tonight on cnn a massive day, robert mueller's probe, three former trump campaign officials charged. don't miss the special report on the russia investigation coming up at 11:00 eastern. anderson's next. good evening there is breaking news on top of breaking news tonight in the runner investigation. the end of an extremely significant day. significant in the history of the presidency. is that big of day. we're learning how the white house is really reacting of this morning's indictment to top campaign officials and a guilty plea of a third less known individual. it is not safe to say to come. we begin with what everyone is reacti reacting to. not just a dozen conspiracy or

money charges against paul manafort but a surprise revelation, george pep adopt lus pleaded guilty earlier this month making a false statements to the fbi. his e-mails related to the arrest came out today, couple of things we did not know until now. they provided key points along a time line that robert mueller could possibly build a case that team trump colluded with russia to win the election. ood suggestion that george may have been wearing a wire. we have correspondents covering all the angels tonight. we begun with manu raju on george. what have you been learning? >> that's true joining the campaign in march 15, george had a meeting with a london base

professor who he promised dirgt on hillary clinton's campaign. he had multiple interactions with this professor. this professor came in around the same time that john pa december that, hillary clinton's former campaign manager, his e-mails were hacked. we do know that george lied to federal prosecutors and admitted to lying about these interactions with -- with this london based professors and other russian contacts. and in these documents that were sealed today, anderson, turns out this contact was not the only one, there were several others. >> judgeorge admitted he lied t several authorities when he said contact with the professor occurred before joining the trump campaign. he also falsely told authorities that the professor was quote, just a guy talking up connections or something. when in fact, george knew the

professor has connections to the kremlin and repeatedly sought to arrange a meets. george also doubt t conflicts he had with a female national when she also had ties to the russians that george pitched to the campaign as part of an effort that trump meet with vladimir putin in russia. the woman was also described as putin's niece. in march, when he met with the woman and professor in london they talked about setting up a meeting. they said the leadership, including putin is ready to meet with us and mr. trump should there be interest. george wrote, as we continue working to arrange a meeting the highest -- and senior aid rick gaits e-mailing to say, quote, we need someone to communicate that dt is not doing these trips. it should be someone low level

in the campaign so as not to send any signals. and then in may, joj forded e-mails he wrote to russian up dates in which he said, russia has been eager to meet with mr. trump for quite sometime and has been reaching out to me to discuss. but in july, 2016, george says a meeting with senior trump officials with putin aids, quote, has been approved from our side. george was arrested july 27 and had pled guilty for knowingly and willfully making false statement. >> and where is he now? >> we simply don't know the answer to that. cnn has tried to reach out to him on multiple occasions. we have been unsuccessful if doing so. the house and intelligent committee have tried to bring him in for interviews and they have failed as well. his attorney did issue a statement earlier saying george will not have any further comment, probably some of his story would come out through the course of the campaign. and anderson, even though the

white house downplayed his role in the company, he graduated in 2009, got a master's degree in london afterwards. the president singled him out in a "washington post" interview called him an excellent guy. >> manu, it's also important to point out, after he was arrested and admitted he had lied, he cooperated with the fbi right if. >> yeah, and that could be significant. we don't know how significant quite yet. the fact he is cooperating with the fbi could signal there was a lot more to this investigation going forward. we don't know the extent of his context. everybody in the trump universe, we tried a number of occasions to reach out to the highest level to the trump campaign and also got some responses. his involvement may be more extensive than we know right

now. >> okay, rick gates, and pamela brown. what are the obligations against these two? >> trump indictment between the two men wasn't sealed today. the counts include a conspiracy against united states, conspiracy to launder money and seven counts of failure to file reports, a foreign bank and financial account. these two mens is alleged to have been taking tens of millions of dollars from the ukraine while acting as agents for the country and hiding that money in offshore accounts to wash it. and they lied about it. they used this money from the accounts to pay for money, mortgaging, clothes, homes, decorating, their children ea east's tuition. the fbi says they were engaged in these activities from 2008 to

2017. so while they were involved in the captain, anderson. >> has manafort says anything? >> didn't say anything but his attorney spoke outside the building to reporters and said these charges are baseless. take a listen. >> president donald trump was correct, there is no evidence. mr. manafort on the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> again, in this indictment there is no mention of possible collusion with the russians. manafort and gates pleaded not not guilty. the bail was set for manafort and gates and both put on house arrest. >> and want gates? >> his spokesman released a statement saying he won't comment until he reviewed the indictment. his spokesperson said the

indictment was unexpected he was surprised by this. and le called it design to accommodate by political and press considerations and argued that the fight is beginning. we should note mueller's team could add a supercede indictment. it's possible there could be more charges this is just the beginning. >> all right pamela thank you. >> this individual was the member of voluntary counsel i met one time over the course of a year. it was a volunteer position. again, somebody on a volunteer committee. again he was volunteer. he was not paid by the campaign, he was a volunteer on again a counsel that met once. it was a volunteer on the dpan and a volunteer member of an advisory. i'm telling you that he was a volunteer member of an advisory counsel that literally meant one

time. >> that was this afternoon. right now we're learning about what wen on behind the closed doors of the white. cnn's jeff zeleny. do we know how the president reacted after he heard about these indictments? >> we go. we know he spend hours in the residence watching this unfold on television. i'm told he was seething at these reports. they said as he was watching this, he was expecting some kind of indictment on manafort, but this george thing surprised him entirely. he was watching this for hours. he did not arrive in the oval office for meetings until around noon or 12:30 or so. entirely different and the white house was trying to portray it down below when they were saying look, this is not connected to the campaign at all. and as far as sanders saying volunteer over and over, paul mand ford was a volunteer as well.

each and every one of these people on the campaign is in a voluntary capacity so that doesn't mean much. >> what is the white house strategy for dealing with mueller and the investigation going forward? >> we found out after talking to a lot of people there is a tug of war going on here if you will. there was one side of thinking the president legal advisors saying he should not go after bob and mueller. if he wants to make some attacks at the investigation he can but not directly at bob mueller. there was another side, steve bannon, he believes that the president's legal team has been too soft and misguided here. he does believe the president should go after bob mueller in an attempt to, you know, simply throw all this up in the air here. there is an internal discussion. so far, the president has not for a while gone after the special counsel here, we'll see if he does in the coming days. anderson, all this a major

distraction, as this week was supposed to be this time to talk about a tax reform plan. of course he's leaving friday for a foreign trip as well. this of course so front and center tonight. >> yeah, the president was actually watching t.v. for hours, you said didn't go to work until about 12:00 or 12:30. so the george side of this, this came as a surprise? >> it did. i was told by several people he was not expecting this. most people around washington wasn't expecting this either. he pleaded guilty almost a month ago but this was something sealed and continue comfortable. that was one of the -- confidential here. so that was a prize today. no one know who he spoke to several weeks ago. >> it does seem the number of people, those five people or so i think it was who was famed to the president's foreign advisory person later on in the campaign.

it was time when the candidate trump was under pressure because of a lot of experienced people had said they would not work for president trump. so, he needed to name names and that's wen he came up with kaurter paige, and george and others. there are questions about how closely linked they were to the campaign. it seems like with george, according to these charges, he was getting his e-mails returned from manafort and others. >> sure, he was trying to do something, trying to set up a meeting. back in march 2016, donald trump was trying to quince people here in washington and elsewhere he was a real candidate. he said look, i got these flielgt advisors, and they weren't advisers working on the campaign, so it's unclear how much work was going on at the time. the president was holding them up as examples of the fact he was about advised here. the question here is, it was a

very small operation, and he was getting e-mails returned at the time. there were no meeting of course. how many otheres are out there, we'll find out as this investigation continues. >> jeff thank you very much. david gurgan joins us now. how serious do you think today's developments were? >> serious, very serious. what we have now know is that the government is charging that an unregistered foreign agent to russian stew justice was campaign chairman for president trump. not for very long but an important period of time. and that contrary to assurances for the president that there had been no conversations with the russians, this campaign had nothing to do with the russians, we now know at least one person who was recognized as a national security adviser by the campaign, who attended meetings

with the president was in active conversations with the concerns. what this suggests is that bob mueller has this young national security adviser. >> george. >> george, he's now singing. he's now giving evidence of higher ups and that's how he got a plea bargain today and pled gilt. i think this is serious. >> what's interesting about george, the development is the exchange he had with this professor who had ties to the kremlin who said they had dirt on hillary clinton, that predates by month the donald trump jr. meeting. and that predates in this donald trump jr. meeting what the professor was saying to george. >> yeah, that's right.

that was a clear desire on the part of people and trump campaign to get the dirt, what ever it was, whether e-mails or something they might get from the russians, they clearly wanted to do it even throe they avoided setting up a big meeting with the russians, they wanted to send signals back. we also know from the indictments that were returned, and the plea bargain that's been made here by george, that george was reporting to others, unnamed others but they are singled out in the plea agreement. there was two people higher up in the campaign and one senior national security adviser, we don't know who that is. but the finger seems to point perhaps to flynn. >> this is both george and donald trump jr. entertaining

this notion of getting dirt -- >> yes. >> -- with the belief it was from the russian government. that's what donald trump jr. was told in those e-mails and then george who lied to the fbi -- >> yeah that's a very clear point. it's clear they were responding two signals from the russian op tifrs saying, we got some stuff do you want to talk to us, and yes, we do want you stuff. now what we don't know is whether these conversations led anywhere and did it actually lead to cooperation with the russians in terms of the meddling, that's still unclear. we know that's where mueller is hoping or at least he's going to investigate that to find out what happened. one last thing anderson, we've also been told by "the washington post" is that facebook is going to testify tomorrow that the russian based, and russian sourced materials

put out in the captain, meddling in the campaign may have reached as many as 126 million americans. that's about the number that voted. >> yeah, cnn has confirmed that. david can you put this in some perspective in terms of scandals in white houses and scandal investigations in white houses? >> well, this is not water gate, we're not at a point where the president of the united states is about to be shoved judicially or politically. what we do now is that we now for the first time, because it happens rarely, have criminal investigation, which is creeping into people close to the president or high up in his campaign and may well reach in among the people who have worked in the white house. we haven't seen that since the nixon days. again, i stress this is not water gate.

but when you have criminal charges against people who are close to the president, that's very rare. >> david gurgan we're going to talk tow later in the program. coming up next our panel weighs in. and given the president's mood we'll explore the nuclear option, firing robert mueller and the fall out that may bring. d your retirement score. so, that goal you've been saving for, you can do it. we can do this? we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. nana, let's do this! aye aye, captain! ♪ and as you go through life -whoo! -♪ tryin' to reach your goal

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. we first learned who george was in march of last year when a bri list of briefs at a meeting in "the washington post". >> george, he's an oil and energy -- >> now he's at the center threatening the president. jeff, pop adopt louse how big is thi this? >> i think it's enormous. his position involve it is core of what mueller was investigating. and the e-mails that were discussed in please plea agreement in the information to which he pled guilty suggests that this was an extensive effort between the trump

campaign and the russian government to get together, including talking about thousands of e-mails. we don't know if they are the same thousands of e-mails but there were thousands of hillary clinton e-mails that were later released. and any involvement of the trump campaign in the release of those e-mails could be the basis for a very serious charge. >> we also now know this information has been unsealed in a july motion from the special counsel. i just want to read it. public disclosure of the defendant's initial appears could significantly serve as a proactive corporate cooperator. >> that means wearing a wire to me. what a blockbuster possible piece of development that is. because he was arrested in july, he pled guilty in october. that period of july to october,

just -- i mean just weeks ago, he was in a position to proactively cooperate, meaning, wear a wire, get admissions from people who were perhaps still serving. >> the question would be how connected was he, could he get liz phone calls and e-mails returned when he was part over the campaign. >> but when you look through the 24 pages, i wouldn't say his e-mails under returned that quickly he got them the next day. he was making the same request for five months. the statement of facts relating with the plea is the first thing you see -- in next sentences, the meeting never happened. yes, there was discussion in april of the e-mails, dirt on hillary clinton.

and we see that language show up a couple months later. it's going to be real interesting to know who this specific individual's referenced are. as the high ranking campaign official, paul manafort or is it steve miller who was running the whole policy operation. steve miller's in the white house. george was never beginnigoing t. and his role here looks strange in one more sense, and that is, it looks like he was pulled out of the sand box and put into this campaign. >> well there were five people that donald trump named at the time, they were pulled out of thin air because the president was under pressure, he had to get names. >> george graduated from college in 2009, that's pretty young. >> michael, what do you make of george's involvement? >> so, couple things. first is at the sentencing or the plea, the prosecutor,

mueller's prosecutor said this is a small part of the larger investigation. he's let people know this guy represents just the tip of the iceberg for his broader investigation. second is -- >> which is also interesting about that it's the tip of the iceberg no one saw. usually the tip of the iceberg sts stuff the media sees. he was arrested and no one knew about it. >> well, that's right. and in some sorts that's testament to bob mueller's team and the way they're operating. second, plooes arrested or pleas guilty to lying. what we did when he was first involved with the fbi is try to be protective of others. so, i think that this guilty plea to lying has to tell anybody else who has or is going to be interviewed, you better think long and hard about what you're going to say to mueller. you can't protect anyone but yourself, because if you do lie

in an effort to protect somebody, a mistaken effort to protect somebody you're going to end up with a thousand and one lying count against you, it's a five-year felony and easily proved. >> laurie you agree but you're big thing is whether george lab wearing a wire for months. >> absolutely. proactive to me means he was actively trying to have the discussions with people, to in some ways make mueller's team aware of what had happened over the months prior to that. so being proactive there are a lot of people he could have had conversations with. remember, washington, d.c. is one of their one party jurisdiction. you can actually wiretap and have recording on one side of the conversation and include both parties, only one side agreeing to it. you could have videos and tape recorders out there, people who

are now in administration, perhaps with manafort or gates. so you have an evolving story here of what this person knows. it must be reiterated for over three months this person escaped the scrutiny of the media and probably the key players who probably conversed with him, e-mailed, spoke casually and you have no idea what this man was able to accomplish before it went public. >> we got to take a quick break. we'll continue the conversation. also the looming questions, can the president try to fire mueller, will he? talk about that next. wait, what, what happened? i was having a good round, and then my friend, sheila, right as i was stepping into the tee box mentioned a tip a pro gave her. no. yep. did it help? it completely ruined my game. well, the truth is, that advice was never meant for you. i like you. you want to show me your swing? it's too soon. get advice that's right for you. investment management services from td ameritrade.

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despite the president's tweets and the white house's press secretary assistant saying there's nothing to see here, there is something to see. the man the president once calls the foreign advisers plead guilty to his contacts with russia. new reporting tonight from jeff zeleny says there's an internal fight of how aggressively the president should try to discredit mueller. according to reporting other advisers are suggesting he push back aggressively. as i said, plenty to see and talk about. with the panel. phil, what jumps out at you from this point? >> what jumps out at me is what we're not seeing here. we're going to violate the laws of nature because this manure is going to roll up hill.

he did not, mueller, get into this business to indict people who are under the -- and he did get into there business to come after someone for money laundering. when i saw this role, this guy's coming out with serious charges first. what this tells me he's now going to start rolling up. these people will talk about more significant players whether it's don junior or jared kushner, i don't know. this is just the beginning. >> you were also saying before we went that the time line of this is interesting. you were looking at the dates and when comey was being asked for a loyalty test from the president, you believe they already had information? >> yes. let's play detective here for a moment. you know that acquired data going back to last year. that's financial data, the fbi, financial data, e-mail, phone.

so they had the data. we know also that somebody interviews were underway. the fbi's already comparing what the interview wee is saying. what i'm saying is i suspect when jim comb my walked into some of the conversations with the president he already knew some of the president's advisors had lied to the fbi, that's a federal investigation. he already knew the trump team was in trouble. >> remember, papadopoulos pleaded guilty of lying to the fbi on january of 27th. >> july. >> no january. he pleaded guilty in july, his statement to the fbi was in january. jim comey wasn't even named until may. this investigation had been proceeding for months. you have to give the fbi credit, they knew who and what to ask way back in january. that suggests that they had accumulated it, as phil was

saying, a good deal of information before comey was hired. >> if you were to pick someone in this whole picture that would be most likely to be at the center of russia collusion it will be paul manafort. the indictment coming out today don't touch any of that. none of it touching on what he was doing in the campaign, which is why i said earlier, it will be interesting to know who that high ranking campaign official is because i think that tells us the next step in this story. realized, there's a lot of speculation going on here. collusion is not a legal offense, what's being looked for here in terms of a criminal investigation is did people break the law in various ways. we saw some of those examples today for three different people, maybe four if you count pa december that, and mercury llc is the other one that's in the hot asset. and i think there may be more to come but still no russia

collusion here. >> michael and then lauren. michael. >> collusion is not a crime by conspiracy is. it is a crime to conspire to interview with an election. it is a conspiracy to violate hacking laws. so there are conspiracy charges that reside in this case. secondly, i think "the washington post" has reported the communication's been papadopoulos was with manafort and carter. we though who they're communicating with. and so, i think the financial transaction indictment against manafort is the logical first step in leveraging manafort to cooperate if he has information about collusion. similarly with flynn. because the flynn intel group did almost the exact same thing i believe as what the manafort

group did. general flynn has a son in the game and -- >> and tlaid go after his son as well. >> and they would go after his son. it's in the dna of every parent to try to protect their child and i think that's going to be part of the reason we see the possibility of flynn cooperating. >> lauren you wanted to say something? >> the time line here can't be missed, the efforts by the white house are beginning to try to discredit mueller and people believe that mueller engaged in witch hunt that was accused of him many many months ago when he took the office in may. well, you'd have to discredit the fbi not just mueller and his team, but the investigation of the probe before he took the office of special counsel. to do that would have to derail the trust in the executive branchs own action, the department of justice and the fbi. and we were talking a great deal

on friday about the issue of, whether or not he is going to be the big fish, we had a national security adviser, we had michael flynn, manafort the campaign chair. other people, the son-in-law. the issue was who was going to be the biggest, but the reality shows us it was the smallest of those fish, papadopoulos, where we know there was a bridge being built and constructed from the fbi intelligence counter probe from last year till now. and that's why papadopoulos is so important and how you know context is going to be everything from mueller's team. a lot more ahead including the reaction from the today -- paul ryan. ♪

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it is a turning point in the russian investigation, the first indictments, a guilty plea of the trump indictment admits he

lied about his contact to russia. the reality on capitol hill shows how big this is. congressional correspondent joins me. >> how are they responding to all this? >> seeing the republican leadership up here on capitol hill, anderson are taking pains to avoid responding to these indictments today. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell avoided press up here on capitol hill. he appeared at a press conference and left before he was able to be asked questions by reporters. speaker of the house, paul ryan was asked about this at an event in wisconsin. here's what he had to say. >> i have nothing to add to these indictments. this is what bob mueller was tasked to do. i haven't read the documents or the details. but that is our our judicial process works. >> and this is someone, as

speaker of the house, paul ryan is second in line to the presidency. he was asked about this many hours after the indictments came out, stating it's remarkable saying he has not yet read the documents. he was also asked in a radio interview about this today, all he would say anderson, it's not going to derail the focus up here on capitol hill on tax reform but it's sucking up most over the oxygen in the room. >> what about other members of congress? >> we heard some saying this is significant, applauding robert mueller saying he's doing his job. warnings at president trump saying -- warning him not to if on and fire the special council as has been talked about in recent days as could be a potential. democrats say you should not interfere with an investigation. one republican, senator lindsay

gram moments ago saying president trump should stay in yore lane and let these proceedings play out. he did add it's okay to talk to the russians, it's just not okay to accept help from them. anderson. >> all right. thanks very much. the bombshell day for the president is coming at a time where his approval rate is thank youing. 38% say they approve of the job the president is doing. the previous for the poll was 39 in may. joining me now is gloria, and david gurgan. david, speaker ryan, should we expect more from him? he's brushing off and saying looking at the indictment which is the significant development in this investigation. >> anderson, i'm sure he's

disstraugt because he does want to push tax reform. i do think speaker ryan's owed more of a statement than he has before. this is too serious and be respectful of the process and let the process play out. speaker ryan has as much of an interest as democrats do and heading off any firing of mueller. >> gloria, i guess the biggest card in this is how president trump continues to react to mueller's reaction. >> i've talked to multiple people today who have given me completely different stories. i have someone whose spoken with the president today whose he's completely cool. when he heard about papadopoulos he said, who the hell is this guy, i don't know who he is. then i spoke with somebody else who spoke with the president. and i said well, somebody described him as cool.

this person said, no, he's actually anti-cool. he is hot and bothered. so you're trying to get a picture here of how the president is really reacting, and what the strategy is going to be going forward. because, you know they've been playing nice with mueller, saying they're handing him all the documents he wants, trying to get the president not to criticize mueller in twitter or anywhere else and that's been holding. but i think the question you have to ask is will the dam break. >> and john, the warehouse has been trying to distract from day one. is that a possible initiative at this point? >> for anyone who reads words on the page it's impossible. it's in black and white. i don't see any papers i read some selection from the democrats trying to win

elections. when sarah sanders, the white house press sectretary speaking on behalf of the president saying nothing came out today has nothing to do with the campaign. that's not supported by the facts of everything we learned about papadopoulos today. >> yeah. and david, the president worried the investigation could hurt his ability to negotiate with foreign leaders and quote, the world is less safe because of this investigation and will remain less safe until it is other. does that make sense? >> it's only less safe if he have an reaction on his part. i do think it is awkward for the president to be going on this foreign trip which is a big deal, at the end of this work for 10 days.

it's going to be hard to have the white house maneuver through what could be difficult terrain here. they have to navigate in a way that doesn't lose the public but direct defenses. >> and gloria, to the point about the president being distracted, those who worked in the clinton warehouse, when president clinton was under investigation he was able to compartmentalize it. they had a group working on that and a jup working on poilsz issues. according to jeff it seemed like the president was up watching t.v. until the afternoon and tweeting. >> right. when you saw this, it was a -- i feel like just reading him and i believe in twitter is really a version of the true trump. you do get the sense this is a president who feels like heist kind of punching jell-o here,

because he's trying to get true his message. how can he get it through when you have george papadopoulos out there saying, oh i was communicating with these people who was telling me yeah, it sounds like a good idea for you to go to russia. it doesn't make a lot of sense. while some people tell me he's whole cool, i tnd to believe the true trump we see is the one on twitter and that is anything by cool. i think he is clearly fuming about this. >> david, i think it's important to look at the impact papadopoulos have over the staff. >> yeah, and one rirn operative i think at "the washington pos"" described it as the walls closing in.

and people feel that inside the west wing. there's no doubt -- as much compartmentization as you like to impose -- there's no doubt it's oozing going on inside the white house. it's hard to remain 100% focused on the policy issues because this is hanging over their head. >> this president doesn't compartmentalize he vents. and we may see more of it. >> all right guys thank you. when we come back the man at the center of it all today. paul manafort. we're going to dig into who he is and what he's accused of doing because it's very complex. next. who are these people?

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his passport has been confiscated. the former head of the campaign today at the white house briefing, this is what he said. >> the president hired paul manafort to handle the delicate process, which he did, and he was dismissed not too long after that. >> martin was the one-time campaign chairman and held the central place until he resigned. we knew mueller's team had et cetera sights on manafort, especially after after the raid on his home in jum. now we have a clearer picture of the extent of his alleged crimes. >> reporter: the government's case that paul manafort and his partner, rick gates, pushed $75 million through offshore accounts and manafort laundered $18 million of it, both pleaded not guilty. motivate came from the

government of ukraine. he then tried to sneak the money back into the u.s. he bought three homes in new york and verge, then took out loans on those properties to launder the cash. and according to the court filing, never paid taxes on any of it. federal prosecutors detail lavish lifestyle that went beyond properties, including more than $5 million paid to a home improvement company in the hamptons. 1.3 million to a home icbm system company and hundreds of his thousands flash flood antiques, high-end clothing and cars. motivate from the former president of ukraine who is being tried for treason and lives this exile in russia. he says he began consulting had him, advising him and his party through tumultuous elections.

manafort is credited with helping get oncovich elected president of ukraine in an interview last year, paul manafort says the ideals he brought to ukraine were pro u.s. and his job was focused on bringing ukraine closer and closer to year and away from russia. >> you will see if you did any fact checking that i was the person who negotiated the frame work based upon which ukraine is now part of europe. that's what i did. >> byan covich's policies invitd the ukrainian people. leading the riots, police killings, dozens were shot to death, including tarted killings of his political opponents.

the ukrainian president eventually fled his own country to russia and to the safety of his friend, vladimir putin, in february of 2014. all the while continuing to be advised by paul manafort. manafort first hit the fbi's radar when the agency began looking into possible corruption and money laundering involving yan covirgin islands federal agents also discovered martin martin and two other consulting groups working with the ukrainians failing to register that work with the u.s. government, a violation of the u.s. foreign agents registration act his company was paid more than $17 million in just two years by the ukrainian political party. >> we talked about it and he felt i could help him and he made the changes the. >> reporter: in march of 2016 donald trump brought paul manafort onto the campaign, soon

promoting him to campaign chair. but within months, manafort was gone. political infighting along with renewed charges and russian oligarchs doomed his future with donald trump. on august 19th, 2016, less than five months after joining the campaign, manafort resigned. >> as you pointed out, the white house is saying basically the manafort was just a small player in the campaign, which is pretty ridiculous. he was much more than that as you explain. >> he ran the campaign as chairman, anderson, do you agree during that crucial summer months of 2016 that included backgrounds the convention manager, during the republican national convention. it wasn't just a small role. it was a crucial role. he had been hired by trump in march of 2016, eventually took over when cory lewandowski got

sacked. donald trump and paul manafort go back decades, and their first connection is nonother than roger stone. stone and manafort ran a lobbying firm that trump hired on several occasions dating back to the '80s. paul manafort went on to buy auto $4 million condo in trump tower. >> we had an explosion of information today. the question now is how all the details connect. we're going to lay out a full timeline comeback. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques.

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when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise the russia story we expected tonight and the russia story almost no one expected. two former top members of the trump campaign arrested. it is this man, george papadopoulos who's looking more and more significant and dangerous to a president who's claimed that there was no collusion between his campaign and russia. no collusion, he tweeted this morning in all caps. millions of dollars in alleged money laundering and tax evasion and deception in connection with prior lobbying work for pro lobbying forces ukraine. he entered a not guilty plea, so did his business associate,