was he in touch with the chief strategist steve bannon? yes, as far as i know, yes. i know steve bannon, michael flynn. he was in touch with michael flynn, general flynn? yes, as well. what do you make of that, malcolm? well, what i think is fascinating is she is giving voice to what we already believed the muller investigation had. we re just getting more color in depth. we re not going to hear about this from muller until muller starts indicting other people, right? right. that s a man of action. he does not mince words. he comes out and hits you with an indictment. she s letting us know principle players on the donald trump junior e-mails that were carbon copies, that were carbon copies on the k.t. mcelderry mcfarland memo, all of these peoplefarland of these people will move up to the top at some point and muller is doing it in silence.
then-candidate clinton. thousands of clinton e-mails. now, remember, we already know that russian hackers had breached the democratic national committee twice, including in march of last year. just a month before papadopoulos spoke with this professor. now, may, papadopoulos e-mails a high-ranking trump campaign official, who cnn has learned was paul manafort. it reads in part, quote, russia has been eager to meet mr. trump for quite some time and have been reaching out to me to discuss. manafort forwarded that e-mail to another campaign official, who cnn has learned is rick gates, writing, quote, we need someone to commute that d.t. is not doing these trips. it should be someone low level in the campaign so as not send any signals. now we come back to a familiar date, which is june 3rd. publicist rob goldstone e-mails donald trump jr. saying the russian government is working to help his father s campaign, saying a kremlin connected lawyer can deliver dirt on hillary clinton and wants
and now he s talked about that meeting on television. in retrospect, i probably would have done things differently. again, this is before the russia mania and before they were building it up in the press. this was opposition research that had maybe some concrete stories that i had been hearing about but were underreported for, for years. so i wanted to hear it out. but it went nowhere and it was apart that wasn t what the meeting was about. for all the claims, the new york times reporting has been spot on. as for the other tweet claiming a witch hunt, we go to the senate confirmation hearings for the president s own pick to head the fbi. in light of the don, junior e-mails that this is a witch hunt, is that a fair description of what we re all dealing with in america? senator, i can t speak to the basis for those comments. my experience i m asking you as the future
e-mail chain where somebody in the campaign in this case the president s son knew the person walking through the door or thought the person walking through the door represented official government circles from a hostile power. all this the rest of this is who knew what when, did don junior think this was a good idea, 13 months ago, i don t think that s the story. you cannot walk into a meeting with someone you thinks a representative of a hostile foreign power and accept information about a rival political party in the united states. you can t do it. julia pays, how is the white house dealing with all of this? we know their public persona and a couple of tweets that the president has sent out and then we read reports of what s going on internally? in talking to white house officials yesterday and also trump allies outside the building, there is a shift in the way that they were discussing this matter with the don junior e-mails versus other revelations that have come out
good work and unfortunately they re engaged in verbal gymnastics trying to distance themselves from this or trying to say let s let the investigation play out and they can t get their lettingive accomplishments done and i think that s important. i think the credibility issue right now is important and it s putting a stop on making the ability for republicans to have legislative accomplishments. get it all out there, put it behind us and move on to what the american people really care about. there you go. thanks for being here. the kremlin says there is no proof russia interfered in the u.s. election. they say that these donald junior e-mails should be dismissed and there s nothing to investigate. that s the kremlin. is that a legitimate basis for defense on these matters? what does this mean to our democracy? we will hear from former cia and nsa director michael hayden next.