russia and the soviet union did in the past, that comparison does not stand up well. and i have no idea why the president would try to do something like that. yeah. susan, i want to get your take on paul whelan, the arrest of paul whelan, a 48-year-old arrested in russia on charges of spying. the arrest comes 15 days after the alleged russian spy maria butina pleaded guilty in u.s. federal court. is this payback for the butina prosecution? well, look, the timing obviously of these two events strongly suggests there s some sort of a linkage. this is a very unusual spy case compared to those we ve seen recently play out in the sense that the russians have not given us more specific details. they allege that this american was caught in the midst of some sort of an espionage act, but they haven t given us any more evidence. when i was in moscow as a correspondent and there was a case involving british diplomats, they immediately trotted out on television
butina pleaded guilty in u.s. federal court. is this payback for the butina prosecution? well, look, the timing obviously of these two events strongly suggests there s some sort of a linkage. this is very unusual spy case compared to those we ve seen recently play out in the sense that the russians have not given us more specific details. they allege that this american was caught in the midst of some sort of an espionage act, but they haven t given us any more evidence. when i was in moscow as a correspondent and there was a case involving british diplomats, they immediately trotted out on television videotape footage, extensive allegations about what the alleged spies did. that s not been the case here. new details are still emerging about the biography and background of paul whelan and, you know, it doesn t really add up for me right now. someone suggested to me earlier tonight that perhaps president
she pleaded not guilty on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. also taking pains to try to distance this case from what s going on with robert mueller s investigation. he insisted this is not a spy case and his client should not be treated as a proxy between the issues being carried out right now. i want to go straight to the former cia operative bob bears, what she did here, how significant it was, allegations, sex for political access. romantic relationship with a political operative. apparently that she said she didn t want to be with. do these allegations surprise you? what the russians have done, what the kgb has done, a prostitu prostitute, run them into political figures looking for military officers of the nra, torshin, in fact, is a kgb
pleaded not guilty. now, one of the arguments the lawyer made in court is that this is not a spy case. he insisted, wolf, needs to be treated differently and what is happening with special counsel mueller s investigation, what is happening with those russians, he said she should not be treated as a proxy for the difficult situation of russia. if you read the 17-page document the government released today, government memorandum in support of pretrial it read like a spy novel. it does. thank you. after the white house is forced to clean up another one of the president s comments of russia targeting the united states, president trump goes on the record about what he told russia s vladimir putin and asked if the u.s. is prepared to defend newest nato members, president trump raised serious doubts of the commitment to u.s. allies. stay with us. you re in the situation room.
against her. in fact, this is really not a spy case. she was practically taking out bill boards to advertise her as vok casey on behalf of russia. her lawyer says she s not a russian agent. that she s been cooperating with various entities for months. that she agreed to testify privately for eight hours before the senate intelligence committee, produced thousands of documents, so he says this is a misuse of the law, which is designed to punish covert propaganda, not open and public networking. that s her defense in court. basically at the behest of this russian oligarch. a member of the russian government. a former legislator in the russian parliament. and according to the government, he was basically tasking her, urging her to become more