percentage of the public. i think there are americans out there who, when mueller brings out indictments, they support his investigation and they re curious to see what details he has. david, we have a lot to get to tonight. thank you so much for taking time to speak to us. you took a big risk writing a book on the russia connections early on, but so far everything that seems to be coming out was already said in your book. so congratulations on that. we appreciate your insights. thanks a lot. thanks so much. next up, russian a temtttemp undermine u.s. democracy have been going on a lot longer the past few years. under communism the ussr marketed itself as a russian workers pair dies, it was on the far left. under putin it seems to have changed track targeting people and institutions from the right. we have people inside. think mueller investigation. that s next.
i ve never once been asked to do anything by any russian going against my conscious or betray my country. what do you think that there are americans who are walking in lock step with this russian movement? i think they are just putting their views before their country, before the ideals that built this country, and it s really sad that they can do that. do you think what s happening in russia could transfer back here? i m very scared that that will happen here, and in some senses, it s kind of happening. sadly, that appears to be true. according to reports from the anti-violence project that documents hate crimes, last year was the most dangerous year on record for the lgbt community here in the states. we ll be right back.
national who is involved in politics. there is simply nothing illegal that happened. the u.s. government disagrees. a top intelligence source told us butina was very much the real deal. but folks at the virginia gun show we visited were unimpressed. it doesn t bother you that this woman was allegedly working for the russians no, because we re probably doing the same thing. you know, we re making it sound like the united states doesn t do any of this stuff. the united states does it everywhere. and that may be the real victory for the russians, persuading americans, at least some americans, that meddling in u.s. politics is no big deal. one lesson we learned the hard way is that the russians are really good at finding and exploiting the open wounds in our society, zeroing in on the issues that divide us and then driving a wedge right through them. issues like race, immigration,
advance military and great power ambition tz, could have had the same idea? did we ever stop to think the same work on americans? well, maybe they did. maybe they worked very well to win the hearts and minds of president trump s supporters, the people who back and evangelical christians. in recent years, russia reinvented itself as a bash tan of christian conservative values, and many christian conservatives seem to want to understand. do they know what kind of an example it is? here s a scary thought. maybe they do. it s almost 3:00 a.m. inside the central station club in st. petersberg, one of the few places in russia it s safe to be gay and out.
in politics, money buys access. and simon kukis got his money s worth. the russian-born american businessman donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to donald trump s 2016 run. that got him and his young russian girlfriend right up close to the future president. in political circles, no one had ever heard of simon kukes before. he s an american citizen and he s never given a political contribution. robert meyer works at the center for wisconsin politics. suddenly he starts giving to trump allies, joint fund raising kmeetz, republican party committees and to the trump campaign itself. mcguire and his team tracked donations to both parties. 99.9% of americans give $2700 or less. that s the maximum you re allowed to donate directly to a candidate.