occurred in court. this is the first press conference and the lead prosecutor wasn t there. exactly. that was certainly significant. in contrast to every other indictment in this special counsel probe, rod rosenstein comes out and speaks. i think the most traditional interpretation would be because this involves national security and foreign actions and foreign espionage that there was a need to do it at the higher level and we are told brief the president as well. i think the secondary interpretation is given what s going on rod rosenstein decided he wanted to be on board with this clearly in his personal presence and he wanted to be on camera literally speaking to the nation, either because he thinks that s the right thing given the import or in combination of the fact he wants to show he s behind this. and if the day should come, and lord knows it s come for other
material missing in this case, what he calls wire fraud and identity fraud, that is in this theory what the russians were up to and he s saying he s on the case. jill wine-banks you have written indictments, you have read indictments. what went through your mind today as you were reading this one? this one is extremely detailed. i think it s written for the american public to understand how deeply in danger america is from the russian meddling in our elections. it s also i think a way of protecting rosenstein and mueller because of what they ve done, and it s also showing that there s a reason why there s been an obstruction of justice. we now have proof that the russians meddled, and that there was, at least unwitting cooperation with americans, including trump campaign aides, unwitting as it s alleged now. but that s not the end of it. just because this indictment doesn t set it forth, does not mean that there s not another
indictment. and really proves what the intelligence agencies said over a year ago. proves what the intelligence agencies said and what donald trump has been denying on an almost weekly basis which is that the russians interfered in our election. and it demonstrates how. they spent millions of dollars a month to take on, undermine hillary clinton and support donald trump and other candidates. and i think the reality here is that it s hard to say what impact they had, although when 71,000 votes are at stake, the idea that millions of dollars spent by a foreign government on a monthly basis had zero impact i find really hard to believe. david frum, we did get a presidential reaction to this news today from bernie sanders, who issued he was one of the people that the russians were trying to help in the primaries against hillary clinton. he issued a statement of outrage about what the russians did.
win wine-banks, ari melber, and ben w wittes. ari, i know you have been studying this indictment and talking about it a great deal on the network today, including talking about it while studying it. as it stands tonight, now that you ve had a little bit of time to breathe and digest it, give us your frame the significance of this indictment for us. you re right, lawrence. i m happier to do it here with you live on the last word because i don t have to talk while reading it, which is happening in the news room with breaking news. this is a turning point, february 16, 2018 is a day in american his wrtory, a day wher
evidence. that s exactly right. thank you, my friend. thank you, rachel. thanks. president trump found something that he liked. that he really liked about the witch hunt today. he found something that he believes, something the witch hunters told him today that he really, really likes and believes. here is the president s favorite line to come out of the witch hunt so far and it appears on page 3 of that 37-page indictment filed by special prosecutor robert mueller against 13 russian individuals and three russian organizations accusing them of craig melvinly, quote, interfering with the u.s. political and electoral processes, including the election of 2016. the president has called this investigation a witch hunt witch hunt so we know there s no such thing as a witch, a witch hunt