investigation. i can imagine that agents were extremely reluctant to open an investigation against the president of the united states and would do so only after extreme scrutiny and very high level approval. and so, there are certain things that we know. the event, perhaps, the firing of jim comey and statements made to lester holt. but quite possibly, there are additional facts unknown to the public at this point. mike, i have a bunch of lightning round questions for you, some of which just came up in our conversation now. do we know for a fact that all this became, slid into, morphed into what is known as the mueller inquiry, or aredly any other subsets of an fbi inquiry that may already be open? this was all taken in by mueller. you have to remember, this happen eed all in a short perio of time. comey fired in may of 2016 and in the days after, this
extraordinary, but one thing that i think is quite likely is that we have all of these public facts that we know.ve it is quite likely that the fbi had additional facts as well that caused them to make this decision to open this investigation. i can imagine that agents were extremely reluctant to open an investigation against the president of the united states and would do so only after extreme scrutiny and very high level approval. and so there s certain things that we know. the triggering event, perhaps, the firing of jim comey and statements mad, to lester holt but additional facts unknown to the public at this point. lightning round questions, some of which came up in the conversation just now. do we know for a fact that all this became slid into, morphed into what is known is the mueller inquiry or any other subsets of an fbi inquiry that may already be open?
i can imagine that agents were extremely reluctant to open an investigation against the president of the united states and would do so only after extreme scrutiny and very high level approval and so there s certain things that we know. the event, perhaps, the firing of jim comey and statements made to lester holt but additional facts unknown to the public at this point. lightning round questions, some of which came up in thenow. do we know for a fact that all became slid into, morphed into what is known is the mueller inquiry or any other subsets of an fbi inquiry that may already be open? this was all taken in by mueller. you have to understand, this happens all in a short period of time. comey fired in may of 2016 and the days of this investigation is started, several days later, it comes out trump asked comey
obstruction of justice in a money laundering case, which is separate from the mueller inquiry. this new indictment alleges she was, quote, intentionally misleading and fabricating evidence from the russian government. nbc s richard engel, who interviewed veselnitskaya earlier this year and explains the significance of today s development. in 2016 when veselnitskaya was in new york attending that famous trump tower meeting with don junior, jared kushner, paul manafort, and others, she was also there helping one of her clients who was in new york being charged with money laundering. what we uncovered was an exchange of e-mails in which natalia veselnitskaya was exchanging drafts of the official russian government response to the u.s. justice department s request for information. at the time, she never disclosed that she was helping the russian
separate from the mueller inquiry. this new indictment alleges she was, quote, intention sally misleading in fabbri gaiting ri evidence. rich engel interviewed veselnitskaya and describes the significance of today s development. in 2016 when veselnitskaya was in new york attending the famous trump tower meeting with don junior, jared kushner, paul manafort, and others, she was also there helping one of her clients who was in new york being charged with money laundering. what we uncovered was an exchange of e-mails in which natalia veselnitskaya was exchanging drafts of the official russian government response to the u.s. justice department s request for information. at the time, she never disclosed that she was helping the russian government craft its official