our live coverage from houston starts now. welcome to houston, texas, as you know, i mainly report from overseas, this time i m here for a story that s both foreign and domestic. and yes it involves president trump and russia. in particular, why is it that some of president trump s most devoted supporters seem to like putin s russia. i ve been twrafling in the states, i went to a gun show, i spoke to folks from the christian right. and what surprised me, even when they see all of the reporting about russia s attempts to influence our election, and they know that every one of our intelligence agencies reported putin sent his trolls to influence our election. their answer is, so what? when and why did some on the american right fall in love with putin s russia.
contact. look, here i am with all these powerful political figures. i don t buy that. it s all related to trump. to me, this reads like an e-mail exchange between a source and a handler, or a source and headquarters. only hours after donald trump became the 45th president of the united states, kukis received an e-mail from moscow. congratulations. how is your mood, when are we going to see each other? i mean that speaks volumes. trump won the election. the efforts worked. the plan worked. again, this does not strike me as two old friends who want to get together for a few vodka shots. it seems more conspiratorial to you? much more. the whole tone of the e-mails is conspiratorial. do you think these donations were part of a russian campaign to influence the election and
help president trump? absolutely. after reading this e-mail exchange, i have nary a doubt. we wanted to ask simon kukis about his background and this mysterious e-mail exchange. why was he offering political briefings to a russian official. and why did he send those photos? was he just bragging? look at how close i got to a presidential candidate or was there more to it? unfortunately, he wouldn t talk to us, he did send us an e-mail. he thought donations would help him make contacts in houston. given all this press, i am very sorry i made the contributions. an rnc official confirmed kukis did attend trump fund-raisers. a spokesman for the trump campaign told us that simon kukis never had a role there many and the russian official he was reportedly exchanging these e-mails with, he didn t respond