previously he was the moscow bureau chief for "the washington post" for four years. and also with us joy reid, msnbc national correspondent and the host of "a.m. joy" on weekends on msnbc. ken dilanian, i want you to take us over what nbc news is reporting tonight, adding to all of this. >> absolutely, lawrence. and first i want to be very clear about one thing. jeff sessions adamantly denies that he had a meeting with sergey kislyak at that mayflower hotel event. his spokesman denies it on the record. and this is one of the reasons, you know, i've known about this and i've been reporting on this meeting for a while as i think have some other reporters in this town. and there has been a lot of haziness about what exactly congressional investigators were learning. and that's why i was really glad to see senator al franken on your show last night go on the record and say look, we have reason to believe, that's the phrase he used, that this was not as had been first reported. recall that this was a speech that donald trump gave during the primary, sponsored by a russian

thousands of people from moscow to st. petersburg taking part in opposition rallies, speaking out against corruption and the kremlin. now, police have detained dozens of people, including the man who called for the protest, opposition leader alexei navalny. nbc's richard engel is live for us in moscow. richard, we know these protests were i guess technically authorized, isn't that right? >> reporter: yes and no. some of the protests had been authorized, but they were only authorized for specific locations. and then at the last minute, alexei navalny said to his protesters, to his supporters, that he didn't want to hold some of these protests in the places where they had been allocated, evidently because he couldn't get any service providers to provide p.a. systems, sound stages, platforms. so he said, we can't really hold the demonstrations in the places where we're allowed to hold them, so we're going to change course. so what he did is he called on his demonstrators, on his supporters, to join festivities taking place in

the case will take us from moscow to rome to london into a world of spies and spy catchers of corruption and those who dare to expose it. a world in which murder happens often. >> was there a hit list in mind? >> i'm sure there was. >> but our story begins closer to home on a late winter evening an intelligence analyst was driving to his house just outside washington, d.c. it was quiet and dark. >> i got in my car. two men waiting in the bushes. they jumped me. one man i fought with and we ended up on the ground in a tussle. and this one man said to someone else i didn't see, shoot him. so i covered my heart with my arms and turned to the side and a shot went through me. >> oneshot? >> one shot and then i heard the click. >> another click? >> and nothing happened. >> so you are shot once. you are rolling to protect yourself. >> i hear a chamber to clear it. it has gone jammed. at that point in time the lights went on in my house. >> his wife elizabeth heard the commotion. >> i heard a shot. that flipped me out. i knew it was a gunshot. i knew it was a gunshot and i knew it was close. >>

the other main reason the obama administration, quote, ruled out any other action against moscow is because they feared what putin might do in response about the election. they feared that putin, quote, was prepared to go beyond fake news and e-mail dumps. quote, the fbi had detected suspected russian attempts to penetrate election systems in 21 states, and a the least one senior white house official assumed that moscow would try all 50, officials said. according to the post, as brazen as the russian attacks on the election seemed, obama and his top advisers feared that things could get far worse. moscow's meddling to that point was seen as deeply concerning but unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the election. far more worrisome to the obama team was the prospect of a cyber assault on voting systems before and on election day. clearly they didn't have a lot on the russians, which appears to be a considerable amount of stuff they could have thrown. part of the reason they didn't do anything to russia about this before the election was because of how it would politically play here i

took his beauty pageant over to moscow. said he wanted to be vladimir putin's best friend. campaigned for the presidency, never saying a bad word about vladimir putin. russians had a massive hack of targets within the united states to try to tip the election in the assessment of our intelligence agencies toward donald trump. donald trump becomes president, fires the fbi director investigating the interference in the election. and then on his first trip abroad, does precisely what moscow has sought for a long time, which is place strains in the western alliance. this could be the fishiest looking set of coincidences ever, but i think robert mueller is going to sort that out. >> and renato gets the question. at what point does all of this fishiness become attempted obstruction? is it the fiing of the fbi director or something else? you have prosecuted these cases. have you seen so far what looks like obstruction of justice or just in the impeachment sense? >> well, those are two separate questions. but certainly what would have to be proven in a criminal sense would be a corr

there were taskings to the state department to come up with proposals to relieve tensions with moscow. people in the state department began to hear about this. >> what's it tell you? you got the report, but what's it tell you? what does it tell a person watching? >> well, it tells you that they were trying to do something for -- >> was it a payoff for getting him elected? >> you can look at it two ways. i mean obviously trump didn't make any secret about the fact that he wanted to improve relations with russia. so purely as a policy move, one could presume -- >> first moment in office? >> yeah. you have to look at the context. right after the uproar about the election, the fact that the intelligence community concluded that the russians launched this influence campaign to meddle in our election, to tilt the results, to hack the democratic national committee, weaponize information, all the things that they were doing that seemed out of line, prompting president obama to take steps to impose sanctions. >> tom, one thing is you would think if you were caught -- if people were looking at

he praised wikileaks 264 times, he denied any meddling on the part of moscow. now he has changed a bit, but he is still not where the 17 intelligence agencies are. we want today security the integrity of the vote. and we did that as both the balm administration and subsequently the trump administration has confirmed that moscow was not able to interfere, they were not able to tamper with votes, and they warned the russians repeatedly not to carry on with this, sensitizing the american people, most famously statements released a full month, and by working with state -- secretaries of state to ensure that our states, the infrastructure, had the appropriate defenses to resist any efforts by moscow to meddle in the vote counting references. >> once he is accused of something, he will accuse the other person of the exact tame thing. it goes on and on and on. >> the playground moe -- motif either way. >> does he know what clooud means? >> i doubt it and i don't think he knows what the facts are. he talks about incident that's occurred back during the election. if you

donald trump keeping his promise to moscow to keep these spy centers open. >> matt, many critics who even are willing to say i don't see collusion or direct collusion, i only see smoke between the trump campaign and russia, even they have said, well, as soon as president trump won the election, as soon as his administration began, he could have said we need to take action against russia pore what they tried to do during the election. he didn't do that. and now this possible reversal, what do you make of this? >> i mean obama did take that action at the end of his presidency so i'm not sure what the extra thing trump was supposed to do at the moment when he took over, right. i mean -- >> he did nothing to make it clear that it was a violation to punish russia for their actions. >> again, obama, the intelligence community came up with its report at the end of his presidency, this was the action he took. >> great. he gives them back? >> this is what i don't understand and the post article is confusing because there is the st. petersburg compound frozen by the russians in 2014 in respons

at least one senior white house official assumed that moscow would try all 50. michael daniel, who was cyber security coordinator at the white house, tells "the washington post," that, quote, we turned to other scenarios that the russians might attempt. quoting from "the post," as brazen as the russian attacks on the election seemed, obama and his top advisers feared that things could get far worse. moscow's meddling to that point was seen as deeply concerning but unlikely to materially affect the outcome of the election. far more worrisome to the obama team was the prospect of a cyber assault on voting systems before and on election day. worrisome to the obama team was that prospect. so part of the reason they didn't throw everything they had at the russians, which appears to be a considerable amount of stuff they could have thrown, part of the reason they didn't do anything to russia about this before the election was because of how it would play politically here in the united states. this question, an important question on whether americans would have confide

or around moscow. you can't take this seriously. if you're president trump even his supporters you have to step back and say what have we done or what has our political system done or the lack of resolve on the part of the president and his team to enable the president of russia to behave so brazenly today and for that matter for him to openly acknowledge that yes, we were part of it and to get into some silly to brendan's point, give me the ip address. it could be a 3-year-old. what was he talking about? in other words, to max's point he's poking fun at us and president trump and his team, whether you -- you know, whether you're for him or not you have to step back and say what has this administration done to enable this and how are they going to react to this. one has to hope if the president feels comfortable lecturing nato he should feel em bolden to say something about this morning. >> something interesting about this most of the rest of the world has figured out in the internet age leaders used t

richard engle is live in moscow. richard, give us an update. >> reporter: so activists are saying that several hundred people, 400 or more, have been detained. i just returned from the protest that took place in downtown moscow. and there were several thousand people there. they were probably several thousand riot police as well. it started out peacefully. there was already a street fair going on in central moscow, but one of the most outspoken opposition leaders in this country had called on his supporters to go to this street fair to participate and to show their numbers peacefully. they didn't start to arrive. they were dressed like everybody else. they weren't carrying banners or flags. but then at one stage when the protesters heard that novali was not going to be allowed to join them because he was arrested while trying to leave his house, then things quickly escalated. some of the demonstrators who like i said you couldn't tell who was a demonstrator and who was there attending the street fair, the demonstrato

there was already an event under way in central moscow. today is russia day. a national holiday here. so families, kids, mothers pushing strollers were out on the streets. it was a celebration of russian folklore. there were plenty of people selling food, selling drink, a very happen pey event. he called on hi supporters to go and join the demonstration. and they did. they weren't dressed differently. they weren't carrying any kind of banners or butttons. then after the crowds heard that that vol any had gotten picked up and wasn't going to come, things started to escalate. people started to cheer. people started to denounce putin. they were saying things like putin is a thief, putin without russia, long live russia. there had ladder been a police presence there and then the rye yoot police converged on the area. within moments there were hundreds, maybe even a few thousand baton wielding riot police dressed in black wearing helmets. they surrounded the protesters. they started pushing them back. the protesters started to push the riot police back. there was s

it would have been a, quote win-win for moscow he told news. we have another source. dan freed who coordinated u.s. sanctions policy until stepping down in february describing what he saw happening at the state department when the trump administration took over saying, quote, there was serious consideration by the white house to unilaterally rescind the sanctions. he said in the first few weeks of the administration he received several panicky calls from government officials who told him they had been directed to develop a sanctions lifting package and imploring him, please, my god, can't you stop this. this is really something. some of it is familiar in the broad strokes because it's no mystery that russia was of interest to the trump administration. what we have detailed here, though, is now what the trump administration wanted to give russia. when it comes to what the u.s. would get in return, a basic feature of any deal, let alone a major foreign policy reversal after this russian interference, well, on that there's very little detail. so among many other problems

quote, any concessions to moscow could prove controversial while the administration and former campaign officials are under congressional and special council investigation for alleged ties to russia. this explosive story breaking late this evening, what we will do here, a little later in the show, we will talk to one of the reporters who literally just broke this story. that should be interesting to say the least. we begin tonight with a different corn over this trump-russia inquiry. we now know the fbi inquiry into the interference in the election was launched all the way back in last july, only formally confirmed this march when fbi director, jim comey determined the public interest justified disclosing this investigation. that's a process that required him to clear it with the doj. and he said trump's testimony was part of that and in that dramatic testimony he intoned now we will close our mouths and do our work. he only opened his mouth before congress one more time after 123456789 it was that hearing that contradicted president trump's baseless claims about obama wiretapping him.

, if moscow really does want influence with the trump administration and it wants to kind of get away with using that influence, wouldn't they say, you know what? keep the villas for this summer. we'll somehow survive because we don't want it to look like we own you. >> so i think that the russians would be more clever than the trump administration if that's what they're saying to them. i mean, it seems very simple. if trump believes that the russians actually helped him win this election, then this is their reward for doing. so but if trump is really the defender of the constitution and the defender of the american electoral system, then show be wanting to punish the russians for their interference, not just against hillary clinton, but against other republican candidates and stop them from doing it again. but that he gives it back now? it really looks like a reward to the russians for helping him across the finish line. >> yeah, and eugene, that's the question that adam schiff asked tonight in a tweet. why reward them. >> yes. >> and it's not clear that we're ever going to get answe

and to cite a few examples, tack stan, the city of moscow, the origin of tula and koluga. this year they have become leaders in the international investment climate ranking. let's congratulate them. [ applause ] a number of consistent entity of the russian federation, for example, moscow, st. pete have obtained a step change in the business environment. it's noteworthy that for the first time, we can see our regions among the leaders in improving their business climate. i'm turning to all the governors of the russian regions. i'm turning to all of them. we should keep working hard together and open new avenues for your companies for successful work. it's important for all the entrepreneurs and all the people that their rights and property and business are upheld and defended efficiently. in this respect i want to say that we have approved some proposals to amend our judiciary. it has been discussed with experts and the leadership of the supreme court of the russian federation. it's about strengthening the independence of judges and improvement of training of judges. the ju

know from the trump campaign's own admission that people on their staff had numerous contacts with moscow. and not only that, lied and covered it up while applying for their security clearance processes. let me tell you something, i've heard a lot of people say, this is proof conclusively, nothing has been proven at all. we are at the beginning of a very, very long counterespionage investigation on one hand. that doesn't even include all the other pathways that the special counsel could go and investigation for money laundering. they just brought in the head of the fbi's and treasury's money laundering expertise team. we could go into a hundred different places over the next year and at the same time still prove or disprove that there was contact with moscow. but all of these connections didn't appear in a vacuum. they came from somewhere. and the trump administration is going to have to answer for them. >> yeah. there was a piece -- a conservative writer from the hoover institution, earlier this morning, i was tweeting out that said you may end up proving infiltration, not collusion, but

of economic sanctions, the return of diplomatic compounds and other steps to relieve tensions with moscow. i want to note of course that wording reflects what sounds like the trump administration's view because prior administration here, the obama folks, didn't think there were tensions with moscow over sanctions. they thought those were formal punishments over the meddling, a matter of foreign policy accountability, not personal tensions. let me show you one of these named sources. tom who resigned as -- human rights for obama. to lobby congress after learning from colleagues the administration was developing a plan to lift sanctions and possibly arrange a summit between trump and russian president vladimir putin as part of an effort to achieve a, quote, grand bargain can moscow. it would have been a, quote, win/win with mouse cow. we have another source. dan freed who coordinated u.s. sanctions policy until stepping down in february describing what he saw happening at the state department when the trump administration took over saying, quote, there was serious consideration by the white

in a series of tweets, the president criticized president obama saying he did nothing about moscow's interference. mr. trump's comments, they came on the heels of a washington post report on the obama administration's five-month debate over a response to russia's meddling. >> all right. back to our top story. majority leader mitch mcconnell hopes to push through a vote on health care overhaul this week, but the question if the senate is the math when it comes to votes there and whether they would risk losing conservatives to gain moderates and vice versa? for the moment at least five republicans have said they can't back the bill. some conservatives are concerned it's not a full enough repeal of obama care, but there are others. others like dean heller of nevada. they're under pressure, heavy pressure, in fact, at home with re-election coming soon. >> the america first priorities will launch a seven figure ad blitz against heller, a member of the president's own party. as the washington post reports, other groups, they have already been up on the air there with ads like these. >> all

if the president does roll back sanctions or do anything that looks like he's taking a step toward moscow, republican senators and members of the house said, paul ryan said, john mccain said, we will put those sanctions back on a they will be a lot worse. so this is a party that is all over the place when it comes to russia, and i could tell you, i've had conversations with people on the intelligence committee who are just completely in the dark about what the president is trying to do and what he feels towards moscow. >> jake sherman, thank you very much. michael isikoff, amazing reporting as always, my friend. ambassador wendy sherman, thanks, you guys. sunday you can watch megyn kelly's official sit-down with vladimir putin. do not miss it. >>> next we'll look at what pulling out of the paris climate accord could cost the u.s. it is a big play at the president's base, but could it ignite a backlash like we've never seen before? ♪ the opioid my doctor prescribed for my chronic back pain backed me up-big time. before movantik, i tried to treat it myself. spent time, money. no go. but i

listen to this, moscow now says they're going to treat u.s.-led coalition planes west of the euphrates. you can see it on the map as targets. >>> let's head to virginia now where fairfax police charged with killing a muslim teenager. the 17-year-old girl was reported missing sunday morning after leaving a mosque with her friends. police think the girls got into a fight with torez and got separated from her friends on the street. fairfax police say they have found no evidence to suggest this was a hate crime. >>> in london, at least 79 people are thought to be dead after that tower fire. the number is climbing as, look at this, first images from inside the building. you can see how bad this fire was. the tower recently went through this $11 million upgrade. and some experts now suggest that new outer protective layer may have actually contributed to the fire spreading. >>> the bodies of the seven u.s. sailors missing were found in their flooded compartment on the "uss fitzgerald." their navy ship crash would a containership around 2:30 in the m

one russian website is reporting that 750 people were arrested today in moscow. and even more than that, 900 people were arrested in st. petersburg. these protests were some of the biggest since the huge nationwide protest in 2012 that unnerved vladimir putin. we here in the states focus on the russian attacks on our election and the question of whether or not there were any american con fed rats in those attacks, this is the way putin's wielding his power at home. as we continue to watch these protests struggle and their leaders get attacked and people get arrested, varjs ongoing question as to whether or not these people trying to opposite putin have any hope in making a dent at home. joining us is michael mcfall, former u.s. ambassador to russia. appreciate your time tonight. thanks for being here. >> sure. thanks for having me. >> this is not the first time i've had you join us when people are facing arrest, the prominent leaders being arrested and sentence today jail time. what do you think about the last question i asked about whether or not there's hope th

let's announce a bunch of punitive measures toward moscow when it's all safe. still he is told no. weeks later he comes back, okay, you don't want to act. how about we set up a 9/11 style commission, it will be bipartisan, we'll get to the bottom of what happened. at least there's a public record and that gets proposed during the actual national security council meeting that obama is chairing but immediately his -- obama's chief of staff startings arguing against it and then obama argued it and then it was never revised. >> real quickly, can you talk about what's happened since this extraordinary tick tock that you detail in sort of the transfer of power from the obama administration to the trump administration. what happened? >> well, actually i think one of the most interesting details in the story is that there was this secret thing that obama did in addition to the punitive measures that they announced in late december. he secretly signs an order to his u.s. spy agencies to start placing cyber weapons in certain areas of russia's infrastructure or computer systems that the unit

. >> you guys are breaking a story and says sources close to the white house it's not moscow or london or mexico city. we know it's from around here. >> we didn't think we needed to clarify in our stories. >> he's mocking news stories. he's mocking the press saying they could be sources from -- >> the tone is set from the top. this is what trump has done all along. the statement issued late last night was reminiscent of the pledges of loyalty aaron the cabinet table in the white house when they had to say what an honor and privilege it was to work for donald trump. the people around him feel this need. it's not a misplaced need. if they want to in gray seat themselves with the boss -- >> it's so third world. you have to show your love of the leader all the time. north korea is like that too i'm sure. everything that's still murky about what may have gone on with the trump people and moscow, whether business, political, sanctions or all mixed together. we don't know. it's still murky. the clarity emerged when he fired comey. he tried to get comey to do a pledge of allegiance clearly. he

the senate voted to limit the president's power on scaling back sanctions on moscow. the vote is as you might have guessed in response to moscow's hacks on our election. the vote was 97-2 with republicans rand paul of kentucky and mike lee of utah voting against it both with their reasons. casie hunt confirming that director of national intelligence dan coats will testify behind closed doors tomorrow to the senate intel committee. back with us reporter jonathan lamere. >> it is striking that this is perhaps the first time we have seen any sort of republicans in congress trying to restrain a little bit of what president trump can do. they are saying they not just voted for the sanctions but are trying to limit what the president can do to ease them. some of the members of the senate talked about how they felt the white house had been pushing to reverse this and they didn't want this to happen. we don't know what will happen in the house. we have rex tillerson when asked about it has been rather noncommittal. >> a lot of people have been on the sidelines wondering when

while all requests and demands going to moscow. we're not going to be able to sort out. you are to great extent to blame for this mess. you've got to do something to help us sort this mess out. it is not sufficient just to place a finger at moscow. i'm not talking about you personally. once again, i want my message to be clear. i want them to hear that. thank you. go to lendingtree.com and shop multiple loan offers for free! free? yeah. could save thousands. you should probably buy me dinner. no. go to lendingtree.com for a new home loan or refinance. receive up to five free offers and choose the loan that's right for you. our average customer could lower their monthly bills by over three hundred dollars. go to lendingtree.com right now. >>> shifting gears to syria, our president has said that you're backing an evil guy there. he said assad is an evil guy. do you believe that? >> translator: believe in what? that assad is an evil man? >> yes. >> translator: an evil guy. you've got to ask the other leaders who have communicated with assad. he was more often in europe afte

pro-putin dictator who manafort worked for for a deck caddy before he was deposed and had to flee to moscow. he too had to resign under the trump campaign until a huge scandal relating to russia. he too, like mike palestinian, is reportedly the subject of congressional investigations, he and his businesses have been the subject of federal grand jury subpoenas over the past several months. you would think that would create for him all the same pressure that mike flynn felt, to get his legal ducks in a row, to take care of things that the justice department oversees, things like filing his foreign agent registration act paperwork. you would think that manafort would feel that same a pressure. desmid the press records, he didn't, which has a weird over these few months. it has led us on this show to discover that attorney general jeff sessions, who said he was recused from all matters for the campaign receipted to the president, he said he was recused from any matters involving a justice department investigation, we discovered sort of incidentally when we were trying to pull this thread, that

arrange a summit between president trump and president vladimir putin as part of a grand bargain to moscow. to these officials it felt like a win-win for putin who said they were unclear what america got out of the deal. a senior white house official says, quote, we've been weighing all the sanctions and this is not exclusive to russia. the administration backed down after senators made clear they would pass a law to enforce obama's punitive measures. but a washington post report suggests the trump administration could soon return russia's compounds in maryland and new york. trump and putin are likely to meet at the g-20 next month. >>> vladimir putin for the first time acknowledged russians could have been behind the cyber attacks in the u.s. elections. in comments to reporters at an economic forum in st. petersburg, russia, yesterday, the russian president said, quote, hackers are free-spirited people, like artists. if they wake up in a good mood in the morning, they wake up and paint. likewise, hackers wake up in the morning and read the news about international affairs. if they are pat

we wanted to let you know it's already friday morning in moscow. in a short while megyn kelly will sit down for an interview with vladimir putin. it will be on sunday at 7:00 eastern time on our local nbc station of we are back with more on sho show right after this. >>> welcome back to our broadcast. jared kushner has not given a single public interview since becoming a white house aide. that has not diminished interest in the 36-year-old man who has the president's ear. put another way, he is likely the closest man to the president, and his speaking voice has not been heard by the american people. kushner is the subject of this "time" magazine cover story titled the good son, a quote about kushner and his faurnl, president trump, reads they share the same wager that relationships and instinct can substitute for experience. now with adjacent windows overlooking the white house lawn, they are bound to rise or fall together. i am joined tonight by karlovic, the author of this profile in "time" magazine. thank you very much for coming over. you make

we can continue our dialogue that began in moscow with the dialogue he hosted from a very broad range of topics. thank you. >> does the comey firing cast a shadow of your talks? >> that same day the russian foreign minister turned up in the oval office, as well. u.s. reporters and photographers were not allowed any access to that meeting. we got these photos of that meeting because the russian foreign minister brought with him a photographer from a russian state run news service. that is how we found out they did let a photographer in there, just not an american one. that is how we found out that the russian ambassador was in on that meeting, too. this is the same russian ambassador who michael flynn concealed his meetings with and who jared kushner concealed his meetings with. i'm not sure we would know the president was meeting with him but the russian state run news agency photographer let loose in the oval office, that guy ended up confurchliirming the news. the white house explained the presence of that russian photographer in the oval office by saying this. quote, they tricked u

we wanted to let you know it's already friday morning in moscow. in a short while megyn kelly will sit down for an interview with vladimir putin. it will air sunday night on the inaugural broadcast with the same name. that is 7:00 eastern time on your local nbc station. and we are back with more of "the 11th hour" right after this. r who's stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was... pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®... to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner... ...that's proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here's how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective... ...targeting just one critical factor, interacting with l

. >> so a lot of pple i spoke to in moscow said putin always builds in some plausible deniability here. >> right. >> in everything, right? so i mean define plausible as you will, but for example, in east ukraine and in crimea, there were locals. there were russian volunteers who did feel passionately about the cause, picked up a gun and went to fight. of course they had tremendous help from the state. the same thing could have happened here where the russian hackers who did this might not have been wearing uniforms. they might not have been formal employees of the gru or the fsb, which is actually the main cyber actor in russia. they could have been mercenaries, you know, people who will hack whatever you want. you know, they'll do it for the highest bidder, or people who are blackmailed kind of like you saw on "house of cards," using past criminal activity against them to get you to work for the state. so he always leaves himself some plausible wiggle room. >> yeah, i would also just note that what was particularly alarming about what putin said is it wasn't just, you know, the fact t

reason he is point of intrigue here is before he ever worked with manafort in ukraine he worked in moscow at an american nonprofit called the international republican institute. and when he worked at the international republican institute for like a decade he was very open about the fact that he was russian military intelligence. and he would tell people, openly, it was widely known and widely discussed about him, that the reason he learned such good english, the place he had gotten all his great training that made him so valuable to that american nonprofit in moscow is because he was gru. he came out of russian military intelligence. from that politico profile back in august. they called him kostia, a nickname for konstantin. when he was asked how to speak such fluent english, he responded russian military intelligence. not a secret. he eventually while he still held that job at that american nonprofit he started moonlighting with somebody connected to paul manafort, the international republican institute got rid of him because of that. and therefore paul manafort picked him up full-time

he had been to moscow and paid to go there by rt. getting his testimony i always thought was central to the investigation. you could write a report without hearing everything that michael flynn has to say putting him under oath. he's been under investigation and invoked his fifth amendment rights. the communities are not inclined to give them. i don't know. i think this latest story by the journal which is quite fascinating on many levels only underscores the need to figure out way to question mike flynn about everything and anything. >> ken, the problem is it's all bunch of low level this and low level that people going after stuff. in the end, does it amount to a hill of beans. i'm not defending anyone in this one. there seems to be a lot of circumsubstantial stuff that seems to imply russia was trying to get stuff. >> i got to agree with your characterization. very swrinteresting. you have this guy trying to reach out to hackers like cold calling, e-mailing these hackers seeking these deleted e-mails. it seems kind of clumsy. we k

that uncertainty as to whether we would defend latvia, lithuania, ukraine, allows moscow to make threats like they did this morning against sweden saying they would take military action if they joined nato. >> anothernteresting thing, donald trump called kim jong-un a smart cookie. >> translator: as long as the law of the strong is in place, we'll see problems like the one in dprk. small countries see no other option to ensure their security than holding nuclear weapons. this is what abuse of power leads to. so he has painted north korea's weaponry as a symptom or, from u.s. belligerence. >> he is saying that everything that has happened since 1954, at the end of the second korean war, is a natural cause of what would happen with the united states coming up against a very small power. and that they would want to secure themselves. that to a certain extent is true. the question that it brings to mind is, what would russia do about this if north korea does a surface detonation of a five, ten, 20 kiloton weapon. if they really have it. or if they get icbm capacitiful are we going to see rus

julia ioffe, moscow born journalist. why d and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. also former chief counsel to the house intelligence committee. welcome to you all. robert costa, it was understood by people who watched this white house there were two audiences for that today. number one, the millions of people watching at home, even include in that members of the senate questioning the attorney general in front of the committee. number two and perhaps the most important audience, an audience of one, the president of the united states. how are they saying he did? >> based on my reporting, brian, the president remains frustrated at the so-called cloud which he refers to behind the scenes remains that these russian questions are not going away. and attorney general sessions' testimony has in no way really stopped these ongoing investigations or the mounting political problems facing him and the republican party. but yet they don't really have a strategy yet about how to deal with it. there's talk ev

about of course, you see him right here, russian ambassador sergey kislyak, the top diplomat here in moscow and he is heading back to russia. we're being told that he's essentially leaving this job at the end of the summer as part of a long planned rotation. interesting that given again we're being told that the timing of this was planned well in advance. dislee y dislee y kislyak has been in the news since the beginning of these meetings, investigations happening on capitol hill and the special counsel. who is going to be replacing ambassador kislyak? we're being told that russia's deputy foreign minister is in line for this gig. he's currently under eu sanctions rights now for supporting the deployment of troops in ukraine. that's and interesting topic. and i tell you what, we'll be over at g 20. you know who is going to be there. president putin. we're waiting to see what kind of meetings are being held if any and how that relationship unfolds. get your popcorn ready. >> thank you. as you get your popcorn ready for the briefing. here with analysis, matt miller, security analysis and form

bureau chief for "the washington post" in moscow when putin became president is that it's the people who know russia best and who followed it the most closely who have been really sounding the alarm bells if you will for a long time about an escalating pattern of conduct. they were the ones i think who tried behind the scenes in the obama administration to do what they could to get more serious attention paid to it as this hacking unfolding now. and what's interesting president trump seems to be conflating the entire issue of russia and our policy with his whole campaign team. nobody knows what is our policy toward russia? the u.s. government if you asked anybody whose job it nominally is to pay attention to it, they wouldn't be able to tell you. >> ken dilanian this comes against the back drop of some significant developments on the investigation. politico is now reporting that the senate intel committee will get all of the comey memos or at least some of them according to that report. and paul manafort who is under fbi scrutiny and of interest to everyone looking into what susan re

shortly before general flynn was in moscow for that raush sha today dinner, he had been essentially fired by president obama and he had been a senior intelligence official. so president putin would have certainly noin who he was and it probably would have been quite a boon for putin to have flynn there. >> let's keep on with the fact check. here's what he said about u.s.'s interference in election, not russia's. let's listen. >> translator: the united states, everywhere, all over the world actively interferes with the elections of other countries. put your finger anywhere on the map of the world and everywhere you'll hear complaints that american officials are interfering in internal electoral processes. >> with respect that sounds like a justification. >> translator: it doesn't sound like a justification. it sounds like a statement of fact. every action has an equal and opposite reaction. >> so, edward, blanket statement. legitimate or not in your view? >> completely illegitimate. here putin is trying to draw equivalence between the u.s. democracy promotion efforts and what russia did in

shot down a syrian fighter jet and that prompted syria's allies in moscow to say they would consider any u.s. aircraft in western syria to be legitimate targets. if bashar al assad uses chemical weapons again and the president follows through, it could make this volatile situation in syria fiendishly more complicated. >> matt bradley, thanks so much. >> president trump is lobbing new explosive allegations against himself predecessors tweeting that former president obama and not his associates colluded with russia or obstructed justice by not taking more action against moscow. kristen welker has all the details. >> reporter: president trump unleashing a new tactic on the russia issue, blaming president obama. in a tweet storm righting the real story is that president obama did nothing after being informed in august about russian meddling, alleging president obama colluded or obstructed without russia, this after a report that president obama struggled with dealing with russian meddling. president obama didussia, if yo i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >>