and i want us to hold onto that because that still goes on that busheir and do they make assumptionassumptions they didnr values or there were kids striving to be good. they were running from our race and they still do that. a rare occasion for me to not

only be the host introducing the author but it's going to be a conversation with greg. to look nonchalant and relaxed up here. good evening. i am bradley graham along with my wife and on behalf of the staff, welcome and thank you very much for coming. the subject for tonight is one of the biggest stories of our time, which is of course russia as interference irussia's intere 2016 presidential election resulting in investigations of the trump campaign and administration.

they've been uncovering this story. the national security reporter for the "washington post" greg was part of the "washington post" team that won a pulitzer prize for investigative reporting for the groundbreaking coverage that they've done that but russia trump saga and that was the second pulitzer he is shared in 2014 and he also was part of the pulitzer for public service for coverage of the american programs revealed by edward snowden. as you might imagine the months that he spent with his colleague have been quite intense and overwhelming. the story has come to encompass so many elements.

the kremlin can be challenging. making sense of the connections also can be very difficult just given the day-to-day struggle of the reporting and the volume of breaking news. that's why he chose to step back a bit and write his new book which is called the apprentice. he wanted to lay out what is known as a detailed chronological narrative filling in some of the planks and blankd connecting the dots where he could through additional reporting. the result is a comprehensive and engaging and very, very useful work. it contains fresh detail and provides a lot of quite helpful

context. it's quite a contribution to the russia trumped up scandal in how well it synthesizes the available information and describes for the readers the full scope of what has become an incredibly complicated tale so please join me in welcoming greg miller. [applause] >> i'm going to be in conversation here with him for a while and then we will open up for questions. what a beautiful spot here. >> ar >> are you coming straight from the office? >> i filed my first byline since we published the story about the case. i was checking the edits on that until i pulled up outside of the

door. >> so trump and russia have intense enough. [laughter] >> i would like to talk tonight about both substance and process because there are so many that are helpful to highlight which emerge as the most significant. but the process also because the media role is sharing the story and has been a central part and one of the parts your book does so nicely is to pull back the curtain a bit when you and the "washington post" have gone through and as i said in my intro to draw together what is known so far is to look for patterns and insights and fill in some gaps reported. what were thrown out at you looking back at the story?

>> my background at the "washington post" as a national security reporter is specializing in covering the agencies. for more than a decade now when the story started to break in the latter stages of 2016 i was at the center of a story that was filling out the agencies were learning and concluding about what russia was doing including the fact that in the 2016 briefs and ha2016 greece ac objective in the end. i was involved in stories that broke that ground and the

stories about michael flynn and his false statements about what he told the russian ambassador but when i started to look at the book a couple of things jumped out at me. there were so many moving pieces there were parts i couldn't even focus on. i would say some of the financial journalism i started reviewing when i looked at the timeline started to look at the financial connections and at the empire and the structure of his real estate empire. that was the most eye opening area for me because they haven't had time to absorb the material until i sit down to understand in a broader way.

there are a couple of moments that stand out some of which we only learned connections and everybody remembers the moment during the 2016 race when trump says russia if you are listening i hope you can find those missing hillary clinton e-mails. we now know because of robert mueller and the extraordinary detail that he's built into the indictment sees delivered russia was listening and launched an operation to gain access. it was an interaction between a presidential candidate and a foreign government that played out right in front of our eyes but it also had a secret hidden component of the only learned about a year later.

>> one of the things you do in the book is retrace how it dawned on those in the government and elsewhere the extent of the interference and what the russians were up to but it becomes clear in reviewing the history how many missed opportunities there were to stop this and to tell the russians to cut it out although eventually there were some warnings that were delivered to them. take us through some of the biggest opportunities that were missed. >> another thing you can go back and look at that now and replay it and it's almost like one of those horror movies where you see the main character moving into a formidable position on

the screen who doesn't see a monster lurking behind and you want to shout at the screen turned around and focus on what's behind you. so the first chapter is about the hacking of the networks and how early on the fbi learned about this through a chip that came through in the end how many months and months went by before they could get the attention of the leadership in the dnc before they could convince the team that this was the fbi. your network has been penetrated and it took months for them to resolve this in a huge disconnect and throughout that

time the operatives were just rummaging through the files for months and if somebody had seen that in time and cleaned up the damage would have been so much less and contained. there are case after case where these entities can't find it in their power to react in time. >> the challenge becomes convincing of the theaters to do something about it and there is a good amount of fresh information and detail in your book and one of the things he

becomes quite seized by all of this russian interference and combs through some very secret intelligence and recognizes putin is directing all this and then goes out to try to persuade the republicans as well as the democratic lawmakers to say something about this and he runs into a lot of resistance from mitch mcconnell to senate majority leader at the time the department of homeland security is trying to warn state officials that they could be vulnerable an and the department offers federal help that some republican officials like bryan camp who's recently elected the governor of georgia secretary of state says thanks but no thanks. mcconnell and the gop weaponize

denial so what does this say about the ability of our political leaders to recognize or act on the real or present dangers to the national security? it is seen as a turning point in the country to behave in the society as a political entity. the officials in the book and the trump officials for the buck and intelligence officials from the cia and other agencies as a chapter where i describe closing the office for a two day stretch so worried about what is

happening he's trying to figure out what is going on here poring over everything that the cia has on russia, putin and the election. he comes out of that so freaked out he says i need to see obama immediately. they come up with a plan which is we need to respond but the first thing we need to do is get everybody on the hill because we need to respond and have a bipartisan response. we can't be seen as the obama administration politicizing intelligence, reacting in a way that will be perceived as if it is trying to help hillary so they sent brandon to deliver a briefing which is pretty unusual it's usually in front of the

group. he is laying out for mcconnell to say you are right we need to do something about this and in fact, the opposite happens. he says you look like you are trying to screw over my candidate and he says not only will i refuse to sign onto any kind of condemnation of what russia is doing but if you move forward i will -- there's lots to say about the administration failing but it stands out as a disturbing moment in our history where the idea and the issues and threats that we can all sort of come together as americans as opposed to the partisan figures

is gone. michael flynn who was the pick to be the national security adviseadvisor and you devote a r amount of space to one of his winnings for the then president elect don't give him an important job. trump did anyway. why did that turn out to be such a fateful decision? he had endeared himself by campaigning with trump in a way that was astonishing in some ways.

it's in a way few intelligence officers do and when he shows up campaigning in such an open and hostile way, even some of the close facilities are trying to stage an intervention to tell them you need to settle down. this isn't helping. it's not how officers are supposed to conduct themselves. but what ithat's what is happene ignores this morning and it's out of his depth in terms of the national security advise advisod even in the transition there are officials around him trying to get him to slow things down.

why are you meeting with the ambassador so frequently and do you realize anything you say will be picked up by the intelligence. it didn't matter to him. he still makes a fateful call at the end of december the end of the obama administration and they announced the sanctions on russia. on the phone with the ambassador saying we've got you covered we are going to take care of this when we are in office in a few short stock to do anything. what is the evidence of collusion, and here you have a decorated respective army general who spenarmygeneral whoe career serving the united turning against it in the end

lying to the fbi in his own government about it. that is one of the first big developments in the investigation. we broke this story in the "washington post" and exposed his lies about it and he was out of office within a few days. >> i don't know if there is an administration to dismiss this, the russian conspiracy talk is being make-believe. it looks very real at that point. this came in the face of the very repeated denials to the "washington post" that he

actually does so and you write about what was going on back at the paper but you all had nine sources lined up. it was such a dramatic moment and i felt like i don't do it a lot but we do turn the camera back inside the newsroom and a few critical places, and that is one of them because it was so dramatic in terms of how things work evolving for us as we try to get to the bottom of it. you want to get that right you don't want to make a mistake.

there is a way these things unfold. when confronted with the facts ultimately sort of acquiescent. we had spent weeks pursuing this story and had a lot of officials telling us we were right. and i had a colleague who had scheduled an interview with in his new office in the west wing in the corner and we grabbed her on the way over there and it said after you've covered all the subjects, tell them we want to publish this story and we need one last response on what he discussed so she does that

and raises this within. you told the russian ambassador that the trump administration was going to re-examine the sanctions denied categorically. they said no that doesn't happen. so when she came back from the newsroom that night we thought we were ready to publish, just on the verge of getting the system ready to go. but when somebody that's high in government pushes back the forcefully it makes you want to take stock.

by the end of the meeting they said we are going to publish. they call back in an hour. can we take back that denial cannot recall when the subject of the sanctions came up. a story like this not a day goes by but it seems the president is attacking the press and i would imagine it can be difficult to get interviews with people. on the other hand there must be many others who are eager to

pass information to you all. what is it like these days trying to deal with the forces? you've been doing this now for a while. are you hearing from more people or fewer people? >> i've never lived with anything quite like it. we are in attack in a very visceral way not just against us and enemies of the people and fake news and stuff like that, but on the very tools of our trade, facts, truth, the idea that you can get to the bottom of something and then if there is a reality that exists can uncover. the vitriolic and the press is off the charts but so is a

number of people who are talking every single day. it's pretty obvious. when we look at him as an individual and how he treats his subordinates and how disposable they are to him all the time with almost no exception except for how he is immediate family was loyalty could he possibly expect from those around him if they are in a world they could be cashiered at any moment they could be cut loose and fired in the most humiliated fashion with a message or something like it. what's loyalty to an executive like that expect?

you tell another story about how one of your colleagues received an anonymous letter. this was in late 2016 during the transition it was an envelope single space type from somebody in the transition discussions that was very concerned about the meetings involving the transition officials that sounded interested in the establishing of a secret back channel with the russians.

you can't buy secret tips like that. in 2016 she goes down to her mailbox and pulls out what would be usual junk mail and there is an envelope with a stamp on it. the transition to trump tower mostly was about russia and it is as much as the document panned out over time it wasn't a source document for us it wasn't something we could build stories around. we could trade it as a reporting

path to pursue things that we don't know who that is or if it is real. we've never been able to establish or figure that out. with the leader of mexico and australia it accounts for this conversation with the russian foreign minister inside the oval office i don't know if people understand you could spend decades in washington, decades in journalism and never see anything like that.

>> they were very upset by your story and there is a memo that he subsequently wrote about the exchange. it's push ahead to send a message. so you've cringe you cringed whd that.

she's glad my head is not on a pike. we get used to we are so uncomfortable thinking of ourselves as part of the story were consequences to ourselves we spend a lot of time protecting sources and of course we all like to stay out of jail as well, but we are sort of but never at the front of our mind or at least it isn't for me so it is chilling to read the memo she raced back to his office or car and started typing up what happened is that this is an account after meetings in the oval office and to hear him

talking about putting reporters in jail, here is jim comey going right along with that sort of laughing saying she would love to do it. he sees value in it. i was telling a story writing the book when the memos were released they made a terrible mistake at home. i have a 7-year-old boy and i was telling my wife you're not going to believe this memo came out tonight and what it says. i am just treating it as another incredible thing. a kind of can you believe its category. i look over and my 7-year-old is crying because he is observing this and listening and wondering he looks at me and says are you

going to go to jail, is trump going to put you in jail. it does tell you that it does touch us these ideas have any idea that those of us doing what we do could face consequences and he would have officials at the highest levels of government that would be that eager to punish you in that way for doing what we do. >> the sources you identify in the book is michael steele, author of the infamous dossier and does he secretly went to the post in 2016 when he was trying to get the word out about some of his findings he met with a couple of reporters he elaborated on his dossier and of course some of the things have

proven true and others haven't been substantiated at least not yet. what do you think of it overall? >> in its most accurate and sweeping assertions and conclusions there is the more narrow you get and the more you figure out if it is on the mark. the first memo that he writes this part of the collection that we call the dossier talks about russia waging a campaign with a goal of helping to elect donald trump he is writing way before we've reached that conclusion so he is way ahead. the thing people remember the most vividly about the dossier

is the idea that there is a ta tape. we literally spent weeks and months trying to run down. there's an assumption that the payments that were needed in the campaign and there were reporters all over the place to figure out if he was already there.

if we can turn the microphone over to the audience. given everything else has been able to survive but it's continuing and rather bizarre is a sickness seaming submissiveness to the leaders where do you come out?

that would have some compromising tape but it would give definitive leverage that it would be fatal to any other politician and would doom him if he were cheating on his wife with a porn star. the idea that the financial connections are still so deep is a much more compelling theory in the idea that he has deep financial ties to russia and oligarchs and the more you look at the empire the more it looks like a lot of his properties and a lot of the condos that he's

sold in the towers in florida and elsewhere in the development deals that he's done in the sort of crazy places overseas rely on strange sources of money and it's gone from borrowing to the hill for everything to suddenly throw around piles of cash. that makes the theory more compelling to me that we don't understand them completely and hope he can help us come to understand soon. but as i've read in the book she does have a crazy thing on him which is most for graciously.

a self billionaire that he lent her parlay it into this billion-dollar empire and that we note is just not true. at "the new yor the new"the newd establish that pretty definitively. she talks about it an intensivey and vanquished every clinton in the way in heroic terms and insists the russian interference was a hoax because it would be damaging but here is putin who knows how far it went. look what has happened to send. that would destroy the only

surviving leg of the narrative. as an apprentice to putin. >> it makes them famous and more wealthy and arrives in office. it is only connected to the politics we went around with the figures.

this adds subservience to putin and we thought if we compare look at the way he's carrying himself around other world leaders. he can't even bring himself to look at them. please raise your hand and put the microphone and. >> thank you for a very interesting presentation. we are seeing so much

information about corruption among leaders not just here in other countries, citizens with populist leaders are reading all the details of corrupt activity and yet nothing happens. i start to wonder do people really care. the theory is if you have the transparency that you force. get the balance of power there are not any revolutions caused. what is your sense on that. >> i think part of it is a kind of fundamental shift in the way that the country evaluates information that is brought to

it. it's the most potent symbol of a broad phenomenon which is the discrediting of the news organizations and institutions that we used to believe in. it just doesn't fit. i think the dynamic for change. the house of representatives and the democrati democratic controe committees subpoena officials in the trump administration to explain policies to the

politician to what we have seen in many of these agencies i think is going t it's going to e down world for a lot of people who worked for him. it's not just confined here to the united states there are broader consequences. i worry a lot about the possibility that denies of the colleague who was killed last month by the saudi government. how much was it that i presented at the family feeling like there's an impurity we've never seen before here. look how he treats the press and how close we are with jared

kushner. what bad it could happen to us and we see that over and over. i worry that the campaigns that credit playbook that autocrats around the world can take advantage of. >> you mentioned that the house is in democratic control with the committees that have subpoena power. if you were advising the committees, i think that they would be intelligence and ways and means. if you could get your wish list of what documents they should ask for and what people they should call to justify what would that wish list be? >> tax returns like anybody else. i would love to see -- there's a

lot we don't know about the before and after meeting at trump tower. he made a call in the middle of the meeting we haven't been able to identify and there's been a lot of vigor to get to the bottom of the questions, and i have a feeling that they will start going after things like that. they intend to dig into their financial interactions. they became associated with money laundering and a prominent one or after other banks in the united states started refusing to do business with him. but i also think that they've

gone down these paths. what you try to piece together a sort of mystery like this how do you avoid some of the dangers that come from following the same line everybody else is following? all of us were in this lesson in the run-up to the iraq war when everybody was convinced saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. why would he invite the united states and flow and behold it turns out he didn't have weapons

of mass destruction and there was an alternate explanation for why he was behaving the way that he was. have you thought about alternate explanations for why he was behaving the way he is? >> you are right there is a groupthink aspect. why would he behave the way that he is behaving. there must be some hidden leverage over him because that is the only way that it makes sense to us. trump in his personality and his disposition believes and admires the autocratic mile of leadership.

he believed it would translate well in the greatest frustrations connected to his inability to just order things shut down like the investigation to the wall along the border. he can't just issue the control of these outcomes the way that he would like to. he wishes he could emulate him in many ways which is the arrangement of putin has without the pesky press and the federal investigative branch and so forth. i'm not certain i think it's still possible that it could, but i also think that we have to

look at trump's personality and the kind of person that he is, and that also tells us about why he emulate him and is so devoted. >> the press has something to do with hi his plan at least in my perspective because when i read the typical "washington post" wathere was a sense of inevitability and many republicans that i know didn't know hillary didn't want her to win by a landslide and just there was a perception she would win by a landslide and voted for trump has the press or the post accounted for how he got the

predictions so wrong two years ago? >> that is a completely fair question it's hard not to be critical of the press didn't know how susceptible we were in the ability to generate headlines and interest by russia itself. the impact it ended up having bg without a bunch of recorders like me they had that pile of documents into stories with the word hillary clinton and e-mail in them.

the salt in this past issue of immigration go from the back burner to the front pages of my newspaper and many others because trump sends a bunch of 5,000 troops to the border with mexico and starts talking about invading. in these organizations were the presidenwhere thepresident sendf active-duty troops to the border, what are we supposed to do. we included all kinds of skepticism in that coverage and described it as a political stunt yet day after day the images were about immigration moving towards the border, just

all these buzzwords that worked to his advantage. >> i'm glad he mentioned the concept of groupthink. it seems like the time between the discovery of the hack into the office and the announcement that russia was the perpetrator was extremely short. i wonder how that was made so quickly and i wonder if either you or the fbi got to examine the server to the characteristics that might have been left like download speed, the sources and data and did you

get an opportunity to look into those issues and confirm that story of the russia hack? >> it immediately turned to the private security teams and if you look at the work they did come it didn't take much to trace this back to russia. the kind of tools that were being used with these teams they were not highly sophisticated they were just rushing through open doors. it was clashing cymbals once they got inside and they made no effort to cover their tracks. it reinforces the accuracy and

one of the things about what he's done so far is the indictment that he's delivered has such compelling detail that i've talked to the cia officials who can't believe he was allowed to include details that take you right to the specific keyboard hammering away on the specific buildings in moscow the case was strong from the outside and it's only gotten stronger. all of the parties trusted this private it in terms of the determination and there was not

a separate examination. >> if replicated everything it needed from the system to sort of peace this back together. the fact doesn't really disprove the complicity. >> this information from the

summer of 2016 included information that the cia had collected establishing putin direct involvement of this and i'm sure you wondered where exactly that came from. it has risked exposing the sources and so it is a pretty compelling thing. the question about the fbi and

they started saying shortly after they dumped this is a russian operation the press was skeptical of that. it was a rush of the press to paint this and believe the dnc and democratic officials claims the obama administration never mentioned them publicly until october until after they specifically say that this was a putin read operation designed to help elect donald trump. >> how is the handoff to those in the southern district?

>> one of the things he is so transparent and seems incapable of hiding or disguising in his own insecurities were worries. they play out every day for us to see. copies of the book are available at the checkout and he will be happy to sign copies here so let's ge give a round of applau. [applause]

one of the things i talk about in the book about my dad encouraging me if he tells a lot of people this and it told me the phrase speak your dreams and he tells people when kids come to him on the campaign trail to come into politics and you can tell they are a little bit anxious about saying that and he always does say speak your dreams to tell people that you want to do something.

.. >> it is great to be here at tucker carlson. it is a lot easier to ask the questions