conduct that we dont know if it will be charged but it looks suspicious and may be criminal. He says a u. S. Candidate, doesnt appear to be donald trump, requested and received stolen material from abroad. Thats very significant because mueller is giving us a preview into what he considers a line of potential prosecutorial action. If he wants to charge Anyone Around that u. S. Candidate with saying receiving stolen goods is more than one felony probably, Election Violation and theft, then that gives you a road to
what else he could do. I want to bring in ken to show our viewers how the sausage is made. We know there are various congressional candidates who were disadvantaged because information about them was leaked from their emails and were trying to hone in on who that is. We dont know who the candidate is. But the bottom line is this is a down ballot, a congressional candidate, who was the victim of information that was stolen by these same russian intelligence agents. Thats right. That is a little noticed part of this whole conspiracy, ali, the russians were also interfering in state, local and county races and deploying information in a sophisticated way that some Political Consultants said they had to have had american help. Ali, theres also this remarkable element of the July 27th Statement by the president , you know, by then candidate trump, russia, if youre listening and you can find Hillary Clintons 30,000 emails, go ahead and do it. Because were here and because you said it, lets actually play that for our viewers. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. Yeah. So that and then tell me what happened. So that got a lot of attention at the time. An extraordinary statement. Katy tur followed up questioning how he could have made that request. Now we know from this indictment that that very evening, according to the indictment, russian operatives started to try to hack into clinton email accounts. Not Democratic National committee email accounts, but actually Hillary Clinton personal office and staff email accounts. Now, obviously we cant prove, the indictment doesnt allege that they did that at the behest of donald trump, but reasonable people can make an inference here and thats going to loom, i think, large as ari was alluding to. That was an invitation essentially to a Foreign Government to pursue stolen property. And they did that. Malcolm, again, im sort of hung up on the fact that the white house doesnt seem to be grasping the importance of this or is deliberately being misleading about it. But the fact is youve written a book on this. The idea that they got, according to this indictment, as close as a Software Vendor to state election boards, that they were able to steal somewhere near half a million emails of voters with a lot of information, and the white house is carrying on about how no votes were changed. Look at this. They hacked the website of a state board of elections and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters. This is in the indictment. Malcolm, its naive for us to think they just walked away. Well, it is naive of us to think that. Two years ago when i wrote my first book, Plot To Hack America on this, i had alleged that they were probably not going to play with the vote tallies. But there were other ways that the russians and remember, this is before the election. There were other ways that they could manipulate and suppress votes. They could change Voter Registration information. When the first News Media Report came out in late september, early october 2016 where evidence had been gained that russians had gone in and had been scanning and looking at the Voter Registration rolls, i had actually joked on air that junior Russian MilitaryIntelligence Officers need something to do too, right . And in this case, that is precisely what this indictment alleges. They show that these teams, Junior Officers and other officers who were not mentioned in that indictment went out there and started scanning these Voter Registration rolls for pathways in and activities that we have yet to determine because our election was never audited. Ari, you look at the indictment and there are lots of things in here. And for a nonlawyer like me,
theres a lot of things not in here. But for a lawyer like you, you think, wow, there are references to people who arent named. Do you have the impression that the special counsels office knows who those other people are. Why are there things that dont seem to be in here that they make references to . Thats a standard way that you list out material. Anyone whos either unindicted or may never be indicted is not supposed to have dirt put on their name, if you will, so organization 1 is a reference that very clearly is wikileaks and nbc confirmed that. Other references appear to be roger stone based on other leaks but We Wouldnt Say thats 100 confirmed by muellers office. So we have to be careful about that because people are subjects and targets of the investigation and may not ultimately be charged. Thats the standard way that you do this. Richard nixon was famous leanne unindicted coconspirator in the watergate proceeding, but the same concept applying. I think what is so significant here as we await the trial of the chairman of the Trump Campaign and we have other
people who were cooperating is that bob mueller is moving methodically through each aspect of what has been the known interference. If it doesnt lead to the top, if donald trump ultimately said wild, irresponsible, many people feel disturbing things in public but there isnt the evidence to prove that he was involved in these conspiracies, we would not expect based on the way it works that bob mueller would overreach or do anything else. But hes clearly showing and weve seen today more than weve ever seen before that there were in his view, and these are allegations, these are not proven yet in court. But in bob muellers view, he is arguing and alleging that there are americans, some unnamed, who were on the Receiving End of what the russians were doing. And the white houses pushback to that is that theres no evidence that those americans on the Receiving Endi either knw they were talking to russians or knew they were engaging in a crime. Thats interesting and it may be true. It is not the obvious place that
a what do we say in the law, that a reasonable person, exactly where their mind no, and youve been drilling this in your reporting today and i think its an important point. Just because people are accustomed to donald trump operating first from Self Interest and not National Interest doesnt make what were seeing today, tonight, what were seeing abroad tonight so riveting. The president of the United States preparing for the summit here with Vladimir Putin, kicking over rhetorical tables in the nato meetings when he knew this was coming, praising putin, saying that might be the easiest. Think back to that sound we heard earlier this week and our viewers may remember it. Donald trump saying of everything abroad this could be the easiest meeting. He was saying that at a time that today the doj confirms he knew. Why would it be an easy meeting if russian agents for the first time are going to be publicly confirmed as part of the felonious Criminal Hacking designed to impact the election . Malcolm, this is a very good point. Donald trump, if he knew that was happening, that easy meeting, which by the way nobody
else in the world thought would be the easiest meeting, just became harder. Now in addition to the list of things we dont know that donald trump will talk to Vladimir Putin about, theres zero chance that he cant have this discussion with Vladimir Putin or that a reasonable person would not have that discussion with the president of russia. Yeah, but youre talking about a reasonable person. On the other hand, were talking about donald trump. He is not a reasonable person when it comes to Vladimir Putin. This is where all of the suspicion lie. The president of the United States has been briefed on a spy activity within the United States. And let me emphasize, ken dilanian touched on it very well earlier. This indictment is a masterful piece of spy writing. If you Read Everything thats in there, there is some brilliant intelligence trade craft in there. You are looking at how intelligence becomes evidence. I mean great details in there. The president of the United States knew this. He knew we were about to indict
russian spies for attacking the american electoral system, but to him none of this matters because he lives in an ideological bubble where none of this is real. And thats where i think he has no problem going to Vladimir Putin. If he mentions it, it will be mentioned with a giggle, but that does not mean that we are safe. We are now seeing how the sausage of russian intelligence trade craft is made, but with a president of the United States who refuses to take any defensive actions against it. Its remarkable. Thanks very much to all three of you. All right, whos the congressional candidate whos referenced in this indictment . Msnbcs Garrett Haake is on the hill trying to chase this down. Garrett, this is important because it is relevant for americans to know and when Donald Trump Tells everybody this is a witch hunt, this went far and wide. It went to State Electoral Boards and right into congressional races. Tell us about this and tell us how we think what the outcome of this was. Reporter first its
important to point out that the universe of possible people who this possible candidate could be is enormous. It could be someone who was eliminated in a primary, it could be a democrat or republican. Weve been focusing on republicans given obviously it was only democratic emails that were ever leaked and it could have been a candidate to the house or the senate. Now, mueller and all the great reporters working on this story over the last few months have left us bread crumbs to follow. We know that there were bloggers in places like New Hampshire and florida who corresponded with the guccifer 2. 0 personality and released some of that information and we know other places the information turned up. One of those was in pennsylvania where there was information released through guccifer 2. 0 who was damaging to one democratic candidate. Weve seen congressman ryan costello, who is incidentally retiring at the ending of his term, come out on twitter pushing back on the speculation that it could have been him. Saying that he not only did not request this information but when it came to light that he
was not going to use it. Weve also been reaching out to members of congress on the republican side from florida where some of this information turned up after a local blogger got ahold of it. Spokes people for brian mast and Ron De Santis have said its not them. We will continue to work through this, ali, based in large part on where we know this information popped up, particularly after, as the Indictment Points out, this request came in in august. Is there since you said the universe of people to whom this could have referred is broad. First of all, to aris point earlier, were going to find out at some point if this is information Robert Mueller has. There may be another indictment or some other reference to it. More importantly, the people whose emails were hacked, did some of them lose . Did many of them lose . Did most of them lose . Just to get a sense of the impact of this sort of thing. Reporter it sort of depends. In the case that i mentioned in New Hampshire, there you had a democrat whose emails were hacked. It was a local blogger who
reached out to guccifer 2. 0 and that democrat held on to win. In florida, you do have republican members who ultimately defeated democratic challengers and held on in very, very competitive states where that kind of information might have been useful. Theres a New York Times report from late 2016 that points out that the chairman of the Democratic Congressional committee, his emails were hacked. He did not even face a serious challenger. So the russians dont make it easy for us in the sense that if their responses to this were not politically sophisticated, if they were willing to give information to anyone who asked, that makes the universe larger. Again, im focusing on those competitive races as we start to dig into this. You just mentioned that New York Times story. I want to have this conversation next so garrett ill catch up with you very shortly. The reports of russian meddling in other elections, not just the president ial elections, go back several years. As garrett just referred to, in December Of 2016 the new york
times reported, quote, Democratic House candidates were also targets of russian hacking. The piece reads but there was never anything quite like the 2016 Election Campaign when a handful of Democratic House candidates became targets of a russian influence operation that made thousands of pages of documents stolen by hackers from the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee in washington available to florida reporters and bloggers. With me now is a reporter of that piece, eric lipton. Eric, this is a story in my opinion of remarkable importance that you guys wrote back in 2016, but really underscores when people listen to the president carrying on about how this is a witch hunt, arguably against him, clearly thats not true, right . Enclosu clearly there were all sorts of people around the country targeted, but we have some specific instances. We know now from this indictment today that those same russians who were involved in hacking the Democratic National committee were hacking local candidates. Yeah, i think this was one of the underreported aspects of the russian hacking from 2016. We did write a story about it in December Of 2016. That was only at the point which individuals from the Democratic Congressional committee and the dnc were willing to talk to us in detail about what had happened. But what i learned back in December 2016 was i mean i have the states written down. Pennsylvania, illinois, New Hampshire, new mexico, ohio, north carolina. Each of those states, information that was taken from the democratic Parties Offices in washington was put out in those states in an effort to undermine Democratic House candidates. In my reporting i focused in tig on florida. A blogger whos a republican lobbyist, hes not a congressman, hes a republican lobbyist who wanted the republican candidate to win and who directly communicated with guccifer 2 who did not know was a russian agent, but he was asking guccifer 2 to provide him
documents relevant to the race in florida and he posted them on his website. That played a role in the campaign in that state. It became news. So again, i keep on using this reasonable person reference, but a reasonable person now has to say if this is a witch hunt against donald trump, is it also a witch hunt against random congressional candidates across the country or was this actually an effort to influence the outcome of an election in america . It was consistent the dirt that was spread to hurt people was dirt that was spread to hurt democrats. That was consistent. It was in every race in the house in which dirt was given out, it was stuff that was going to hurt the democrats. So theres nothing ambiguous about that. And what is alleged today is that that was a russian operation. We had information in December 2016 that was asserted to us it was a russian operation. Now we have it in an indictment. And it was fascinating to deconstruct how that happened, how it played out. Because the candidates involved,
who all of a sudden saw were confidential internal emails that the Democratic Party had assembled, what the Democratic Party had done is built essentially an Opposition Research on their own people to understand what their weaknesses were. That was what was hacked by the russians and then that negative dirty stuff on their own candidates was put out into the public domain. That hurt the candidates. One candidate in particular lost. Eric, this is the difficulty being an investigative reporter. You put out a story in December Of 2016 and now essentially that story comes out in an indictment today. You guys were very much ahead of that story and a very important and underreported story, so thank you for the hard work that you and your team at the New York Times did on that reporting. Eric lipton at the New York Times. President trump has landed in scotland after leaving behind another whirlwind again with americas closest ally. This Morning Trump and britains Prime Minister, theresa may, walked in Holding Hands for a joint Press Conference just after the british tabloid, the
sun published an interview under this headline, may has wrecked brexit, deal is off. I would have done it much differently. I actually told theresa may how to do it but she didnt agree with she didnt listen to me. What did she say . She didnt listen. No, i told her how to do it. I told her how to do it. She wanted to do a different route. So you would be prepared to walk away if they didnt give you the right terms . Oh, absolutely. I think what is going on is very unfortunate. All right. When trump was actually with the Prime Minister, as is often the case, he took a very different tone. I didnt criticize the Prime Minister. I have a lot of respect for the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, there was a story that was done, which was, you know, generally fine but it didnt put in what i said about the Prime Minister. And i said tremendous things. Fortunately, we tend to record
stories now so we have it for your enjoyment if youd like it, but we record when we deal with reporters. Its called fake news and we solve a lot of problems with the good old recording instrument. Which is really mysterious because you just heard the recording of it and President Trump on that recording. Throughout the day a reported 100,000 protesters marched against trump across the country, their country, by the way, with signs and props, including the giant trump baby blimp. Our reporters are on the ground covering all angles on the story. Joining me is Geoff Bennett from london and lucy kavanof. Geoff, the president singled out nbc for being faker news than anyone else today, referring to the fact that these conversations are recorded so we can prove that its fake, but it wasnt. Reporter ali, thats right. I should tell you i reached out to the White House Press office
at the president s public suggestion asking for copies of these recordings. No response yet. But look, as you mentioned, the president and Prime Minister walked into that Press Conference hand in hand. The two praised each others leadership. They said the u. S. And the uk would arrive at a trade deal just as soon as the uk exits the eu. It was by all accounts a perfectly choreographed Press Conference except for the fact that just 24 hours earlier, the president in that really incendiary interview he gave the sun, he undercut theresa may in really every way imaginable, suggesting that her plan for brexit wasnt good enough and that it would kill any hopes of a direct trade deal with the u. S. The president praising her rival, Boris Johnson, saying that he would make a good Prime Minister. The president also saying that Mass Immigration to europe has caused europe to lose its culture. Thats a phrase that has its root in the tenets of white nationalism. At the Press Conference the president walked back almost everything exempt what he had to say about immigration. He also said that boris whats his name, the Foreign Minister of Great Britain who resigned this week, would make a fantastic Prime Minister even though he resigned in protest of theresa may. These are live pictures, by the way, of the president and first lady getting off the plane in scotland. This is their next stop. This is glasgow, scotland. The president emerging from the plane in a very tight environment, as you can see. No one there other than some official on the other side of the car to greet him. Lucy, we watched nothing but protests all morning and afternoon in the uk, in london. What does glasgow hold . Reporter hey, ali. Well, donald trump has been touting his scottish roots and this is his scottish welcome. The front page of the daily record here says excuse us, mr. President , we dont want your hate, we dont want your greed, we dont want you. The scotland leg of the trip has been described as private, but we have seen we know that hes heading to his turnberry
golf course resort after the airport but we have seen very public displays of outrage here in glasgow. The pro Testify Htest has wrapp we are expecting large rallies tomorrow which we will cover for you. Its been a festive atmosphere but scots have been battling President Donald Trump for years over his construction of a golf course over protected sand dunes in aberdeen, his failed attempt to block an Offshore Wind Farm over that golf course, which he said ruined the views. Hes also not a fan of Scottish First minister nicholas sturgeon. She has previously called for a ban against his entry into the united kingdom. She said that he thought he should not be accorded a red carpet welcome. Hes certainly not being accorded one here. There are no meetings planned between the two leaders. In fact she will be leading a Gay Pride Parade tomorrow while he is at his turnberry resort. The president today again made that remark about how
immigration is somehow changing the fabric of europe, the culture of europe. Mr. Trumps mother was a scottish immigrant who migrated to the new world in search of better economic opportunities, a fact that is not lost on the people here behind me, ali. We know that he will not be hearing any of the protests here, he will of course be at his golf course preparing for that summit with mr. Putin. But we will certainly be at those demonstrations seeing how the scottish people react to the american president s visit. Geoff, in response to the calls from the dnc and from various democrats, including Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi, for donald trump to cancel the meeting with Vladimir Putin in helsinki, have we gotten an official response from the white house on that . Reporter everything were receiving so far is that this summit is going to happen as planned. I can tell you that the sense were getting is that white house officials believe its now more important than ever for the president to sit down with putin. But as has been pointed out before, the president in his Public Comments all week based
on when we know he was briefed this these indictments have been coming, has known about this. Hes talked about putin, hes answered questions on the record about what he will and may not say to Vladimir Putin when he sits down across the table from him. And remember today when asked in that Press Conference about whether or not hell press him on election meddling, the president was rather ambivalent and saying, look, youre not going to get your perry mason moment. Suggesting that putin will never admit to what the u. S. Intelligence Officials Say that he clearly did do. Yeah. Unfortunately there are a whole lot of people who would like a perry mason moment, given that we now have perry mason was never so lucky as to have an indictment that is this many pages long, 29 pages, full of detail. I mean donald trump doesnt actually need to do anything except perhaps put this in an envelope and slip it to Vladimir Putin and say just tell me what you think. He doesnt seem to be willing to do the most basic thing necessary in helsinki, and the problem is the list is getting longer of things that a
president of the United States needs to confront the president of russia about. Reporter the president has this bizarre if not curious deference to Vladimir Putin. I think we would all be surprised if he goes to helsinki and gives an interview to a local helsinki press, the kind of interview that he gave to the sun about theresa may in advance of that sitdown. That likely will not happen. The president has never criticized Vladimir Putin in the way hes criticized our own allies, justin trudeau, emmanuel macron, Angela Merkel and now british Prime Minister theresa may. Geoff, thanks very much. Bill neely joins us now from Harbor Square in london where the protesters seem to have finally dispersed. Bill . Reporter yes. It wasnt just the rain, the protests here are now over, although as youve heard from lucy, they are only just beginning in scotland where donald trump now is after, well,
a contentious visit here to london which ended with this headline from londons main evening newspaper. No, mr. President. Weve just seen, ali, the biggest Protest March against any visiting president. Not just a u. S. President , any president , chinese, from the soviet union in the 1970s. Tens of thousands of people October Streeon the streets here protesting against the politician donald trump, the President Donald Trump, and many people here just object to the person donald trump, because a lot of the posters here were saying trumps a racist, trumps a misogynist, and so on. He also today had tea with the queen. He did keep her waiting for ten minutes. Shes 92 years old, in the sunshine. However, she didnt seem to hold that against him because their tea went on for an extra 17 minutes. Maybe she offered him a second cup of tea. Look, this is all flimflam
because the Main Business was the extraordinary News Conference with the british Prime Minister theresa may after donald trump had trashed her in an interview with britains biggest sort of biggest read newspaper, the sun, in which he said that she had mishandled the negotiations On Britains Exit with the european union, that he didnt listen to her advice and he suggested an alternative Prime Minister in boris skraunsjohnson, the guy w walked away from theresa mays government. In that News Conference he said twice that Boris Johnson would make a good Prime Minister but he also lavished praise on theresa may and suggested that there would be a trade deal coming between britain and the u. S. So look, every donald trump visit seems to be contentious these days. We have the g7 summit, we had the nato summit, and now this visit to americas closest ally, britain. Of course, as you say, ahead is the summit with Vladimir Putin
and the political establishment here and indeed across europe really worried about that summit because who knows what President Trump may suggest to President Putin. Many here deeply, deeply worried about russias relationship with europe and what its trying to do with nato, ali. That was wild when the president suggested Boris Johnson would make a great Prime Minister. The president is known to say those kinds of things, but generally not while standing next to the current serving Prime Minister or leader of a country. That was quite unusual. But everything is unusual these days. Bill, good to see you as always. Thank you for spending the day with us. Breaking news now, Senator John Mccain has just released a statement on todays indictment in the mueller investigation. It reads, quote, President Trump must be willing to confront putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world. If President Trump is not prepared to hold putin accountable, the summit in helsinki should not move forward. Were going to bring you more reaction as it comes. I will note that at the top of john mccains lengthy statement, he does say todays indictment is a result of the hard work of americas Law Enforcement and intelligence officials who dedicate their lives to bringing justice to those who wish to do us harm. Interesting that no such comment has come from the administration. There is no, hey, great job, guys. You guys have really been working on this stuff. A major new detail, by the way, buried in this 29page indictment is about communication between an american, who was in regular contact with senior members of the Trump Campaign, and guccifer 2. 0. The indictment reads on or about august 15, 2016, the conspirators, posing as guccifer 2. 0 wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the president ial campaign of donald j. Trump and it quotes some of that correspondence saying thank you for writing back. Do you find anything interesting in the docs i posted. On or about august 17, 2016, the
conspirators posing as guccifer 2. 0 added please tell me if i can help you anyhow, it would be a great pleasure to meet. The exact quote has appeared on screen shots of messages to former Trump Campaign advisor, roger stone, which he has released and acknowledged. Joining me now is former Trump Campaign advisor sam nunberg. Thank you for having me. Sam, you said on here, i think maybe with katy or alex witt that you thought that roger stone is in legal jeopardy. Yes. That he would face indictment. Do you stand by that . Yes, i thought he would face indictment possibly for a financial issue but it steeeems me that what the mueller team has done here, they now have shown that there is a conspiracy, they have indicted people on a conspiracy and perhaps theyre next going to say that roger, because of his contact with guccifer, was part of that conspiracy. What i would say to that, ali, as i said consistently. I had continue fights with roger
about this issue because i said to roger, you should not be in contact with these people. Roger said i dont even believe its russia. He genuinely said that to me. So i said good luck. Good luck arguing with this. Hes now seeing the indictment. So roger at one point you had said that you told roger he shouldnt be in touch with wikileaks. With them in particular. And he said that he that came out of a phone call that you and he had on a friday and that he was just joking. He said he was going to london to talk to wikileaks. And you are saying thats what you heard. I also also, remember, when he spoke to me on that particular conversation, as i have said, when he spoke to me, he said to me that he had met with Julian Assange, he now says that he was joking. I figured that it wasnt true after the fact. I immediately my kneejerk reaction was did you get any information on benghazi . He said, no, theres going to be information about the clinton foundation. And wikileaks did not release information about either or. But in terms of guccifer, he wrote something i think on
breitbart as well. I said why do you have your hands involved in this . Right. Now, the important issue to say is, and ive told this to the grand jury, he continually argued with me that it was not he did not believe it was russia. He did not believe guccifer 2. 0 was russia or the email leaks were russia . Either or. He did not believe the hacking came from russia. I believe that. First of all, i said, one, youre wrong. Number two, go argue with our Intelligence Community. Who did he think guccifer 2. 0 was . I think it was seth rich, if i recall. Which is ridiculous. Thats another problem ive had in terms of early on was us, meaning us republicans, suddenly making Julian Assange as if hes a hero when we were criticizing him and calling for him to be frankly bunker busted sometimes as Hillary Clinton did when he released the snowden files. You were on our air and a lot of tv in and around may. Roger stone was very critical of that. He had all sorts of things to say about you and your reliability as someone with information. What all happened there . You were on a bit of a media tear for a while. First of all, i think that roger was personally and he should not be was personally insulted. I said i cant talk to him. Its better for him that i do not talk to him frankly. You saw what happened to manafort. Right . With manafort trying to have contact. Im out for him and his interests. We, i would say us trump associates, trump folks, we have weird way, we fight, this is nothing abnormal. I didnt take it personally, frankly. Look, trump insulted me on twitter. Whatever. But he implied that you werent to be relied upon. Well, thats okay. I mean i would say to him that thats you know, its inaccurate. Certainly the mueller people think i can be reliable. As ive said, ive given 100
accurate testimony. Ive fully cooperated. I was always going i was going to the grabbed jund jury found it onerous to produce these documents in a short time. Ive like this in history. This is historic an indictment like this is released three days before our president is going to meet, i guess he calls himself the president of russia. I dont like him. Thats highly unusual. There are a whole bunch of people l calling for the president to cancel this meeting. I have the opposite opinion. You think he should go in with this document . Yes. I think they shouldnt have released this today. I think they could have waited it. It was certainly under seal. They advised him. What can the white house do if they once rosenstein comes to the white house, comes to john kelly or President Trump, how can President Trump, when he if its not theoretically a target although i believe he is. Hes somewhat of a subject if they want to interview him. How can they say please dont release this . A there is a lot leaked out. Youre a advisor. What do you know about contact with russia . You were advising roger stone not to have communication, that you thought he was having with russia. Maybe he believed he wasnt or maybe he was lying. Were not sure of that yet. But do you know that russians were influencing the Trump Campaign or at least attempting to . I believe our Intelligence Community thats what i base it on. When this was reported and when i saw during the election that well, it was very late, but then Secretary Johnson was going to release that statement. But if theyre already telling us it was the russians, of course knowing putin is very, you know, hes vindictive himself. He would say we did this to him, he would do this to us. With that said, once we go over my role about this, the mueller people on this, i wasnt exactly on good terms with them. Right. Once again, why are you getting involved in things like this . And we have here is we dont know where this will go. And this, once again, this is a criticism by Me Of Mueller and rosenstein. I dont think this indictment should have been released ahead of the meeting. Today. Correct. The president should now that he has it, he has to do something about it. Sam nunberg is a Trump Campaign advisor. I want to take you back to the campaign we were talking about. Donald trump referenced wikileaks in his final month of campaigning. Heres every one of them. Wikileaks, wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks. That came out on wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks. I love reading those wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks, right . Wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks. Thats wikileaks. Did you see on wikileaks . Wikileaks. Wikileaks. Wikileaks
wikileaks so it came out through Wikileaks Wikileaks. Wikileaks wikileaks. Wikileaks is fascinating. The wikileaks revelations. Wikileaks. Wikileaks Wikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks Wikileaks shows how crooked the whole thing is. Wikileaks wikileaks is unbelievable. You see all of these wikileaks i leaks Wikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks Wikileaks wikileaks now from wikileaks did you see what came out over wikileaks . Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks wikileaks now from wikileaks, oh, we love Wikileaks Wikileaks weve learned so much from Wikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks Wikileaks just came out with lots of really unbelievable things. Wikileaks Wikileaks WikileaksWikileaks WikileaksWikileaks Wikileaks wikileaks, again, nobody is covering which can i jeeikileak Wikileaks Wikileaks, wikileaks document wikileaks just came out today wikileaks emails. Wikileaks, right . Wikileaks, wikileaks, Wikileaks Wikileaks wikileaks this wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. Wikileaks Wikileaks WikileaksWikileaks Wikileaks, i love wikileaks we have to go back to wikileaks, oh, Wikileaks Wikileaks wikileaks, all you have to do is take a look at wikileaks kind of the end of the wikileaks things. Joining us is federal prosecutor Glenn Kirchner and nbc news
analyst danny savalas. Good to see both of you stuff. This is dense, its tidy. It says on page 7 and 8, Spear Fishing emails. On or about july 2017, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spear fish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a thirdparty provider and used by clintons personal office. At or around the same time they also targeted 76 email addresses at the domain from the clinton campaign. This is, of course, after donald trump called for wikileaks to get information on Hillary Clinton. What do you make that of . Ali, first of all, i may have heard the president Mention Wikileaks if im not mistaken. And i do think moving forward if we have another indictment that, you know, almost certainly will come after this indictment, that directly mentions and implicates
wikileaks, thats going to be a real problem for the president. Ali, let me make two points about the indictment that dropped today and one point about extradition. Whether these 12 Russian Military operatives will ever see the inside of an american courtroom. The first point with respect to the indictment, after 30 years as a federal prosecutor, i spent countless hours in grand juries prosecuting cases. There is yet another indictment that has emerged 7. It doesnt mean this is the end of the game. There will be future indictments to emerge im quite confident. In our larger criminal investigations, rico investigations, rack tier corruption, we will indict these cases in a series of indictments. Thats not unusual. The second thing about indictments is, first of all, we
should understand what an indictment is and what it isnt. An indictment is only a determination by probable cause by the grand jurors that these individuals committed these crimes. But there is sort of a little known policy that governors our work before the grand jury. The Department Of Justice says that if we have any evidence or information that undercuts or contradicts what we are asking the grand jury to vote on, we are obliged to present that. Right. So, if there was any exculpatory information, the grand jury would have had that, too, when they were deciding whether there was enough evidence to indict. So this is a really interesting point. I want to bring danny into this. This is an indictment, not a conviction f. There were convictions, who is indicted today is going to jail . Theyre russian intelligence agents. But while everybody tells you you can indict a ham sandwich, the bottom line is this is the best evidence that we have about what the federal government and the Department Of Justice knows about this activity. So, you can take it that somebody is pretty sure they can
defend this in court if they had to. Yes, you have a connection between the russian government and the assault on the election system. And i think whats really compelling about this, you know, we talk about indicting a ham sandwich. Federal prosecutors, in fairness to them, you can also argue by the time they get to the grand jury, especially in the federal system, they built their case up to such a degree that federal grand juries indict not because its just so easy to indict. Its because they built a mountain of evidence. And what theyve done here is built a gigantic circumstantial case. And i say circumstantial in the sense that its strong, very strong circumstantial evidence. But in the case of hacking and these kinds of allegations, theyre not necessarily going to be able to pull a video of somebody sitting down to hack a computer. They are going to have to smoking gun is different. Smoking gun is a little different. Make no mistake about it. Evidentiary value is just as powerful. Glenn, real quick because were running out of time. I want to ask you for people who say there is still no evidence of collusion, basically the
white houses argument. Sure something happened, but it wasnt us, wasnt the Trump Campaign. Can one still say there is no evidence of collusion or is it just because in the indictment the other side is not discussed or not named or maybe didnt know they were talking to russians or didnt know they were involved in a crime . How do you evaluate that . Exactly. I think this is yet another step on the road to the American People seeing evidence of collusion. Once bob mueller finishes his investigation. If i have time, with respect to whether these Russian Military officers will see the inside of a courtroom, we have no Extradition Treaty with russia so really the only thing the president can do when he meets with President Putin is say, you know, i have one thing to say to you and one thing only. We now have in the criminal Justice System in america 12 of your military officers under criminal indictment for attempting to interfere in our election. And you either turn them over to us so they can stand trial, or i get back on the plane and i leave. Thats what we would hope our american president would do. Glenn, you and i are going to