russian social media effort was intended to reinforce tribalism, polarize and divide and normalize points of view advantageous to the russian government from social issues to political candidates and it was designed to exploit societal fractures, blur the lines of reality and fiction, erode our trust in media, in government, in each other and in democracy itself. you have characterized this as the most serious attack on the u.s. since 9/11. look. i think that s right. it s like a it s akin to a state-sponsored terrorism going to the core democratic institutions. it is a 21st century style terrorism. imagine russia figured out how to lean in to voting machines and change the votes. it wouldn t have been all that different. as ken points out, it s a little bit imponderable how successful it was. it was somewhat successful certainly and just the p
ali. remarkable. ken, thank you for your reporting. ma am come, of course, for being on top of this since before the election. joining me now, nbc news legal analyst mimi roacha and larry. mimi, you said earlier today, the degree to which the trump campaign and the russians or trump and the surrogates and the russians using similar tactics targeting similar groups with the same ends. you said it s what prosecutors call circumstantial evidence with the same goals and similar methods. right. exactly, ali. look. there are differences but you cannot ignore the fact that we now know definitively despite trump s xlams claims to the co russia was trying to get trump elected. trump was trying to get elected. the goals are the same. not everything that the campaign
and his subsequent successor party. it was, in fact, a russia-aligned party, but very different and, in fact, i would point out that it did reach all the way up, this work reach all the way up to almost the very beginning of the u.s. presidential campaign in 2016. so, you can see why the line might blur, but manafort s supporters and his lawyers argue that that work and that the effort to hide the alleged effort to hide the money that was made, the millions, tens of millions of dollars that were made from that work have nothing to do with his work on the u.s. presidential campaign. paul butler, it seems pretty clear in this case prosecutors have been trying to get manafort to basically tell them what he knows. they didn t necessarily want to get to this point, but manafort has dug in, perhaps holding out for a pardon. we don t know. but as ken points out, these charges are different from a potential case of collusion or obstruction on the president s part. they have very little to
supporters and his lawyers argue that that work and that the effort to hide the alleged effort to hide the money that was made, the millions, tens of millions of dollars that were made from that work have nothing to do with his work on the u.s. presidential campaign. paul butler, it seems pretty clear in this case prosecutors have been trying to get manafort to basically tell them what he knows. they didn t necessarily want to get to this point, but manafort has dug in, perhaps holding out for a pardon. we don t know. but as ken points out, these charges are different from a potential case of collusion or obstruction on the president s part. they have very little to do with mueller s mandate, which is to investigate conspiracy to defraud the united states, which is the criminal version of collusion and obstruction of justice. so what manafort is charged with are financial crimes relating to his own business. it s clear, though, based on the way mueller is prosecuting this case, wit
was just following madoff s instructions. ken, is six years enough of a punishment? actually, reverend, i think it is. i think it was eminently fair that this judge recognized this particular defendant may not have known what was going. on she was willfully blind. that s what the judge said. which indicates that she might not have known the illegal activity that s were going on all around her. she had been brought up in that firm since a teenager so it sounds to me like the judge was very fair. actually getting a sentence less than the defense attorney asks for. it shows the judge recognized that a punishment was needed but also that it needed to be fair base the on this factual situation. as ken points out, her own attorney was surprised with the sentence. he had argued that a term of eight to ten years would be sufficient punishment. and at the sentencing he said