well, it was a very big night even before the breaking news. president trump taking two more shots at president obama's legacy, undoing a vital piece of the affordable care act and turning thumbs down on the nuclear accord with iran. more on both in the hour ahead, but first there's breaking news at this hour. reince priebus, former white house chief of staff, talking to special counsel robert mueller's team. our chief national security correspondent, jim sciutto joins us now with details. so what do we know about this meeting? >> it shows that mueller's probe now is extending to the senior most advisors to the president. we know this meeting took place today. priebus's lawyer tells cnn that this was voluntary, that he was happy to cooperate.

he was interviewed my members of mueller's team. this took place at mueller's offices here in washington. i should note that priebus relevant to this investigation not just due to his position as chief of staff during the administration, but remember he was chairman of the republican national committee, during the campaign, heavily involved during the campaign when, of course, russian meddling began. and the russian meddling is the main topic, the main subject of the special counsel's probe. >> do we know who else mueller is interested in interviewing from the president's inner circle? >> cnn's reporting is it extends to a whole list of some of the president's senior most advisors. that includes his current communications director, hope hicks, his current general counsel, don mcgahn, his former press secretary, sean spicer. we also know that the special counsel has already interviewed the chief of staff of the national security counsel, that is keith kellogg. and the topics he wants to talk to them about, things like the firing of james comey, the firing of michael flynn, his national security advisor.

but also that famous meeting on airforce one when the president and his advisors were crafting the initial misleading explanation of that trump tower meeting in june 2016 between his son, donald trump jr., and lawyers who said that they were offering -- russian lawyers offering damaging information on hillary clinton. so a number of topics, a number of paths that the special counsel is going down with these interviews. >> jim sciutto. jim, thanks. i want to bring in the panel. bakari sellers is here, alice stewart, jeffrey toobin, tara setmeyer and michael scheer. michael, how big a concern is this -- must this be for people in the white house if one by one former folks are being called in? >> well, it's kind of a concern on two levels. from a political concern about the president and his fate. there's concern that the higher up mueller goes in the administration, the more serious the investigation looks like -- both in terms of the underlying russia allegations but also the obstruction of justice considerations that mueller has clearly been looking into.

and i think you can't underestimate the extent to which is's a personal concern for them as well. these are, in some cases, young people or people who aren't necessarily wealthy. they have to get lawyers. they have to, you know, think about their own personal -- >> right. i mean, it can cost tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> it can cost tens of thousands of dollars. and, potentially, obviously, if a federal investigator is investigating you, there is the potential you can end up in real legal jeopardy, as well as the political concerns for your boss. >> jeff, what does this mean in terms of where the investigation is? >> well, it -- you can't tell for sure. but it certainly means it's not at the very beginning because priebus, as we've discussed, is very high up. and investigators don't start by interviewing the top people. we always talk in these circumstances about interviews. but the most important thing of any investigation is getting the documents, getting the e-mails, memos, and that's what the questioning usually consists of.

showing a witness a document and explaining the context of it. what this means is that the mueller team has enough documents that they feel it's appropriate to interview reince priebus at this point. by the way, it doesn't mean this will be the last time they interview him. repeated interviews are common. but it does suggest that they are pretty far along in their investigation, and certainly not at the beginning. >> you talk about a guy who was in the room when it happens -- to paraphrase hamilton. i mean, he -- you know, he traveled with the president, as many of the people in the president's inner circle did probably more than most chief of staffs would have. >> i think a lot of that, if you recall back during the campaign and in the beginning of this administration, there was a feeling that you needed to be close to the president, or the candidate at the time, because he would listen to the last person he sought information from and that's how he would make his decision. and they just wanted to have access to the president. reince priebus was in that category. he and others in the top echelon of the campaign and the administration did spend a lot of time with the president.

so, clearly, they have a lot of information that would be helpful and beneficial to mueller's investigation. as jeffrey said, generally they don't start with the tope people in these investigations. they start with people that may be a little bit more on the food chain in hopes they provide information for people at the top. i think the good thing with this, priebus came out willingly and voluntarily providing information. others will too. it's amazing how a request from mueller will get you to volunteer to speak with him. but they will provide information. and as we know, the best thing for this president and the republican party is to put all of this out there. let's get it behind us so we can focus on bigger issues. >> let me chime in quickly. there's no good part of a federal investigation when somebody with the caliber of any fbi agent, but let alone mueller, is going through everywhere. he's going through your underwear. i mean, this is going to be a complete, complete investigation. we were talking about the timetable where this is, to jeffrey's point. you don't know where this is yet. we will know that it's coming to a conclusion when they interview donald trump, if they do get that opportunity.

jeffrey can probably speak to this better than i can, but we knew, back during whitewater that led to the eventual blue dress, when bill clinton at the time was interviewed in the map room of the white house, and the grand jury was actually shown video via video screen and you knew then the investigation was nearing a close. but everyone who is interviewed has exposure. as a lawyer, i tell my clients every day, martha stewart didn't go to jail for insider trading. martha stewart went to jail for lying to federal investigators. so when you have a white house, and everyone in it, who's been allergic to the truth, this becomes a real problem as they're interviewed by investigators. >> that's the same thing that happened with bill clinton. he didn't get impeached because of anything in particular that they thought with whitewater, which was a stock deal -- >> land deal. >> -- that's right. a land deal. cattle futures and things. he got in trouble because he lied. so -- about an affair. so, anyway, look, none of this is ever good for the president. i'll be very curious to see how

he reacts. he's already begun tweeting tonight about pakistan and other things. anytime this investigation starts to get a little closer, a little closer, we start to see donald trump start tweeting things out for disinformation purposes. reince priebus, you also have to remember, is not one of the necessary trump loyalists. >> he came relatively late to the party. >> that's right. and he was not exactly on board in the beginning either. he was part of the establishment, he was reluctant, but he recognized for his political survival that he needed to get on board the trump train. but if it comes down to it, he's -- i don't think he's going to be someone who protects the president. >> sean spicer reportedly took very careful notes, and, obviously, that will be something that's of great interest. >> that's right. sean spicer and hope hicks, one of the things we understand that mueller is looking into is that moment on the plane, on airforce one, when the president and his aides are drafting kind of an initial statement in response to reports that there had been this

meeting with the russians where the russian -- where somebody had come -- >> with donald trump jr. >> right. >> and initially the president's people around him said, oh, no, he wasn't drafting it. it was donald trump jr.'s lawyers. >> right. there was that. and they said it was initially about -- the meeting was just about adoption, and it turned out it was about an offer to provide damaging information on hillary clinton. so it's things like where the investigators are going to go back to the people on the plane, with the president, drafting that initial statement. that includes sean spicer and that includes, we think, hope hicks. and the investigators are going to ask them very detailed questions about how that statement came to be and then compare that to the statements that other people make. >> a lot more to talk about, including the president's decision to decertify the iran nuclear deal, and essentially put the next move in the hands of congress. we're going to be joined next by the former director of national intelligence, james clapper. also later, kids taken from central africa and sold to american families. sold. who thought they were actually adopting orphans. how could this happen?

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the president, as we said, is undoing two major pieces of the obama legacy, and part of the debate concerns whether he's doing it despite the risks to potential human and monetary costs without a clear plan for what comes next. primarily because, to him, this isn't really about any of that.

instead, say critics, this is personal about negating most things from the obama administration. on the other hand, this is what the president campaigned on. what he promised to do. cnn's ryan nobles has more on iran and obamacare and joins us now. so, ryan, explain the steps that president trump took today regarding obamacare. >> reporter: essentially what he did, anderson, was say the administration was going to hold cost sharing reduction payments. these are payments given to insurance companies to stabilize the insurance market under the affordable care act. now, this is a provision that was ruled unlawful by a federal court and something that republicans have criticized for some time. but it was something the obama administration continued to do, and we should point out that the trump administration continued to do up until this month. and the reason being is it is very important to stabilize those insurance markets. and there are people, not just democrats, but republicans as well who are concerned that if these payments don't stay in place that premiums for many americans could skyrocket. >> in terms of the iran deal, the president threatened to rip it up. he stopped short of doing that

today, though. >> reporter: no. he did not rip it up by any stretch, anderson. instead, he sent this provision to the congress and now congress has 60 days to come up with a plan as it relates to iran. what he's hoping is that the congress comes back with something that's a lot tougher on iran with much stricter sanctions and forcing them to adhere to the letter of the law when it comes to the deal. but it's important to point out, anderson, that even the administration admits that iran has lived up to their end of the bargain. they're just upset that they haven't followed the spirit of the law, which is very difficult to understand and put a finger on. and there are members of his own administration, including his secretary of state and his defense secretary, who recommended against this. it now will be in the hands of congress to decide what's going to happen, and the president said today if congress doesn't come up with a plan he likes, he may just pull the united states out of this deal with iran. >> ryan nobles, i appreciate that. our next guest has watched iran's nuclear program grow over the years and seen the changes

since the joint comprehensive plan of action. former director of national intelligence james clapper joins us now. so, direct clapper, president trump today said that iran was violating the spirit of this agreement. when you had full access to intelligence, was that your assessment as well? and do we know, since the president took office, has that changed? >> i don't know exactly what that means. clearly there are ambiguities in the jcpoa, which we're sensitive to and the iranians are probably exploiting those ambiguities. but in large measure, as others have said, they are in material compliance with the agreement. so i think this has huge implications for us. one, i think, you know, the other members -- there were five other countries involved in this agreement. the other permanent members of the united nations security council, in addition to germany. and all of them are not going to decertify.

i also think if the objective here is to put more pressure on iran, i think we're going to have great difficulty putting humpty-dumpty together again and reassembling the international coalition of sanctions, which is what brought iran to the table in the first place. another dimension of this is how it's going to play in iran domestically. this plays to the hardliners in iran who were not in favor of any sort of engagement or negotiations with the united states. and this plays right to their hand. as well as with korea, i think the notion of negotiation or diplomacy, which to me is the the only realistic way ahead here, north koreans are skeptical anyway about the united states, are probably not going to be very interested in any negotiating on treaties from the united states.

i do find it incongruous that we're concerned about iran complying with the spirit of this agreement when the russians are in abject violation of both the spirit and the letter of the inf treaty. the intermediate nuclear forces treaty. and you don't hear much about that. that's something the senate did vote on. and i don't know why we aren't concerned about that if we're concerned about iran not complying with the spirit of the jcpoa. >> given the other signatories to the iran deal, our allies, are not going to decertify, there is some notion from trump supporters this is kind of an opening salvo by the opening salvo by the president, that this will lead to some sort of renegotiation of the entire agreement. you think that's just a nonstarter? >> i do. i think that's going to be very hard. starting with the other parties to the agreement, the immediate parties, let alone the other countries who are also involved

in enforcing sanctions. it wasn't just the u.s. imposing sanctions on iran that brought them to the negotiating table. and for me, as i said before, if you give me a choice between a state sponsored terrorism with a nuclear capability or a state sponsored terrorism without a nuclear capability, i think i'd pick the latter. no one in the last administration for a moment had any illusions about iran and its nefarious behaviors, destabilizing behavior in the region. what i would have preferred, to use what has been negotiated, as imperfect as it is, as a building block and enforce it, the provisions of this. and i think house foreign affairs chairman, ed royce, has spoken to this. enforce the hell out of the agreement and then use that as a building block for addressing the other things that iran is doing that nobody likes. >> i wanted to ask you, lastly, about senator corker. he spoke to "the washington

post," in an interview the post did just tonight, he expressed concern that the president was inviting, as he put it, binary situations like choosing between war, like in north korea, or iran with nuclear weapons. the problem he said the president has neutered his secretary of state. i believe he said -- he said, you cannot publically castrate your own secretary of state without giving yourself that binary choice. is he right about that? >> i think senator corker, being a senator, can be more colorful about this than i would. i would certainly agree, though, that, i think, undermining his secretary of state, undercutting him, particularly with respect to north korea and creating a binary choice where it's either fire and fury or destroying all of north korea or nothing, of course the north koreans find that very threatening. they play that to their domestic audience. so this is very troublesome where that's the only choice. and the reason it's so troublesome for me, having served on the korean peninsula many years ago, is that the fire and fury and destruction of

north korea will not be limited to north of the demilitarized zone. this will necessarily spill over into the south and have terrible, terrible consequences. >> potential huge death toll, frankly, on both sides of the border. >> exactly. >> general clapper, appreciate your time. thank you very much. all of this, president trump's decision on iran and the executive order on health care are just the latest instances of president trump unraveling president obama's legacy. we'll get into that with our panel next.

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the second obama legacy president trump took aim at today is the affordable care act, obamacare. candidate trump, you'll remember, promised to repeal it, replace it, get something better. so far republican lawmakers have failed to do any of that. so now the president is taking executive action. as you might imagine, opinions differ on what he did, just as they do on iran. back now with the panel. it's not only decertifying the iran nuclear deal, the executive action on the affordable care act, pulling out of the paris climate according to, ending daca -- i mean, so much of what president trump has done, michael, just in the last nine months is reversing everything president obama tried to do. >> right. when the obama administration was ending, one of things that

the administration officials -- former administration officials worried deeply about was the extent to which so much of president obama's legacy was built, not on legislative success -- obviously, the health care bill as a legislative success, but a lot of the other things that he was able to accomplish were executive action because the congress was reluctant to do anything -- the republican congress was reluctant to do anything for him. president trump, and his administration, has really taken advantage of that. and they've rolled back regulations, they've reversed things that they could reverse. and some of that has been easier because of the way president obama crafted his legacy over eight years. >> i mean, for -- for -- donald trump, as a citizen, was very critical of president obama for using executive actions so much. president trump has now used it more than president obama did. >> nearly twice as much. i mean, today is a hell of a day. all that donald trump has done is make insurance more expensive for poor people, destabilize insurance markets, and make it

more likely that iran is going to get a nuclear weapon. that's a hell of a friday for absolutely anybody. and when you think about this, the reason being is not that he has a vision for where he wants to go, because no one up here, outside of america first and isolationism, can you tell us what donald trump wants to do with the iran deal. no one can tell us where he wants to go. he hasn't been able to articulate a clear plan for health care. so what we're going to do now is we're going to see that republicans now own this. republicans own the fact that premiums are going to go up 20% because of the fact they are reducing the subsidies. they're going to own the fact these markets are destabilized. they're going to own the fact that in a few years -- i mean, if congress doesn't make a decision on the iran deal, in 2017, 2018 iran then will have the ability to resume their nuclear program at a faster pace. >> first of all, very rarely will you see me actually defend donald trump, but today i'm actually going to do that in some respects. first of all, it's not donald

trump's fault that the insurance markets are going to be unstable or that premiums are going up. it's barack obama's fault because of the way that obamacare was structured. first of all, the part that we need to understand here, yes, premiums are probably going to go up 20% if congress doesn't authorize these subsidies to stabilize markets in the meantime, for a short-term plan fix. but that's because of the way obamacare was set up, it was illegally against the constitution the way that these payments were given out. obamacare was passed with a section that did not have congress authorize -- it said that congress had to authorize the money for these subsidies, congress did not do that -- >> but that doesn't -- >> yes, it does, jeffrey. you know that. a federal court ruled it was unconstitutional. so what donald trump did today is follow what the court said in what's constitutionally required, which is for congress to authorize this money. >> let bakari respond. >> my only response is that sounds good until you're somebody today who is trying to actually afford not a bronze plan but maybe even a silver

plan and now your premiums are going up exponentially. the most amazing part of that -- >> it's already happening. don't act like it's happening all of a sudden today. >> it's going to go up exponentially. the most amazing part about this, he's reintroducing junk plans into the system. you're going to have plans that don't cover maternity leave. you're going to have plans that don't cover the basic -- >> what he did today is not doing that. >> it does. >> no. this is part of the overall problem with obamacare that congress certainly needs to fix. but what happened today is not any of what you're saying. 116% of premiums going up -- 116% in arizona was happening before what happened today. >> do you know what happened when the premiums were going up in arizona? the subsidies were also going up. the fact of the matter is only 3% of people in the market -- >> and it's illegal for the government to pay for the subsidies. >> it's illegal to care for people now? >> take it up with obamacare. did you read it? sections 1401 and 1402. i suggest you read it. >> that section, one court has held that it is unconstitutional. that is not a resolved legal issue at all.

it's similar to daca in that the president is saying it's unconstitutional so i have to get rid of it. that's not settled. what is settled is he got rid of it. the fact is that people will have to live with the consequences rather than letting the legal process go forward. >> but people are already living with the consequences. >> alice? >> the bottom line is, i think what many on the left hate to acknowledge is that obamacare is not working. not only are the costs higher, but the choices are lower. we have one-third of the counties -- >> that's such a false premise. >> -- in the states that have one choice of health care. >> that's such a false premises. >> in 2018, if the health insurance companies continue to bow out as they currently are, one-half of the -- >> do you have -- >> let's take a break. we'll have more on this when we come back. we'll continue this discussion. including the president's latest call for democrats to him to make a deal. he says, we'll talk about the possibility of that happening, or the impossibility as the case may be.

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talking about health care, the president scrapping critical health care subsidies that help pay out-of-pocket costs for nearly 6 million people. part of his latest effort to do with the executive action what

the republican led congress so far has been unable to accomplish legislatively. now the president wants to make a deal with democrats, he says. just moments ago he tweeted this, money pouring into insurance companies' profits under the guise of obamacare is over. they have made a fortune. dems must get smart and deal. back now with the panel. is there any chance of that? >> yes, actually. but not with this. there is actually a chance because senator alexander and senator patty murray are working on an affordable care act fix. i mean, the congress is actually working on something that would fix many of the problems -- >> just the subsidies. >> donald trump is not attempting to go down that path. and the fact is, what we know as a fact -- we were arguing over some politics of the issue, but what we know as a fact is today premiums will go up 20% to 25%, and the deficit will go up $200 billion because of the actions donald trump took today. last time i checked, that is not a republican philosophy. i mean, really, it's not a democratic philosophy and it's not an american philosophy either. >> i think we made progress just in the fact that we have some democrats even acknowledging

that we do need to make some fix with obamacare. >> we said that from the beginning. >> i think that rick santorum was right, you had him on earlier, i think the plan that meadows and johnson have been working on to deal with -- helping to stabilize the insurance market, which will help offset some of the costs from the reductions in the subsidies, that that president wants to do. that is a good short-term fix to get us on the road, through this next hump, but at the end of the day, republicans and democrats need to get together for a long-term fix. that's a good short gap measure for getting through to the next step. >> why does anyone think that republicans and democrats would actually get -- >> it's happened before. obamacare has over 100 republican amendments. even amendments from orrin hatch. let's not act like this is not something that hasn't happened before. >> i was there when that was going on. democrats weren't taking republicans out to dinner and having drinks and doing let's do obamacare. it wasn't like that at all. it was a difficult process for republicans to get anything into these bills and manipulations by

nancy pelosi and harry reed -- >> but did they -- >> just to finish this. this is the problem with the way donald trump has approached obamacare and repealing and replacing it and not having all the stake holders involved early on. it's been a disjointed messaging approach. so republicans in congress have a lot of differences on certain aspects on this, but without the president staying consistent and being a stake holder in this, it's turned into a complete mess politically and republicans have 30 legislative days to get something done. >> count me a skeptic to whether something is going to ever get done here. we are marching closer to the midterms and the closer we get to that it's going to be who can be blamed for it, and the kind of discussion we've had here today is going to be louder as if you assume that nothing does

get done and you assume that the premiums do go up and insurance companies do pull out of the markets and there is a worsening of the situation at large, it's going to be democrats fighting to blame the republicans and trump and the republicans and trump trying to figure out how to deflect that. >> why would democrats work with republicans it's a great midterm wedge issue. >> the democrats are not going to be eager to take back ownership of the issue if it looks like, if the polls are suggesting that, in fact, around the country republicans in districts are taking on water for this. >> just to emphasize the point how unlikely it is for congress to deal with this, they have to do a budget before the government shuts down, they have to do income tax reform, which is their big accomplishment they want. the president put daca on their laps and today the president put iran on their laps. all of which suggests that

they're not going to do basically any of it, except keep the government open. >> and they may be in town 18 -- >> 30 legislative days left. so i think there's going to be some -- >> can they make progress on any of that, then? >> they have to do a budget, or the government shuts down. they have to do the debt limit or, you know, there's financial chaos. but other than that, i will -- >> i -- >> -- i don't see any of it happening. >> i think republicans are truly committed to doing something with regard to obamacare. they know that they all campaigned -- >> where have they been? >> i don't know what's happened to them. >> they campaigned on repealing and replacing obamacare and many of them up for re-election they have to get something done. so i think some of these short-term measures will help but they realize we need to increase competition to lower costs and that will show constituents back home they're putting out a good faith effort.

>> they have to do it. >> the only thing -- >> it's irony, the presidency has been full of irony. he slashed money for advertising for getting people to enroll on the exchanges. he's actually stopped enroll ing people on sundays you go to this cutting back on low income individuals can have the subsidies to purchase insurance. so it's just full of irony. and you think about his accomplishment, outside of gorsuch, there hasn't been anything done. i always go back to conjunction junction, how a bill becomes a law. you can't see where he's taken something, an idea that's gone through the process and came out with a signature on the desk. >> when we come back, part two to our investigation of what could be child trafficking. families adopting these little girls thinking they were orphans in need when in reality they were taken from their birth mothers and essentially sold. randi kaye investigates how this

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last night we introduced you to mada and viola, two little girls who were adopted by loving families in the united states who believed they were orphans in need. it turns out they were taken from loving mothers and sold in what could be a trafficking ring. here's part two of our randy kaye exclusive, kids for sale. >> we unwittingly placed a child for sale. we essentially placed an order for a child. she was home and happy with her mother and her family until we like i said -- >> they selected her for us. >> selected her they say because they were willing to pay thousands of dollars to adopt mada from uganda.

they say they were told by their adoption agency that mada had been orphaned, only to find out later that wasn't the case at all. she wasn't an orphan, she and her family were duped. they believed she was pulled from her home and placed in the orphanage after the adoption agency had found the american couple, buyers in a sense, with money to adopt a child. the name of that adoption agency, european adoption consultants, headquartered in ohio. it's the same adoption agency that stacy and shawn wells used. they adopted a young girl named viola. now both families believe the girls were part of a wider money-making scheme so sell ugandan children to american families. both the davises and the wells reunited the girls with their families in uganda. >> was it hard to the leave her? >> it was. it was very hard. i realize at that moment she still felt like my daughter.

she still does. at that moment, i knew she was where she was -- she was meant to be. >> and both families say all of the heartache and outrage lies squaerly at the feet of european agency consultants, or eac which cnn has learned is now under investigation by both the state department and the fbi. but was eac part of a scheme to traffic children for profit or perhaps were they simply unaware of what was going on in uganda? and the questions for the agency don't end there. how could jessica davis and stacy wells have ended up with children who may never have actually been orphaned? that's what we wanted to know it it led us here to lake dallas, texas. behind these gates is the head of eac's african adoption

program. i'm trying to find deborah paris. deb bra paris is her name. after trying to reach her by phone numerous times we followed her for more than an hour by car hoping to get answers for these families. >> deborah, i'm randi kaye with cnn. we spoke to some women who adopted children from uganda and they said that they were lied to. i know you ran the program for european adoption consultants. >> there was four people. >> you were involved in the program for -- >> both jessica and stacy say deborah paris was their main point of contact. the one who called them and told them what turned out to be false stories about the girls' family history. both described her as aggressive on the phone demanding an answer right away as to whether or not they would take the child. deborah paris denied having anything to do with the the adoption of children seemingly orphaned for profit. >> the women in uganda said they never meant for their children to be adopted.

you helped organize these adoptions. can you answer that question, were they lied to? >> i did not organize these adoptions. >> despite her push back about her roll. she refers to herself in this e-mail as the director for african program for eac. >> you were head of the program -- >> i was not. margaret cole was. >> margaret cole is the owner of european adoption consultants. this is her making a pitch for children in panama. she started the agency in 1991. since then they've handled intercountry adoptions in more than a dozen countries. including uganda, bulgaria, hundred dur ris and hayty. it's based in strongsville, ohio. which is where we hoped to find margaret cole so we could ask her some questions, too. six different addresses and no luck. calls to various phone numbers also a dead end.

this home of hers was raided by the fbi back in february, and so were the adoption agency's offices. investigators left with boxes of evidence. in 2016 the state department determined that eac had a pattern of serious willful or grossly anyingly negligent failure to comply with adoption. as a result it debarred the agency and ordered it to stop all adoptions for three years. among the key findings, eac failed to engage in practices to prevent the sale, abduction, or trafficking of children. it said the failure to provide adequate super vision, contributed to many of the violations described above. also that eac failed safety procedures that prevented solicitation of bribes. and fraudulently obtaining birth parents' consent. the state department determined eac offered consideration to birth parents to induce them to

release their children for adoption. >> they are getting the orphans because there's a dollar sign. >> the u.s. state department also found that they failed to take the proper steps to make sure that birth parents consented to the termination of their parental rights, in accordance with applicable laws. >> were these mothers lied to? >> no, absolutely not. >> these women say that they ended up buying a child instead of adopting a child. >> the lawyer who processed the adoptions for eac at god's mercy orphanage is this woman. we spoke with her by phone, and she denied any wrongdoing by god's mercy. she also insisted children are not being trafficked in uganda through orphanages, and neither she or eac ever trafficked children. she also said the biological mothers did know their daughters were being adopted and taken to america. all of that despite the ugandan government telling us that that

it shut down the orphanage because it was illegally processing guardianship orders and trafficking children. and the court's finding that her mother had been lied to. >> what's unclear is how widespread the alleged trafficking scheme may be. cnn's investigation found it doesn't end with viola and mada. viola's mother is still missing two other daughters, who were adopted or sold off to american families. and remarkable, those families are aware they have children that never should have been orphaned, karen riley told us. she's an advocate for ugandan children who runs a group called reunite uganda. >> both families are aware of the truth. they haven't gotten back to me. but they appear to be continuing to live their leaves and the children believe what they've been told, some of which is not true at all.

>> the davises still speak to her on skype. she is back in school and enjoying her new baby sister. the wells have kept in touch with viola too. the two girls are now close friends in their village and have blossomed since returning home. meanwhile, jessica and stacey have been interviewed by the fbi, which declined to talk about the investigation with cnn. >> birth mothers, the most vulnerable birth mothers on the planet are being taken advantage of in this way so that people -- people can profit from adoption. >> reporter: jessica and adam davis spent they figured $65,000 adopting mada, only to bring her back to uganda. and spacey wells told me she and her husband spent their live savings adopting viola. neither family expecting to get that back. no charges have been filed against the european adoption

consulta consultants. the lawyer in uganda who handled these adoptions also has not been charged. meanwhile, it is possible, anderson, that the adoption agency was simply negligent here, unaware based on lack of background checks that the children it was getting from uganda were being trafficked. in other words, it could be that eac is also a victim of this apparent trafficking scheme. we would have the answer to that question if the owner of eac, margaret cole, would respond to our request for a comment. the investigation is ongoing. anderson? >> an incredible story, randi kaye. up next, a preview of anthony bourdain. she takes us to nigeria. we'll be right back.

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completely unregulated. often with two or three businesses that they've started themselves. >> what's the food like? >> spicy, delicious. they love food. they love to cook. and there's a lot of exciting sweet food and, you know, small businesses. most of them completely unregulated and unlicensed, but the government has got to figure out a way to tax them. so the government will basically observe a business and decide an arbitrary number based on what appears to be going on. i mean, whole cities are growing up spilling out into the lagoon built out over the water with schools, brothels, hotels, barber shops, businesses. >> how come i'm the only one sweating eating this? >> i don't know, man. it's healthy sweat. the people are -- i've never seen a population, a whole population work so hard, whether you're already doing well or whether you're below the poverty line, everybody is a true

believer that if i just work really, really hard and figure out an angle or multiple angles, success will be mine. >> right. >> and there are a loft very successful people. you know, it's an oil rich economy. there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of hustle, a lot of inequity. a lot of great food and a lot of really tremendous music. got an incredible music history, which we look into. >> cool. >> and a psychedelic rock scene from the '70s. >> there's a psychedelic rock scene in nigeria? >> in the wake of the african conflict, there was an explosion of psyche rock in nigeria. >> wow. >> and it is some of the trippiest, wildest, most awesome music and we look deeply into that subject. >> how deeply? >> deeply, man. >> don't miss anthony bourdain parts unknown in lagos this sunday here on 9:00 p.m. that's it for us. thanks for watching.

have a great weekend. time to hand it over to don lemon. cnn tonight starts right now. breaking news on the russia investigation. this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. former chief of staff reince priebus answering questions from investigators today. we're going to have more on that in a moment. plus does president trump have an obama obsession? remember when he said this about his predecessor? >> we get along. i don't know if he'll admit this, but he likes me. >> well, that bromance is over. if it was ever the real thing in the first place. the president making it his mission to undo every last bit of the obama legacy. today the iran deal is on the chopping block. >> our participation can be canceled by me as president at any time. >> that's after with the stroke of a pen while once he remembered to sign. he dealt with what may have been a fatal blow to obamacare.