good evening. there is breaking news on top of breaking news tonight in the russia investigation. at the end of an extremely significant day, significant for this president to be sure, and significant in the history of the presidency. it is that big a day. we're learning right now how the white house is really reacting to this morning's indictments of two former top campaign officials and the guilty plea of a third less known individual. it is not safe to say the calm that we've been witnessing for most of the day the west wing has. we begin though with what everyone is reacting to. not just a dozen conspiracy and money laundering charges against manafort and gates. but also the surprise revelation that this one george papadopoulos pleaded guilty

earlier this month to making a false statement to the fbi. his plea, his e-mails and other documents relating to his arrests that came out today tell us things we did not know until now. what's more, they provided key new points along a timeline that special counsel robert mueller could possibly build into a case that team trump colluded with russia to win the election. on top of all that another document unsealed today suggests that george papadopoulos barely on the radar until now, might have been wearing a wire. we have koerpts covering all the angles tonight on him, on manafort, on the president as well as a team of legal and political experts. we begin with cnn man u rang u and george papadopoulos who is front and center. >> soon after joining the trump campaign in march 2016 george papadopoulos had a meeting with a london based professor who promised dirt on hillary clinton's campaign. he had multiple interactions with this professor. and the professor's promise,

actually came around the same time that john podesta, the former hillary clinton campaign chairman, his server was hacked, his e-mails were hacked around the time that papadopoulos was promised dirt from this professor. what we do know is papadopoulos lied to federal prosecutors and admitted to lying these interactions with this london based professor and other russian contacts. and in these documents that were unsealed today it turns out that this contact was not the only one. there were several others. >> preponderance mp admit is he lied to federal authorities. when he said that contacts with the professor occurred before joining the trump campaign. he also falsely told authorities that the professor was, quote, just a guy talking of connections or something when in fact papadopoulos knew the professor had substantial connections to the kremlin and had repeatedly sought to arrange a meeting between the trump campaign and rurn government officials.

papadopoulos also down played contacts he had with a female russian national when in fact she also had ties to the russian government that papadopoulos pichld to the trump campaign as part of an effort to have trump meet with vladimir putin in russia. papadopoulos even described the woman to campaign officials as putin's niece. a campaign supervisor praised papadopoulos for, quote, great work. ask in march when he met with the woman and a professor in london, he tacked about setting up a meeting. and mr. trump should there be interest, papadopoulos wrote. as he continued to work on arranging the meeting the discussions reached the highest levels of the trump campaign with thin chairman paul manafort and senior aide rick gates e-mailing to say 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 signal. and then in may papadopoulos forwarded an e-mail he wrote

with russia updates to senior campaign officials in which he he said russia has been eager to meet with mr. trump for quite sometime and had been reaching out to me to discuss. but in july 2016 papadopoulos said that a meeting between senior trump officials with putin aides, quote, had been approved from our side. >> papadopoulos was arrested on july 27th and later pled guilty for knowingly and willfully making materially false statements. >> where is papadopoulos now? >> we simply don't know the answer to that, anderson. cnn has tried to reach out to him on multiple occasions. we have been unsuccessful in doing so. and even the house and senate intelligence committees have tried to bring him in for interviews and they have failed as well. but his attorney did issue a statement earlier saying that papadopoulos will not have any further comment but probably some of his story would come out through the course of the campaign. and anderson, even as the white house down played his role in the campaign, he graduate in

2009. he got his masters degree in london afterwards and later joined the trump campaign after working with ben carson's campaign the president singled him out in a "washington post" purview, called him an excellent guy. and said he's one of several people on his national security team and he's also pictured in march of 2016 in a meeting with then candidate trump. >> it's also important to point out that after he add was arrested and admitted he lied, he cooperated, right. >> that's significant. we don't know how significant yet. but the fact that he is cooperating with the fbi, it could signal that there's a lot more to this investigation going forward. everybody in the trump universe we tried to a number of occasions to reach out to the highest levels of the trump campaign and he also got some involvement, so my involvement may be more extense that i have than what we know right now. >> so what exactly are the algts against these two? >> well, a 12 count indictment

against the two men was unsealed today and it focuses on their years as political consultants and lobbyists working in u crepe. the counts include conspiracy against united states, conspiracy to launder money and seven counts of failure to fire reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. the court documents allege that these two men were taking tens of millions of dollars from ukraine while they were acting as agents for the country and then hiding that money in offshore accounts to wash it and then they lied about it allegedly. and the indictment details their lavish lifestyle, that they used this money from offshore accounts to pay for morjs, luxury cars, clothing, home decorating, their children's tuition. so while these charges don't relate specel to the trump campaign, the fbi says they were engaged in these activated from 2008 to 2017. so while they were at least involved with the campaign. >> and has manafort said anything about these allegations? >> well, manafort has stayed

mum. he self vended. 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, and mr. manafort and the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> this this indictment there is no mention of possible collusion with the russians. manafort and gates pleaded not guilty. their bail was set to so million for man sort five million for dpats and both then have been put on house arrest. >> what about gates? he's a long time associate of manafort. >> he was his business partner. his spokesman released a statement he won't comment until he reviews the indictment. his spokesperson said the indictment was unexpected. he called it a hastily designed

proceeds for political purposes. and the fight is just beginning. we should note that mueller's team could add a superseding indictment so it's possible there could be more tharjz. this is just the beginning here. >> the initial white house reaction was that this had nothing to do with the campaign as you you hear. as for tpapadopoulos plea it wa more along the limes of george who? >> this individual was part of an individual others council that met one year. again, somebody on a volunteer committee -- he was not paid by the campaign. he was a volunteer on, again, a council that met once. he was a volunteer on the campaign and a volunteer member of an advisory council. i'm telling you that he was a volunteer member of an advisory council that literally met one time. >> so that was this afternoon. right now, though, we're learning more about what went on behind closed drs at the white house and that's going on there

tonight. for that. do we know how the president reacted when he heard about these indictments? >> we do. we know that he spent hours in the residence not in the white house, not in the oval office but in the residence watching all this unfold on television. i'm told he was sooetding at these reports. that's in the words of someone who spoke to him. they said as he was watching all of this, he was expecting some kind of indictment on manafort, surprised him entirely.hing - he was watching this for hours. he did not arrive in the oval officials for meetings until around noon or 12:30 or so. simply watching this all unfoley as his lawyers were meeting with him. but entirely as the white house was trying to portray it down below when they were saying this is not connected to the campaign at all. as far as sarah sanders saying he was a volunteer. paul manafort was a volunteer as well. many people are in a volunteer capacity, so that does not necessarily mean much in this case. >> what is the white house strategy for dealing with mueller and the investigation

going forward? >> we found out that there is something of a tug of war going on here, if you will. there is one side of thinking the president's heel advisers saying that he should not aggressiveel go after bob mueller. he should if he wants to sort of make some attacks at the investigation, he can, but not directly at bob mueller. but there's another side. steve bannon that wing, of course, is leading that as well. he believes that the president's legal team has been too soft here and misguided here. so he does believe that the president should if after bob mueller in appear attempt to, you know, simply throw this all up in the air here. so there is an internal discussion. so far the president has not for abhiel gone after the special counsel here. we'll see if he does in the coming days. anderson, all of this, of course, a major distraction as this week was supposed to be the time to talk about the tax reform plan. and of course he's leaving friday for a foreign trip as

well here. but this, of course, so front and center tonight. >> it's fascinating that the president was actually watching tv for hours and didn't go to work until did about 12 or 1230. so the papadopoulos that came as a surprise. >> it did. we were told by several people that he was not expecting this and of course most people around washington weren't expecting this. he had pleaded guilty more than a month ago and this was something that was sealed and kept confidential here. no one pz who he spoke to as he was wearing a wire. if anyone had a conversation with him i can imagine they're rethinking what they said to him. >> it does seem those number of people five people or so when were nailed to the president's foreign advisory council. it's a time when candidate trump was under pressure because a lot of very representable experienced people had said that

they would not wok for president trump. so he needed to name some names, and that's when he came up with carter page and some others. there are very real questions about how closely linked they were to the campaign though it seems like with papadopoulos according to these charges, that, you know, he was getting his e-mails returned from manafort and others. >> sure. he was twenl trying to do something, trying to spet up a meeting. if ufrl right arm back in march of 2016 donald trump was still trying to convince republicans here in baushtd and elsewhere that he feels a real candidate. they weren't exactly top flight advisers who were working on some of the other republican campaigns here, so it's unclear exactly how much the work was going on at the time. but the president was certainly holding them up as examples of the fact that he was being add viegsd here. so the question here is, i mean, it was a very small operation and he was getting his e-mails returned at the time. there were no meetings, you were, but this again is the beginning of this.

how many others are out there, we'll find out as this investigation continues. >> thanks very much. david gergen joins us now. as someone who has worked in a number of white houses owe the years, how serious do you think today's developments were? >> sear. very serious. what we now know is the government is charging that an unregistered foreign agent for russian stoojz was campaign chairman for president trump. not for very long, but an important period of time. and that contrary to assurances from the president that there had been no conversation with the russians or his campaign had nothing to do with russians, we now know that at least one person who was rised as a national security adviser by the campaign who attended meetings with the president was in active activities with the russians. and what this suggests,

anderson, is that bob mueller now has this young national security adviser, papadopoulos, he's now singing. he's now giving evidence of higher ups, and that's how he got a plea barring today and pled guilty. so i think this is quite serious. >> what's also interesting about this papadopoulos development is it the exchange he had with this professor, russian professor in london who reportel has ties or allegedly has ties to the kremlin who said that they had e-mails and dirt on hillary clinton, i mean, that predates by several months the donald trump jr. meeting and yet there's a lot of echoes in the donald trump jr. meeting to what this professor was also saying to papadopoulos. >> yes. that's absolutely right, around sop. it also what we have here, two things. one, there was a clear desire on the part of people in the trump campaign to get the dirt, whatever it was, whether it was e-mails or whatever else they

might get from the russians that they clearly wanted to do it each though they didn't set up. they actually avoided setting up a big meeting with the russians. and i think that's an important element of this in going forward. and we also know, anderson, from the indictments there we're returned. and the plea bargain that's been made here by papadopoulos that papadopoulos was reporting to others, unnamed others, but they are singled out in the plea agreement that there was a campaign -- there were two people high up in the campaign and one national, senior national security adviser. we don't know who that is, but the finger seemed to point at perhaps flynn. >> well, also, the fascinating thing about this is both papadopoulos and donald trump jr. entertained this notion of getting dirt with the belief that it was from the russian government. i mean, that's what donald trump

jr. was told in those e-mails and papadopoulos, though he lied about it to the fbi then came here to the fbi -- >> that's a very good point. it's very clear that they were responding to signals from russian operatives saying we've got some stuff, do you want to talk to us. yes, we doment your stuff. now, what we still don't know and it's a big don't know is whether thiesz conversations led anywhere and did it actually led to cooperation with the russians. that still is unclear. but we know that's where mueller is hoping to go or are least he's going to investigate that to find out just what happened. one last thing, anderson, what we've also been told tonight by the "washington post" is that facebook is going to testify tomorrow that the russian-based, russian sourced materials put out in the campaign to meddle in the campaign may have reached as many as 126 million americans.

that's about the number who voed. >> yeah. cnn has confirmed that. david, can you just put this in some historical perspective in terms of, you know, scandals in the white house, investigations of white houses. >> well, you know, we're at a situation where this is not watergate and we are not at a point where the president of the united states is about to be shoved judicially or politically. what we do know is that we now happens rarely, have criminal - investigation which is creeping into high -- 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 watergate. but, you know, when you have criminal charges against people who were close to the president, that's very rare. >> david gergen, we're going to

talk to you a little bit later in the program. coming up next our panel weighs in on where this leaves the white house and the president personally. if you move your old 401(k) to a fidelity ira, we make sure you're in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. -♪ a little bit o' soul, yeah because when you know where you stand, t-mobile's unlimited now includes netflix on us. that's right. netflix on us. get 4 unlimited lines for just $40 bucks each. taxes and fees included. and now netflix included. so go ahead. binge on us. another reason why t-mobile is america's best unlimited network.

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the core of what mueller is investigating which is possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia and the e-mails that are discussed in his plea agreement, in the information to which he pled guilty, suggests that this was an extepssive effect between the trump campaign and the russian government to get together, including talking about thousands of e-mails. and we don't know if they're the same thousands of e-mails, but the thousands -- 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 that this information that's been unsealed in a july motion from the special counsel, i just want to read it of the it says in part public disclosure of the defendant's initial appearance, however, would significantly undermine his ability to serve as a proactive cooperate or. proactive cooperate or -- >> that means wearing a wire to me. and i think this is so -- what a blockbuster possible piece of -- possible development that is, because he was arrested in july. he pled guilty in october. that period of july to october accident i mean, just weeks ago, he was in a position to proactively cooperate, meaning wear a wire, get admissions from people who perhaps are still serving in the trump administration. >> although, ken, the question would be how connected was he? i mean, could he get his phone

calls returned. obviously he was getting his e-mails returned when he was part of the campaign. >> when you look through the 24 pages i wouldn't say his e-mails were returned all that dwikel. he got them the next day. campaign pace is minute to minute. that wasn't happening. and he was making the same requests for five months. i mean, from the middle of march until august in the statement of facts submitted with the plea is the first time you see any encouragement from anyone else in the campaign to papadopoulos, yeah, why don't you go ahead and do that meeting if you can make it happen. and the next sentence is the meeting never happened. so, yes, there was discussion in april of the e-mails, dirt on hillary clinton and we see that language show up later, a couple of months later. it's going to be real interesting to know who the specific individuals referenced are. you know, is the high ranking campaign official paul manafort or was it steve miller who was kind of running the whole policy

operation? steve miller is in the white house. papadopoulos was never going there. and his role here looks strange in one more sense and that is looks like he was pulled out of the sand box and pull into this campaign. >> all of those people, those five people who donald trump named at the time, carter page, they were just kind of pulled out of thin air. the president was under pressure. >> papadopoulos graduated from college in 2009. i mean, that's pretty young. >> fast move. michael, what do you make of papadopoulos's involvement? >> a couple of things. first is at the sentencing or the plea, the prosecutor, mueller's prosecutor said this is a small part of a larger investigation. so he's let people know that this guy represents just the tip of the iceberg for his broader investigation. second is -- >> what's also interesting about that is it's the tip of the

iceberg no one saw. usually the tip of the iceberg is stuff the media seize. he was arrested and nobody knew about it. >> in some sense that's a testament to bob mueller's team and the way they're operating. secondly, he's arrested and convicted or pleads guilty to lying. and what he did when he first was interviewed by the fbi was, i think, try to be protective of others, maybe a foolish about himself, but protective of others. so i think that this guilty plea to lying has to tell anybody else who has been interviewed or is going to be interviewed you better think long and hard about what you've said or 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 1001 lying count against you. it's a five-year felony and it's easily proved. that's sobering. >> you agree with jeff toobin.

you think the big question here is whether george papadopoulos has been wearing a wire. >> i think it gives not enough significance to say that he was just wearing a wire. proactive to me means that he was actively trying to have discussions with people, in some ways make mueller's team aware of what had happened over the months prior to that. there are a number of people he could have had conversations with. remember, washington, d.c. is one of those one party consent jurisdictions meaning you can actually wire tap and have conversations and include both parties with only one party agreeing to it. you could have tapes of conversations. for over three months this person escaped the scrutiny of the media and also escaped the probably the key players who

probably conversed with him, e-mailed, spoke casually and you don't have any idea what this man was able to accomplish before it went public. >> we've got to take a quick break. right after we come back from the break we'll continue the conversation of the also get to one of the looming questions, can the president try to fire mueller. would he? we'll talk about that next as well. mine's way better. this one's below market price and has bluetooth. same here, but this one has leather seats! use the cars.com app to compare price, features and value.

despite the president's

tweets and the white house press secretary's insistence there's nothing to see here there is plenty to see. the man the president once called a foreign policy adviser pleads guilty to lying about his contact with russia. now one of the many questions of course is will the president try to impede the investigation going forward, an vegs he's repeatedly called a witch-hunt. new reporting tonight says there's an internal fight over how aggressively he should try to go after mueller. according to the reporting other advisers dlug his former chief stat gist steve bannon are saying he should push back aggressively. as i said plenty to see. what jumps out at you at this point in all that we learned today? >> what jumps out at me is i spent five years with director mueller. what jumps out at me is what we're not going to see here. we're going to violate the laws of nature because this maneuver is going to roll uphill. he did not after 12 years as an fbi dreng tore to get into the

business on to indict people who are the margins of the trump campaign. when i saw this roll, this guy is coming out with some of the most serious charges first, but charges on the pefbry. what this tells me is he's now going to start rolling um. these people will talk about more significant players, whether that's done junior or jared kushner, i don't know and the issues are going to get hotter and hotter. did somebody actually get data from the russians and insert it into the campaign. >> you were also saying before that the timeline of this is interesting that when you were kind of looking at the dates and when comey was being asked for a loyalty test from the president, you believe they already had information. >> yes. look at -- let's play detective here fr a momt. you know they acquired data going well back to last year, financial data, e-mail, phone. so they're drawing a picture around somebody like the individuals who were beginning the prosecution this wook. they have the data.

we know also that some of the interviews you were under way. so the fbi is comparing what the interview he's were saying with the data. what i'm saying is when jim comey walked into some of those conversation with the president that he knew already some of the president's advisers had liesd to the fbi. that's a federal violation. he already knew the trump team was in trouble. >> remember, papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi on january 27th -- >> july. >> no. january 27th. that's when he pleaded guilty in july. his statement to the fbi was in january. jim comey wasn't even named until may. so this investigation had been preceding for months. and you have to give the fbi credit. they knew who to ask and what to ask way back in january. and, you know, that suggests that they had accumulated, as phil was saying a good deal of information even before comey

was even hired. >> one of the things i find interesting about this is that if you were to pick someone in this whole picture that would be most likely to be at the center of russia collusion, it would be paul manafort. and so the indictment comes out today doesn't touch any of that. it obviously uncovered ten years of his wrongdoing, none of it touching on what he was doing during the campaign, which is why i said earlier, it will be really interesting to know who that high ranking campaign official is because i think that tells us the next step in this story. but realize, there's a lot of speculation going on here. collusion is not an offense. it's not a legal offense of the what's being looked for here in terms of a criminal investigation is did people break the law in various ways. and we saw some of those examples today for three different people. actually, maybe four if you count podesta. and mercury hlc is the other one that's in the hot seat. and i think there may be more to come. but we still don't have any russian collusion here. >> michael and then -- >> so there are a couple of

things. first is collusion, that word is not a crime, but conspiracy is a crime. and it is a crime to conspire to interfere with a federal election. and it is a conspiracy to violate the anti-hacking laws by cooperating with people who receive it. so there are conspiracy charges that reside in this case on the ed that's publicly available. second, i think that the "washington post" has reported the communications with papadopoulos was with manafort and carter. you can double-check this. but i think that's what we have reported. so we know who they're communicating with. so i think that the financial traction 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 the manafort group did. flynn did it with respect to turkey and for a shorter period of time.

manafort and ukraine for a longer period of time. but it's the same thing. and flynn has a son in the game. >> and they would go after his son as well. >> and i think it's sort of in the dna of every parent to try and protect their child and i think that's going to be part of the reason why we see the possibility of flynn cooperating. >> you wanted to say something. >> i was going to say the timeline here can't be missed because the efforts by the white house presumably are going to try to discredit mueller and believe are plooefg that mueller was somehow engamtd in the witch-hunt that was accused of him many many months ago when he took office in may. but that timeline indicates that, in fact, you have to credit fbi not just muscle the and his team but the investigation of a kornt intelligence groeb long before he took the office of special counsel. to do that would would have to derail the trust in the executive branch's own agency the department of justice and the fin.

we were talking on friday about the issue of who was going to be the big fish. we had a national security adviser. we had michael flynn. we had manafort the campaign chair. we had other people, the son-in-law, the son of the president as well. but the other than was who was going to be the biggest of those fish. but the reality of today show us it was the smallest of those fish, papadopoulos where we were that there was a bridge that was being built and constructed from the fbi counterintelligence probe to now to fill in the gaps that you didn't have. and that's why papadopoulos is so important and how you know that context is going to be everything for mueller's team. >> we've got a lot more ahead including the stuping none reaction today, house speaker paul ryan. hey hun, huh! we gotta go. come on. ♪

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it is a turning pony in the russia investigation. the fist indictment, a guilty plea from a former trump campaign adviser. the reaction on capitol hill, though, shows how big this is with what democrats are saying and how the republican leadership is trying not to say anything. cnn congressional correspondent joins me. >> republican leadership, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, how are they responding to all this? >> well, it seems as if republican leadership up here on capitol hill are really taking paps to avoid responding to these doimts today. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell avoided press up here. he appeared at a press

conference and left before he was able to be asked questions by reporters. and earlier today speaker of the house paul rooip was asked about this at an event in dear yen, wisconsin. here is what he had to say. >> i have nothing to add to these indictments other than this is what bob mueller was tasks to do. i haven't read the indictmentsment i don't know the specific details. but that's how the judicial process works. >> and just emphasizing there this is someone as speaker of the house paul ryan is second in the line to do presidency and he was asked about this many hours after the indictments came out, saying it's remarkable, he said, that he has not read these indictments. and he also was asked in a radio interview about this today. all he would say, anderson is it's not going to derail the focus um here on capitol hill on tax reform, but it certainly is sucking up most of the oxygen in the room. >> yeah. what about other members of the congress? is it pretty much divided among party lines. >> yeah, it sure is.

saying this is significant, applauding robert mueller, saying that this shows that the special counsel is doing his job. we heard from democrats today essentially preemptive warning shots at president trump saying, warning him not to go on and fire the special counsel as has been talked about in recent days, that this could be a potential democrat saying you should not interfere with the investigation. that's a sentiment that wasn't shared exclusively among democrats. one republican senator lindsey graham moments ago saying that president trump should stay in your lane and let these proceedings play out. though he did add it's okay to talk to the russians. it's just not okay to accept help from them. >> thanks very much. well, the bombshell day for at president is coming at a time when his approval rate is tanking. just 38% say they approve of the job the president is doing. that's down five points since september. the previous low was 39% approval in may.

meanwhile, the latest gallop tracking poll has him 33%. so david gergen, speaker ryan, he is second in line to the presidency. he's essentially brushing off saying he didn't look at the indictment. what's arguably the most significant development in this investigation. >> around sop, i'm sure he does want to push tax reform this week but i absolutely think that speaker ryan owes more of a statement than he's issued so far. i would think the wise course would be to follow lindsey gram saying the president should stay in his lane. this is too serious and be respectful of the process and let the protsz play out. speaker ryan has as much of an interest as democrats do in heading off any firing of mueller. >> arguably the biggest wild card in all of this is how

president trump continues to react. >> i've talked to multiple people today who were giving me completely different stories. i have i somebody who has spoken with the president multiple times today who said to me he's completely cool. when he heard about papadopoulos he said who is the hell is this guy? i don't even know who he is, that he expected clearly something on the manafort front. then i spoke with somebody else who has spoken with the president and i said well, somebody described him as cool and this person said no, he's actually anti-cool. he is hot and bothered. and so, you know, 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 kind of playing nice with mueller, saying that they're handing him all the documents he wants and trying to get the president not to criticize mueller. in twitter or anywhere else. and that's been holding. but the question, i think, you have to ask is will the cam

break. >> the white house has been trying to twlekt and distract from the investigation really from day one. is that an impossible mission at this point now that there are indictments. >> for anyone who reads words on the page it's impossible because it's in black and white. i don't see anywhere in all the court documents i read today some effort of the democrats to make an excuse for losing an election. that's the quote, unquote hoax that president trump has argued this entire investigation. it doesn't hold water. when sarah sanders, the white house press secretary speaking on behalf of the prosecutes stands behind the podium today and says that nothing that calm out today had anything to do with the campaign, it's just completely not supported by the facts of everything we learned about papadopoulos today. >> yeah. and david gergen, according to the reporting by cnn, the president worries that the investigation could hurt his ability to negotiate with foreign leersds and believes, quote, is the world is less safe because of this investigation

and it will remain less safe until it is over the does that make sense to you? >> it only is less safe if his seething leads to sort of a reaction on his part, an impulsive reaction. he's got to take actions somewhere else to deflect attention, that sort of thing. i do think it is awkward for the president to be going on his foreign trip which is a big deal coming up at the end of this week for ten days. you know, it's going to be hard to sort of have the white house maneuver through what could be, you know, very -- a difficult terr rab here. they have to naf fwat in a way that doesn't lose the public but at the same time tries to erect defenses. and that's going to take some very smart people. >> gloria, to the point about, you know, the president being distracted, you know, those who worked in the clinton white house used to say that when president clinton was under investigation he was able to compartment aleyes it.

it sounds like the president spent this morning up until, you know, midday essentially watching tv and fuming. >> right. and you saw, you know, in the series of tweets this sort of kree decor from the president did mueller and this being a hoax and everything else. and i feel like just reading him and i believe twitter is really a version of the true trump, you do get the sense that this is a president who feels like he's kind of punching jell-o here because he's trying to get through his message, but how can he get it through when you have george papadopoulos out there saying, oh, i was communicating with these people who were telling me, yeah, it sounds like a good idea for you to go to russia. it doesn't make a lot of sense. and so while some tell me he's cool, i tend to believe that the real trump that we see is the one that we see on twitter and that is really anything but cool. i think he is clearly fuming about this. >> david, the other thing to

think about is the impact these indictments and papadopoulos has on lower level staff in the white house who have to look over their shoulder and wonder what other e-mails are there and have to higher attorneys of their own at great cost. >> yeah. one republican operative i think at the white house post tonight in touch with people at the white house described it as the walls are closing in. people feel that in the withist wing. there's no doubt, as much compartment alzbliegs as you'd like to accomplish, there's no doubt that this just oozes thu every ras spekt of what goes on inside the west wing of a white house. every one is aware of it. it is impossible to remain a 100% focused on the policy initiatives because this is hanging over their heads. >> this president doesn't compartmentalized eyes. he vents. and that's what we saw today and we may see more of it. >> thank you. when we come back, the man at the center of all today or one of the people at the center,

former campaign chair paul manafort. we're going to dig into exactly who he is and what he's accused of doing because it's very complex. next. you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies, and data without insights. and fragmented care, stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. at optum, we're partnering across the health system to tackle its biggest challenges. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,... system ...isn't it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it's time for otezla (apremilast). otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,... ...with reduced redness,... ...thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has...

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more now on one of the men at the center of today's big story, former trump campaign chairman, paul manafort. as we mentioned, after pleading not guilty in a federal court this afternoon manafort is now under house arrest with a $10 million bond. if he violates the court's terms. his passport has been confiscated. here's how sarah sanders described the former head of the campaign today at the white house briefing when asked about the indictment. >> the president hired paul manafort to handle the delegate process, which he did, and he was dismissed not too long after that. >> all right. that is just not an accurate characterization of this role. manafort was the one-time campaign chairman. he held a central place on the team until he resigned in august 2016. now, we knew mueller's team had its sights on manafort,

especially after that early-morning fbi raid on his home this past july. now we do have a much clearer picture of the extent of his alleged crimes. cnn's drew griffin has more. >> 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 have pleaded not guilty. most of the money came from the former government of ukraine. manafort allegedly hid the money in overseas bank accounts and offshore corporations, then tried to sneak the money back into the u.s. he bought three homes in new york and virginia, for $6.4 million, 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 a 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 entertainment system company and hundreds of thousands for antiques, high-end clothing and

cars. the man at the other end of that money, most of it from political consulting deals with the russian-aligned former president of ukraine, viktor yanukovych, who is being tried for treason and now lives in exile in russia. in 2005, paul manafort says he began consulting with yanukovych, advising him and his party through tumultuous elections, that included a divisive campaign, allegations of corruption and voter fraud. manafort is credited with helping get yanukovych elected president of ukraine. in an interview with cnn 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 europe and away from russia. >> as far as the yanukovych administration is concerned, you will see, if you do any fact checking, that i was the person who negotiated the frame work which is -- based upon which ukraine is now part of europe.

that was my role. that's what i did. >> but yanukovych moved closer and closer to russian president, vladimir putin. yanukovych's policies divided the ukrainian people. leading to riots, police killings, dozens were shot to death, including targeted killings of yanukovych's political opponents. ukrainian president viktor yanukovych, 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 yanukovych. federal agents also discovered paul manafort 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. manafort did eventually file the paperwork in june. and it showed his company was paid more than $17 million in just two years by the ukrainian political party. >> known donald since the 1980's. and we talked about it and he felt i could help him, as i felt, and he made the changes. >> reporter: in march of 2016, donald trump brought his long-time acquaintance, paul manafort onto the campaign, soon promoting him to campaign chair. but within months, manafort was gone. political infighting along with renewed charges of secret payments from ukraine and russian oligarchs doomed manafort's future with donald trump. on august 19th, 2016, less than five months after joining the trump campaign, manafort resigned. >> and drew joins me now. as you pointsed out -- we pointed out right before the piece, the white house is saying, basically, that manafort was just a small player in the

campaign, which is pretty ridiculous. he was much more than that as you explained. >> reporter: he ran the campaign as chairman, anderson, during that crucial summer months of 2016 that included becoming trump's convention manager, during the republican national convention. when manafort was really trying to convince establishment republicans to back trump's nomination. 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. we should also point out that these two, donald trump and paul manafort, go back decades. and their first connection is none other than roger stone. stone and manafort ran a lobbying firm that trump hired on several occasions dating back to the '80s. paul manafort even went on to buy a nearly $4 million condo in trump tower. anderson. >> drew griffin, appreciate it. thanks very much. >> we've had an explosion of information today. the question now is how all the details connect. we're going to lay out a full timeline for you right when we come back. - [narrator] you hope nobody knows it's you.

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