hour. happy friday, alexi and boris. alexei on the right, boris on the left. they were friends. they were kind of rivals but they were friends. they were certainly colleagues. they were co-leaders of one of the biggest opposition efforts that putin ever faced in russia. alexei on the right, boris on the left side. boris again on the left side, the more ruddy complexion, alexei on the right. alexei and boris ran a political organization together, they led rallies together. right up until the night of february 27, 2015 when boris got murdered. boris was shot in the back on the street just outside the kremlin. you can see his body in the foreground of that shot. right up until boris nemtsov was killed outside the kremlin, his friend alexei navalny had been leafletting with him for a march they were due to lead against bird flu tin in moscow together.

they'd been planning for this big rally due to happen the morning after boris got killed. ultimately it turned into a funeral march and ultimately they wouldn't even let alexei go to boris' proper funeral. they locked him up and held him on charges of illegal leafletting on the day boris had his funeral and was buried. well, now as we have talked about before on this show, alexei navalny, the survivor of that friendship, he is running for president of russia against vladimir putin. they have election this is time next year and putin and his government, they do keep finding ways to put alexei in jail. the most recent rabbit they pulled out of a hat was they had him convicted on embezzlement charges against a state-run russian company, something having to do with timber futures? nobody believes it was a real case but it was a real conviction and technically that conviction disqualifies alexei navalny from rubbing against

putin. keeps him off the ballot. that embezzlement conviction they cooked up means he technically will not be allowed to run against vladimir putin for putin next year. and alexei navalny is unbowed and apparently unafraid by these machinations from putin's government. despite all these things that putin has done to him. despite this conviction, he says he's still going to run. he says he'll figure it out. they can't stop him. but check this out, today, holy mackerel, today alexei navalny just posted this online. that's him in the alexi navalny, he runs something called the anti-corruption project and today they posted this video, almost an hour long, really well done. it's in russian, obviously, but you can see at the bottom it has english subtitles. i have to admit i found it -- i spent way too much of my office hours today watching the entire thing, i found it completely riveting.

if you want a real world manifestation of bravery in politics, this is it. this is worth watching if you want to know what that looks like. it's interesting. it's an article of faith among anybody who's connected in geo politics. you talk to long-time journalists, plaurly people who worked abroad, anybody who worked in big time national security or big time international business or diplomacy, even big time military folks, anybody who's had a rear, ben out there in the world, somebody worldly and connected and knows what's what. if you know anybody like that ask them and do it like -- don't think about it, quick, pop quiz, just ask them, who do you think is the richest man in the world? and if you ask somebody who's connected, who's worldly, who's been around, every single one of those people, every single time, will give you the same answer, they will say the richest man in the world, obviously, is vladimir putin. and on paper that shouldn't be true, right? the salary of the russian president is a fraction of what

the u.s. president gets paid. vladimir putin has never had a job outside the russian government he's never had any disclosed business ties, any official investments we are allowed to know about but the whole oligarchs thing, the whole conversion of state-run enterprises of the communist soviet union, all those billions and even tens of billions of dollars that have moved over the last 20 years, all of that money is believe to have gone to some degree through vladimir putin's pockets. by people in a position to know he is widely believed to be the richest man in the world -- and by a lot. and basically all of that wealth, if it's true, all of that wealth has been stolen and/or extorted and/or kicked back to him over his 17 years in office running an increasingly autocratic russian government. technically, yes, there's a russian parliament but it's like a vestigial organ.

it's basically the adenoid of the russian government. it's the tonsil. technically there's also a court system in russia but you know what? that's putin, too. just ask the small town judge who cooked up the timber futures embezzlement charge against alexei navalny, putin's presidential opponent for next year's election. also technically there's a form of democracy in russia. they have elections. but ask boris nemtsov bleeding in the street outside the kremlin. ask other opposition leaders who have turned up dead or in prison or had their political parties declared illegal. over all the years that putin has been in office, increasingly year after year with a tighter and tighter grip the russian government has been reduced and reduced and reduced down to one person, the state is one person, it is vladimir putin -- with one tiny exception.

vladimir putin has aloud for there to be one non-putin thing in russian government. and it is this guy. the guy with his back to us there doing the sort of chicken wing dance. his name is dimitry medvedev. and at one level -- it's a little weird that putin has been in charge in russia for 17 straight years because there are supposedly term limits on the russian presidency. the way he's gotten around that is that he has ping-ponged back and forth between being russian president or russian prime minister. he keeps going back and forth between those two offices and so you need somebody else to do that with, right? as he has pinged back and forth between prime minister and president and back again, the guy who's held the other office for him is mr. chicken wings here, dimitry medvedev. he's the guy putin has allowed to hold the other job so putin can stay in power. and putin is always running everything, don't get me wrong. but sometimes he's running everything as president while dimitry is prime minister and sometimes he's running everything as prime minister while dimitry is president.

it's cute. and dimitry medvedev is sort of seen as ridiculous in russian politics, he's seen as a pet. but he's in a vaunted place. he's the head putin's political party called united russia. he's the only human being vladimir putin has allowed to hold any meaningful title in that country for years. medvedev started off as putin's chief of staff 14 years ago and putin has kept him basically as his adjunct in office ever since and now look at this. this is the video, right, by the opposition guy, alexei navalny, that is the video he posted today. but what this is, this is alexei navalny and his anti-corruption group flying drones with cameras on them over what they say are all of dimitry medvedev's secret properties. again, like vladimir putin, dimitry medvedev is not supposed

to be rich. he's never worked outside -- look at this house. he has never worked outside of government jobs. he just gets a government salary. but here is the opposition guy, the guy who wants to run against putin, the guy they keep locking up, the guy they keep convicting on trumped up charges whose friend and co-leader of the opposition was murdered in the street outside the kremlin, here's alexei navalny, not just being a putin opponent, here's alexei navalny breaking whole new ground, literally flying drones over the walls and fences. look at this house. putin's prime minister's 45,000 square foot mountain chalet in sochi on the black sea. how do you afford that? and here they are flying drones with cameras attached and they've mapped it here over this gigantic country house in kursk which has its own manmade lake. here's them flying another drone over another one of these gigantic country mansions reportedly this one a 30,000 square foot behemoth in the beautiful verdant moscow suburbs.

this one also has its own lake. and we have one other here. this one we can't even really figure out where it is because i can't understand the google russian translation well enough to figure out the geography on this one. this is reportedly, though, another one of dimitry meedev's lovely homes. a big rural estate. we think this is also maybe outside moscow but not too far? oh, but wait, there's more. they have taken drone footage of what they say is his vineyard in tuscany with its 17th century villa. and while we're add it, would you like to see his yachts? this is his yacht. oh, sorry, and this is his other yacht. both of which are reportedly named for his wife, which is nice. but remember, life long public servant, no declared legal sources of outside income whatsoever other than his government salary. and it's one thing to say vladimir putin is the richest man in the world and his cronies are all corrupt. it's another thing to document

it, to post the documentation online, to unravel all the shell companies, to explain in the a way that normal people can understand it even with subtitles and to lay out the trust and the foundation -- to lay it out as public information and then to physically go there and film it and post the film online with explanations so everybody can see it. that is what alexei navalny just did today. this has just been put out, it's russian -- the film is russian with english subtitles. it's totally worth watching. we will post a link to it. the "new york times" today also did a good write up on it out of their moscow bureau. but this is -- i mean this is new ground that has been broken. imagine the bravery it takes, right? imagine what it's like to take a shot at that particular king given what has happened in the past, given what has happened in alexei navalny's lifetime as a public figure. what has happened to putin's critics, to putin's opponents,

to critical independent journalists, to anybody who has gotten in putin's way, certainly to anybody who has tried to tell his secrets. think about the bravery that takes. this week here at home, the u.s. attorney general recused himself from investigations involving contact between the russian government and the trump campaign. he had to recuse himself after he admitted to not disclosing information about his own contacts with the russian government while he was part of the trump campaign. this follows the resignation of the national security adviser for also not disclosing his contacts with the russian government during the transition and during the campaign before that. and i want to make a point here about bravery and risk. do you remember how it is that we found out about michael flynn's conversations with the russian government? how we all came to know that national security adviser michael flynn had actually talked about sanctions with the russian government even though

he'd been denying that? do you remember how we found out that actually we know what's in the conversations and we know he talked about sanctions? how did we know what was in the conversations? how did we find out about that? they were phone calls. how did we -- we found out about that because there were, reportedly, transcripts of the calls between national security adviser michael flynn and russian government officials. and as we think about danger, as we think about how dangerous this moment is, as we think about political bravery in this context, as we think about what people are risking and how big a deal this moment is for us as a country, how outside the normal course of event this is thing is that we are living consider just that one fact about michael flynn, national security adviser, and why he had to resign 24 days into this new administration. u.s. intelligence agencies often times -- like everyday -- listen

in on calls and communications made by foreigners, particularly foreign government officials here in the u.s. happens all the time. it's a little unseemly. it's not awesome feeling to know that but it's true and it's legal under u.s. law but under u.s. law if american law enforcement or intelligence sources are surveilling, they are listening in on a foreign communication and an american gets on the phone, a u.s. person becomes part of that conversation then in that circumstance, in that event it is no longer legal for the u.s. agencies listening in on that call to keep listening. ey he to hang up. it's legal for them to listen to foreigners, for them to eavesdrop and spy on foreigners. it's not legal for them to eavesdrop and spy on americans. so if an american gets on that call, if an american turns up in one of those communications, they have to drop it. unless they've got a warrant that keeps them listening in, because there's some investigation under way and they've been able to go to court and get a warrant that allows them to keep listening. the fact that we know there were

transcripts of intercepted communications between michael flynn and the russians means that there was a warrant. means that a fisa court warrant was issued for an investigation somehow related to that matter that allowed that surveillance to keep going. allowed that transcript to be taken. and fisa information is a big deal in terms of secrecy. fisa is a secret national security court in the united states. stuff that turns up under fisa court warrants, stuff obtained under fisa court warrants doesn't usually get leaked. fisa stuff is very secretive information that is treated very carefully in the government. that means whoever leaked the content of those michael flynn russian governmentintercepts, whoever said "they talked about sanctions, it's on the transcripts, whoever leaked that to the press was doing something that's a big deal. was taking a big leap into the unknown. was taking a big risk somebody who is a big enough deal to have that fisa information apparently

thought that information about national security adviser michael flynn that turned up under that surveilled phone call, apparently that person in the u.s. government thought that that information that turned up on flynn was so dangerous that it needed to be made public despite the fact that it was from this highly secret source covered by this highly secret court that is kept under such close watch inside the government. that stuff doesn't leak. that's not normal that that leaked and whoever leaked that, whoever the source was there -- you may see that as wildly reckless, that's secret information. you may also see that as wildly brave depending on the way you look at it, but it's worth understanding the person who did it, i'm sure, get what is a big deal it was they must understand the danger. they must understand the risk and they chose, for whatever their reasons were, to do it anyway and that's a big deal,

here's where this comes together because we don't know what's going on in terms of the law enforcement and intelligence investigations. the fbi, cia, nsa, treasury department investigations into links between the trump folks and the russia folks. we don't know. we know a little more about the investigations happening in congress, the house and senate intelligence committees. well, earlier this week, the "washington post" hinted at it and last night nbc news confirmed based on two sources that the intelligence committees are considering calling to testify for their investigations, they're considering calling a man named christopher steele. that muffin the other name ian fleming considered besides james bond. james steele? james bond. christopher steele? no, james bond.

you can imagine, it's such a sin matally perfect iconic mi 6 spy name. christopher steel. he's a real person who is an ex mi 6 british spy. he is the author of that dossier of the supposed strange russian dirt on donald trump. that salacious dossier was dismissed as unsupported but outlandishly salacious in terms of its wild personal allegations about our new president. and to this day nobody has provided one whit of evidence that any of the sex stuff, the salacious and personal stuff about donald trump is true. not one whit of evidence. but that wasn't the only thing in that dossier and we have had two reports, one from cnn and one from the "new yorker" saying that u.s. intelligence and law enforcement sources have been finding that the dossier kind of holds up otherwise.

they've been able to corroborate the less salacious stuff in the dossier, the stuff about the trump campaign and people in trump's orbit. "u.s. investigators say they have corroborated details in a dossier compiled by a british intelligence agent. intercepts confirm some of the communications described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier. the corroboration based on intercepted commune igss has given u.s. intelligence and law enforcement greater confidence in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents. this is from the "new yorker" this week. paraphrasing at the start here. "in the weeks that followed the publication of this dossier u.s. officials confirmed some of its less explosive claims relating to conversations with foreign nationals.

they're continuing to chase stuff down from the dossier and at its core a lot of the it is bearing out. that quote from an intelligence official speaking with "the new yorker" this week. well, if some of that christopher steele dossier is turning out to be true. if that christopher steele dossier turns out to be the original and at least somewhat accurate reporting on what the russians have on donald trump and why this is happening to our country and why all these trump-related people have been talking to the russians all this time, whether or not they remember these conversations until they get it nailed to their foreheads, right? if that's the case, if this is this original story of what happened and why, what befell our country in this scandal, it would be good to hear from the guy who put that together. the guy who figured it out in the first place by going to russia and figuring it out the problem is if the house and senate intelligence committees want to talk to christopher steele, nobody knows how to find him. he has gone into hiding. he went into hiding for his own safety as soon as the dossier came out and nobody has seen him

since. and there are rumors about important russians who have turned udead or arrested since the christopher steel dossier was written and leaked. if the dossier is a true account of what the russians have, think about its, the russian government would like to plug those leaks that led to that true information making it to this western intelligence source and ultimately into the american press have they been going after their own people on this? have the russians that disappeared and died since the dossier came out, is that them cleaning up after it? one of the stories that's not a rumor is the senior fsb officer dragged out of a high-level fsb meeting. a high level fsb meeting is happening in few view of the room, officers come in, put a bag over his head, drag him out of the room.

we're told the senior fsb officer is charged with treason and that's connected to russian government secrets leaking to western intelligence. but if you want to know more about that, can't help you. we haven't heard hide nor hair of that guy since his initial arrest. we are not used to russian-style politics in our country. we have never run their operating system on our hardware before but this is dangerous stuff, this is the dagger in cloak and dagger, right? and little pieces of the story are unspooling everyday. the national security adviser is gone and the son-in-law and senior adviser to the president also met with the russians and didn't tell anybody about it and the attorney general is recused but facing pressure to resign over his contacts with the russians and the russian connected campaign manager who mysteriously dropped out of the campaign before the final swing of the election is turning out to be a can of worms that has barely been opened and this unspools more. and it's taken daring and bravery from the whistle-blowers

and leakers and intelligence sources but it's worth remembering bravery doesn't happen in safe places. bravery doesn't happen where it is safe. bravery happens in the presence of real danger and we have gotten an acute up close personal view of that danger coming up tonight. stay with us.

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we interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast for some breaking news regarding attorney general jeff sessions. we have just learned attorney general jeff sessions has agreed to amend his testimony. in his testimony at his confirmation hear hearing in the senate in january he now

famously failed to disclose meetings he had with the russian government officials when he was asked about trump campaign meetings with russian government officials jeff sessions told the senate he didn't meet with russians but he did. he says he will go back and change his testimony. he says he will do that on monday. that comes after this letter was sent today, all nine democratic members of the senate committee wrote to the chairman requesting that jeff sessions come back, that he appear before the committee in an open session and answer their questions in light of what he admits was not true about his testimony. the spokesperson for sessions tells nbc "in light of the letter received from senators late this afternoon, the attorney general will respond to their questions along with his amended testimony on monday." oh, really? no. before you get too excited i need to tell you the "washington post" is reporting what they mean by that is that jeff

sessions is not going to turn up. he's not going to appear before the committee in person on monday, rather he's going to file his amended testimony and he will answer senators questions in writing on monday. i don't know why he doesn't want to show up and take questions with the cameras rolling but that news that at least we'll get something from him on monday is just into nbc tonight. we will keep you updated as we get more. stay with us. black sheep, have you any wool? no sir, no sir, some nincompoop stole all my wool sweaters, smart tv and gaming system. luckily, the geico insurance agency recently helped baa baa with renters insurance. everything stolen was replaced. and the hooligan who lives down the lane was caught selling the stolen goods online. visit geico.com and see how easy it is to switch and save on renters insurance.

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on tuesday night this week when we were covering the president's not state of the union address you might remember we had richard engel on the air after the speech from moscow. it's a little unnerving that it mas news sense right now to get a take on the american state of the union from a russian perspecte, literally. but that does make news sense and why he was in moscow. but richard engel has come back from moscow and he ended up today in virginia doing an absolutely hair-raising interview with one of the people you will find on every list of opposition figure, journalists, and dissidents who have been murdered or barely survived an attempted murder in vladimir putin's russia. the man richard interviewed is named vladimir care kara merz a. he barely survived. he was poisoned. he had to learn how to hold cutlery again. that was 2015 but he survived. then a month ago he was back in russia.

and doctors say he ingested what they're calling an unidentified toxic substance but it happened again and he has been in and out of a coma since then, but again he survived what appears to be a second attempted murder, a second poisoning and today richard engel interviewed vladimir kara-murza while he recovered as got him to explain what happened. watch this. >> about 5:00 in the morning i guess even earlier, 4:30 maybe i woke up because my heart was racing, many i heart beat was getting faster and faster and i could feel it. >> you woke up to this feeling? >> yeah, and it obviously wasn't

normal and i started sweating badly and feeling suddenly really weak. i realized later that's because my blood pressure dropped suddenly very quickly. i started having trouble breathing and this was painful but i could physically make this movement but it felt like no air was coming out and i was suffocating. >> gasping for breath? >> yeah. of course i knew straight away what it was because itas the cond time in two years it happened and it began almost the same way. understand this happens really quickly. within the space of maybe 15 to 20 minutes i went from being completely normal to being basically incapacitated. unable to breathe, heart racing, blood pressure non-existent, unable to stand or walk or sit. then within the next six hours by that time i was already unconscious. within six hours all of my major organs shut down one after another.

same picture as 2015. multiple organ failure. the liver, lungs, kidneys, heart, they just give up. but i wish i didn't remember those first few hours because those were the most horrible ones. i don't think there are words to describe how it feels when you're trying to breathe and you cannot and when you slowly feel your whole body just giving up, one organ after another and you feel like the life is going out of you and i remember having this distinct feeling okay, this is it. i'm dying this is the end. and i wish i didn't remember those few hours both in 2015 and now. >> joining us now is richard engel nbc's chief foreign correspondent. congratulations on getting that interview. it's harrowing to hear this man who was almost killed twice talk about getting that near to death. whafts it like talking to him today?

>> well, i was surprised he was in such good health. he was weak. he stopped the interview after about an hour, he said he couldn't go on. he walks quite slowly but his mind was sharp. he was speaking very clearly. there was no stutderring or issues with that but i was impressed at his bravery. we did a walking shot where we walked together to get some pictures. he has something of a limp right now which is from his last poisoning. lost a lot of feeling in -- on the left side of his body but i found him to be very courageous that he was willing to sit down and tell his story after they tried to hill kim twice he says. he's now in the united states. his family wanted to make sure he got out of russia so he was able to recover.

right after he was poisoned i spoke to his wife who also, somewhat shockingly, sat down, did the interview and she told me at the time that as soon as he was taken off of the respirators and the life support systems, as soon as he was unplugged she wanted to get him out of the country. >> richard, it is widely believed that he was -- this attempted murder was something that was carried out by the russian security services or people related to the russian security services. that he was targeted because he's an opposition figure. >> he fully believes that. >> what do you make of those contentions? >> well, if you look at the pattern here, a lot of people who have been outspoken critics have had unfinally health problems and sometimes death. you mentioned earlier and showed that disturbing picture of boris nemtsov who's on the bridge

right next to the kremlin who had just been shot. there is a connection here. boris nemtsov was not only kara-murza's close friend, kara-murza was in russia at the time promoting a documentary he made on his friend. on boris nemtsov, the man shot dead on the bridge. he was touring the country promoting this documentary going from lecture to lecture. you've been on book tours, you know what it's like when you go from location to location. he was in a very hectic period and sometime during that period his doctor says he was given some sort of poison. he doesn't know when, he doesn't know where but he was promoting this documentary on another activist, a friend of his who's the godfather to one of his children and then in the middle of the morning, 4:30, 5:00 a.m.

he says, he suddenly feel this is incredible pain, he shoots up out of bed, he can't breathe and within 15, 20 minutes, he can't even stand and his organs start collapsing. so look at the pattern. his friend was shot dead. he was poisoned some time while he's promoting a documentary about his friend. other activists in his circle have end up killed or injured so in his claim that there's a pattern that if you speak out against the kremlin bad things will happen to you, there is a case to be made there certainly. >> richard engel, nbc chief foreign correspondent, congratulations on that interview and thanks for helping us understand it tonight, appreciate you being here my friend. >> absolutely. it's important to say that -- just so we put context, we did reach out to the russian authorities, we reached out to the kremlin, to the embassy here in washington, also to russian police and we didn't get a response.

>> if you do i don't want to be in the room with you when it comes in but i'd love to hear about it afterwards. thank you, richard, appreciate it. i should mention one of the moments that stuck with me from this interview as i watched the whole thing, richard at one point asked vladimir kara-murza as he's recovering from this assassination attempt, what appears to be an assassination attempt, he asked if he had a message for president trump and vladimir kara-murza said "the only thing we ask of our colleagues and political leaders in western democracies including the united states is that they don't help mr. putin. we'll be right back. concord, north carolina, did you know,

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in his what his ex-wife said was a bid to shield his billions of dollars from his white during a hard fought divorce battle. he went on a spending spree, he bought the most expensiv apartment in new york city, he bought a soccer team. and he bought this palm beach mansion from donald trump for $100 million. that was the most expensive u.s. home$100 million price tag was remarkable for another feature of that bottom line which is that $100 million was like 2.5 times was what donald trump paid for ate couple years earlier. we've talked about that and

we've talked about that fertilizer guy is a major shareholder to a bank in cyprus that has tied to vladimir putin. the vice chairman of that bank is our new commerce secretary wilbur ross, long time friend of donald trump so if you saw monday night's show that much we have covered. here's a new thing, though. as far as anybody can tell, the same russian oligarch, the fertilizer guy he also owns this nearly $100 million airport. look how big it is. he owns it through a holding company in the british virgin islands and we know from flight records that on november 3 -- five days before the presidential election -- his plane, the fertilizer king, his plane showed up in little concord, north carolina, that tiny one-strip airport on the same day donald trump was in concord, north carolina, holding a rally.

the fertilizer king's plane arrived in concord, north carolina, from new york at around 9:30 in the morning, stayed in concord for a few hours, then took off for the roughly 25-minute voyage from concord, north carolina, to charlotte, north carolina which is where we get this picture. the fertilizer king's plane you see there on the left, on the right that is donald trump's plane. they were both spotted at charlotte's airport that same day at the same ti. five days before the election. which is interesting. and it's not the only time the fertilizer king's plane was in the same city as donald trump while he was campaigning that fall on october 30, his plane was in las vegas the same day the republican nominee was holding his las vegas rally. but then, hmm, last month the president spent the weekend of february 11 in florida at mar-a-lago with the prime

minister of japan, remember the whole thing about the fake situation room with the missile launch at mar-a-lago? well, that weekend here comes the russian fertilizer king flying into miami where from where he had been previously, which happens to have been the south of france. honestly who knows what this means? it could be a big cowinky-dink. the story has layers on top of layers. but tonight we have someone hire with us who put us on to the flight the number -- the tail number information here, who figured out this thing about these mysterious interactions of the flight paths of these two planes. he may be able to decode this mystery with us and that special guest joins us next. stay with us. business was built with passion...

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if you have spent a lifetime rooting around in the deepest secret of the richest and most powerful people on earth, if you found a way to make a career rooting around the lives and secrets of the go zillionares on earth then you are a remarkable resource for the rest of us in this country trying to figure out this new presidency we've got because we now need people who can follow like the tail numbers of private jets and start asking the question of why an airplane apparently belonging to a russian fertilizer king keeps showing up in the same place as donald trump. from the web site run by david k. johnston, "why would dimitry rybolovlev's plane scurry to odd destinations like charlotte and concord, north carolina, as well

as new york, burbank and miami to arrive there precisely when donald trump was there?" david kay johnston then asks the obvious question, was rybolovlev a putin emissary? joining us now is david kay johnston, editor and founder of the d.c. report.org which published that report and the author of "the making of donald trump." david cay johnson, great to say you, thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you. >> we started looking at the fertilizer guy through the lens of him having bought this florida mansion from trump for more than what trump paid for. it seemed like a way for somebody to pay donald trump more than $15 million. what got you started on him and on the mystery of his plane showing up so many places that trump is? >> well, the report that we ran, which is about 10,000 words long, was written by jim henry, who has also been tracing

bankers and wealthy people for as long as i have. 40 years or so. we've been looking at these es that he has with russian garricks, remember, they're state sponsored criminals and they're dependent to stay alive on being in the good graces of vladimir putin and when he wants them done, they do them. in the case areybolovlev he paid money to putin. when jim henry developed where this plane was we said what's going on here? one or two cases okay. we can't put dimitry rybolovlev and trump in the same room but the number of times their planes

were in the same places during the election, particularly given all the other questions we have about what is going on and why is donald trump so eager to tamp down and make sure there's no public inquestion ray. that prompted us to decide this is a big lift for our nonprofit news organization. >> david, am i right trump maintains he's never met this person, never had any dealings with this person even though he conducted with him what was the most expensive home sale in u.s. history? he said throughout that entire process they never met each other, never came across each other. >> well, rex tillerson never pumped gasoline, either. that's silly -- it's on the line of the low grade thinking where donald trump says for every new regulation we'll repeal two others. it's moronic. i hope voters look at that and go that's ridiculous. that's a non-answer about the issues. >> david cay johnston is editor

and founder of dcrept.org who has been doing heavy lifting on this subject and i expect more to come. david, thanks for being with us, appreciate it. dcreport.org. do you have it bookmarked? you should bookmark it. the future of business in new york state is already in motion. companies across the state are growing the economy, with the help of the lowest taxes in decades,

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state yesterday coming out for a quick photo-op with the director of the international atomic energy agency, the u.n. nuclear agency. so that's neat. okay. they're standing their silently, everybody grab a camera. okay. since the new administration started, these photo-ops are all we know. they are all we've been allowed to see, all we've been told about the work of the state department. we get to see hand shaking by silent men and occasionally a silent man and a silent woman but that's it. the state department's not doing any other talking. the usual practice going back to the 1950s was regular usually daily press briefings. the current state department has given zero briefings, no briefings, no press conferences, just the hand shake photo ops. that's all they do. while not speaking. this is the latest one, these nobody's allowed to talk thing that happened but the great andrea mitchell is not having

it. watch her try to get her job done as a reporter and watch the reaction. >> reporter: mr. secretary, can you do your job with the kind of budget cuts the president has proposed? what does it say about the priority of diplomacy in this administration? >> thank you, everyone. thank you. >> reporter: do u think you'll have a deputy any time soon, sir? >> thank you. we're done. thank you. >> reporter: when do you think you might have a deputy? >> right this way. come on, let's go. andrea, come on, guys. andrea, out, please. out. >> you hear andrea even crack up at the end like seriously, this is it? she's been reporting there so long the staffers know her. they're like "andrea, come on." the state department silence has been deafening, we are told tonight that after these months of silence the regular press briefings will at least start up again on monday with caveats.

andrea reports tonight there will be two briefings on camera, the rest will be done on the phone and of course they'll take fridays off but they will start to speak again. we don't know what the state department briefings will look like under this new administration. until then, nobody is holding their breath, certainly not andrea, who is not having it. that makes me love her all the more. >> come on guys, let's go. andrea. >> andrea, please, they're not going to talk to you. that does it for us tonight, raise your children to be reporters, see you again on monday. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> you know how we've been doing our where is hillary segment and show video of where hillary is that day? you don't get to watch the show that much. >> well, it's a -- >> okay, actually, tonight is the first night. >> okay, good! >> it's the first night we're going to do it. >> i was think i must have been nodding out for that.