forces in ukraine. >> two things about this. one is this seems to be entirely financially related on their business. and second, we do know from people that are involved in these legal issues, that these are not the only charges that the special counsel had been accounting against manafort, but this is a starting point. >> and the big squeeze. trump policy adviser pleading guilty for lying to the fbi. the first actual link between russia and the trump campaign. >> bob mueller has a cooperating witness. >> court appear unes from manafort and his long -time aid in the next hour. plus, what is next tofor the probe? good day. a lot of breaking news today. special counsel robert mueller's

investigation. paul manafort and his assistant, bob gates, indicted on 12 count including conspiracy, money-laundering and false statements. president trump responding to the indictment on twitter saying, sorry but this is years ago and nbefore paul manafort ws part of the trump campaign. but why aren't crooked hillary and the demes the focus? the attempts to dig up dirt on hillary clinton, first case involving alleged collusion according to court filings. papadopoulos is cooperating with the prosecute popper let's bring in our team, pete williams, garrett haake, kristin welker at the white house. richa richard engel and matt miller.

pete williams, take it away, first, the significance and the facts embedded in this -- these allegations against pal manafort and rick gates as well as rick papadopoulos. >> yeah. manafort and gates are getting most of the attention because they are familiar names. but the papadopoulos case is potentially more important for bob mueller's investigation as to whether anyone in the u.s. was in cahoots with the russians to try to inflew enthe campaign. the reason is one thing that you mentioned, we know that he is cooperating. he was actually arrested in late july. and court documents say he has repeatedly been questioned by the government since then and has been providing answers. that's the first hint he is cooperating. the second one is that the court dock pts say that the government in return for his plea is recommending a sentence of zero to six months for the single charge of lying to the fbi.

that's a sign that probably the government will allow him to go out on probation. he is clearly an important witness. someone inside the campaign. this is prap perhaps the more significant of the two developments. he went into court, we now know, this is a picture of him and a meeting that the president attended of foreign policy advisors that was on the website. of the trump campaign. he he has already pleaded guilty on october 5th in what we now know was a closed court appearance. so we will not see him today at the courthouse but we will see manafort and rick gates, his deputy, and the indictment basically says that they earned millions of dollars in fees from politicians in ukraine, to lobby for that government for ten years. but failed to do a lot of things. to register as foreign agents and to report that money to the irs instead of funneling it into

off-shore accounts. the government says they earned millions and millions of dollars, used it to buy property, used it for members of their family. and when asked by the fbi if they were doing any by the justice department as long as a year ago, whether they were doing any work inside the u.s., for ukraine, which would require them to register as foreign agents, they said no. so a number of charges against them. and although these are not directly related to the campaign, as matter of fact, it doesn't really mention russia at all, in the charges against them, obviously this could be important leverage it try to get them to cooperate if indeed they are willing to do so. you have to wonder whether the government tried to cut a deal with them as it did with george papadopoulos and they decided that they didn't want to cooperate. but in any event this is important leverage against them, andrea. and we should point out that the president has been saying that all of this was prior and that

mania nort was only briefly involved in the campaign. that's what they've said before. but this is in july of 2016, i believe, this is the president now president then candidate trump talking about both manafort and gates. >> paul manafort has done a fantastic job. and all of paul's people, paul brought on the staff, and we really do. we have a great staff of talented people. >> come on up, rick. so we have a great group of people. and we have a group of people that really wants to win and i think knows thousand win and we've also been winning all our lives. >> and garrett haake joins us now from the courthouse. garrett, let's talk about what's going to happen in the next hour. these are very brief court appearances by both manafort and rick gates. >> yeah, that's right. a brief court appearance, an initial appearance. don't expect to hear a plea or

expect to see either man speak necessarily in the court behind me. they could be in and out in a few minutes. . manafort's attorney, told reporters, he may talk to reporters outside of the courthouse when this all breaks up. for manafort, this has been a long day already. a reporter saw him leaving his house at 7:45 in the morning. reporters saw him going into the fbi district office here at about 8:15 and we will see him in the courtroom although the cameras may not catch him depending on how he comes in and out of this room. but this is maybe the single most recognizable nonfamily member of the trump campaign now on tv. i can tell you, local and international media beating this up ad nauseam all day today. very ugly long day for him. it will be interesting, from my perspective, to see how the white house reacts to it,

andrea. >> matt miller here with me. let's talk about papadopoulos. his importance is teed up. this audio, march of 2016, when candidate trump was talking about his foreign policy advisors. >> george papadopoulos, a real energy consultant, excellent guy. >> so this is a guy, someone not well known outside of campaign circles and political circles, but the fact that he has now pleaded guilty and is clearly cooperating witness according to these court filings. what's the significance there? >> i think what bob mueller did today was send a very clear signal to all of the other potential witnesses in this case, potential subjects of this case. have you one of two paths. can you either cooperate with me as george papadopoulos has done and you will get a light sentence. talks about a sentence of zero to six months. could be probation.

or you could resist, you could even lie to me as he he alleges paul manafort and rick gates did, and if you do that we will throw the book at you. this is a typical white collar investigation, and he is conducting it the way they attack a large scale enterprise like mafia or drug cartel. constantly putting pressure at different levels of the system trying to convince anyone who you can to cooperate. >> basically can you either cooperate and maybe get off without any hard time or have people banging on your door at 6:00 in the morning predawn and looking through your closets, going through all of your things the way they did to paul manafort. >> that's right. there is a very significant tell in this plea agreement for george papadopoulos. it talks about a meeting that george papadopoulos had with a professor of london, who seems to be a rutout for russian intelligence. this professor offers to provide

him clinton dirt and stolen clinton e-mailes. this is a m after podesta e-mails were hacked and were in the possession of the russian government. then outline wlaes papadopoulos did with the meetings with trump officials. it says nothing about who, on the campaign papadopoulos told about the stolen e-mail offer. can i guarantee you although the plea agreement doesn't speak to it, mueller knows exactly what papadopoulos did with this information. >> now it is up to the others that he is going after to either fess up and get a deal or else face the wrath of the special prosecutors. >> that's right. every one of those suspects or witnesses faces this choice. cooperate, tell what you know and you might get off, or face the toughest possible criminal charges that mueller can bring against you. >> matt, stay with us. we want to bring in kristin welker from the white house bp the president has not been silent about this, at least not on twitter.

first i will play a bit of my conversation with paul manafort in may 2016 when he was brought in as a chair. they hadn't tnailed the nomination yet. th he was involved since 1976 for then the ford campaign. i was asking about his connection to the ukrainians. >> have you represented in your business life some of these russian allies in ukraine. those who are close to vladimir putin pro russian forces and your clients, past clients or current clients, conflict in any way with the classified intelligence briefings that donald trump as nominee will get? >> i have no other clients except donald trump to start with. and i'm not getting the briefings. he is getting the briefings. >> what about your past client? >> i don't have any more

clients. >> do you have any conflicts you think because of the people you represented in past? >> no, i don't represent them any more. >> and of those classified briefings wouldn't be shared with you? >> i have no expectation of that being shared with me. >> let's go to donald trump today and his tweets. kristin? >> right. well president trump distancing himself, not surprisingly, andrea, from paul manafort saying sorry this was years ago. had nothing to do with my campaign. and then reiterating what we have heard from him, andrea, that there was no collusion. this from his son, donald trump jr. on papadopoulos and charges you are talking about there, saying papadopoulos was an unpaid policy campaign adviser who stupidly lied to the fbi. he wanted trum top meet putin. trump team said no. that i think will be the strategy here. merging out of the white house, andrea. we have seen this in past. sean spicer trying to make the

case that paul manafort didn't have a significant role in the campaign. he didn't serve for a long time but as you pointed out, andrea, he did play a significant role particularly when it came to the rnc and the delegate count you are talking about. and when you hear sarah huckabee sanders talking about the fact that nothing directly links charges between manafort and the campaign as well he as rick gates. the president wants to turn the page on this andrea and talk about tax reform. they will unveil their tax plan wednesday. he is set to go on the most consequential policy trip of his administration so far. so i think you will really see them defensive today. once we do hear on the record from sarah huckabee sanders then presumably when he is handing out halloween candy to the kids. we will shout questions out to him opinion. >> asia is the big focus at end

of the week when the president leaves on this big trip. but also you have done so much reporting on the alleged money-laundering. where they were hiding money, according to this indictment. it is chapter and verse of all you've been report awning. paul manafort and his russia slash ukrainian connections. >> so, a lot of this goes back to the angle since before march, in fact, when we first add our report and there was an opaque network of companies linked to manafort in cyprus, least ten different companies with 15 different bank accounts in cypress. so convoluted, so complex, with money flowing in them and out of them, that even officials flagged accounts for review. when they are flag wend manafort closed accounts instead of cooperating with authorities. we had that months and months

ago. but what we're seeing now is this indictment, this list of accusations, for money-laundering. coming from the ukrainian party. going through those very same accounts in cyprus and then going from the accounts in cyprus to different personal interests in the united states using them to buy real estate. using them to buy landscape, landscaping in the hamptons and using it to pay a house keeper in new york. so what we are seeing is a money trail laid out in front of us with money coming from ukrainian interest, pro russian interest, through cypress, through these off-shore accounts among other places and ending up in buying personal things for manafort and his family. and what is interesting here is as you have been talking about is in this whole indictment, more than 30 pages, russia, putin are not mentioned.

but it doesn't mean that they are not there. they talk about how this money, tens of millions of dollars came from the party of regions. now what is the party of regions? the party of regions is a ukrainian political party. the party that put victory out of power until he fled the party. this is the pro russia party. pro-putin party. so much so that when the uprising broke out in 2014, he today leave the country. we could report that manafort was in ukraine shortly before he today leave the country. when man man cove itch had to leave the country, he was protected by vladimir putin. also the russian fingerprints. if the party of regions wasn't enough, the same cyprus companies that we've been talking about, we've been reporting about and which are now listed in these indictments were also used as vessel hes, as

pass-throughs for loans from at least one very senior russian oligarch close to vladimir putin. even if putin and russia aren't laid out in black and white in this indictment, they are certainly very much embedded into the content of this material. >> thank you for that, richard. frank, you've been a counter intelligence expert for years and years. what does it tell you when you look at the papadopoulos, court filings on papadopoulos and you see russians were his contacts, do you have any doubt they are gru, military intelligence of the kremlin? >> so it is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance of the secret plea deal by george papadopoulos. so this is classic cooperator. we now have found a cooperator. why is that significant? because he know he the russian intel he connections. he may not have actually

understood who he was dealing with but this has the fingerprints of russian intelligence all over it. if you read through the complaint and read new york times reporting this morning, we've got papadopoulos talking to an unnamed campaign supervisor in the trump campaign saying the russians have dirt on hillary clinton and the unnamed campaign supervisor says back great work. the other russian fingerprint we see on this on the manafort and gates side is that as just said, they worked in the campaign in ukrainian former ukrainian presidentiana voef itch. why is that important? i believe he that is their first primer on how russian intelligence can manipulate an election and i believe it is possible that russian intel told them how to set up the bank accounts. cypre cyprus is well documented as an area for russian intelligence. the fbi has known that for years and they have their first observation of hey the russian

government knows thousand manipulate a campaign tp it is quite possible that manafort then said can you do this for us. >> and matt miller, finally, this precedes the podesta dump. >> yes, and after the podesta hack, however. maybe what papadopoulos thought they were talking about what the trump campaign was looking for on many occasions he. and maybe what london professor was referring to p. but it may not have been. it may be what was released a month earlier and a month later in the campaign. >> matt miller, and the plot thickenes. thank you so much. the whole team, richard engel, of course, thank you. and coming up, democratic congressman from house tinl he generals committee reacting to today's indictments and to this

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. welcome back. special counsel robert mueller he won the first federal indictments in the russia probe. even as both congressional investigations have come to a grinding halt according to many. serving on house intel he generals committee, joining me now, a lot of criticism over the

problems that these committees have had in even the judiciary committee which in the senate side is working well for a while. he is not for feinstein basically acknowledged there are problems with senator grassley. they are going their separate ways. mike warner trying to work with rippard burr but problems on getting subpoenas. but most profound from the very beginning because your chair, devin nunes was working with the white house and had to recuse himself. >> we've he seen our energy focussed in the wrong areas he. he has been subpoenaing fbi and gps but we haven't seen the relevant witnesses under subpoena. jared kushner he wasn't under subpoena. then after about 2 1/2 hours on his own decided not to continue the interview. samantha was in the chair about 1 1/2 hours longer than kushner because she he was brought in by the majority. what do we do to make sure this doesn't happen again? and this isn't the direction

under chiermairman nunez. i think the biggest news is around george papadopoulos. that stip laying of facts shows he was as a senior foreign adviser someone the president called an excellent guy. travelin traveling abroad during the campaign and taking meetings with russians about dirt on hillary clinton. sounds a lot like the june 9 e-mail, sounds like the felix sader e-mail saying that we can engineer this. shows one he was willing to ply to the fbi when first confronted and came around once they confronted him with additional efd. that makes me wonder, these witnesses, bringing into congress, how truthful are are they he with us if they are willing to lie under oath to fbi agent. >> what about recent steps taken by chairman nunez, by trey gowdy, to go after hillary clinton on the very day that we felt they were getting closer and muler is getting closer to

indictments? >> it helps russians. they like to see further discord. if we aren't doing all we he can to preevent a future attack and we aren't going back in time to reopen cases around e-mails oor uranium deals, that disunity allows them to attack us again. i think the best thing we can do is have an interpendant commission. i have written legislation to elijah cummings just like after september 11th to pursue this on the house intelligence committee. but having a bipartisan apoint panel of experts is probably our best way it fix the mess we're in. >> have you democrats, you and adam schiff and others thought about folding your tent? >> no. no, we have a responsibility to do all we he can to bring relevant witnesses in. identify how we are vulnerable. look at what the government response was. look at officials work on the trump team and work on stipulation of facts, it is clear they were and put reforms forward so it never happens again. there are barriers we have to clear and continue to do that

but we know, you know, who is count awning us an those are people who want to freedom to choose when we go to the polls. >> what is the committee wanting to investigate the uranium connection? >> it doesn't have to be this way and paul ryan is green-lighting this. allowing devin nunes to recuse himself. for democrats, in 2018 we will govern responsibly and do what americans care about when it comes to freedom of democracy. >> do you think the uranium issue should be investigated? >> if there is something for the intelligence committee, sure. but not at the expense -- and but to put this ahead of the investigation and in the

curiosity and at worse a way to work in advance the white house's narrative. >> congressman eric swal swallow, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> and a list of charges against campaign officials in the first round of indictments in the russia investigation. former water gate prosecutor joining me next, here on "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us. at ally, we offer a credit card with unlimited cash back. but if that's not enough, we offer a 10% deposit bonus into an ally account. and if that's not enough to help you save, we could help you cut the cord. that's right. cancel it. what about my reality shows? ok, if that's not enough, we'll give you reality. this is too real! maybe a comedy? alright, how about a comedian? arsenio? ain't nothing funny about laundry! we'll do anything, seriously anything, to help your money grow. people just walking in my house... ally. do it right. hi, i'm the internet! you know what's dtj! get a job!ting... hi, guys. i'm back. time to slay!

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welcome back. joining me now for charges filed against manafort and gates and plea agreement reached by george papadopoulos. chief legal correspondent and host of the beat with ari melber and former assistant water gate special prosecute eor, jill, fi to you. in releasing this plea agreement at the same time as the indictments were handed up by the grand jury. >> i think it really emphasizes what has been going on whaen

mueller has achieved. i think papadopoulos is getting less attention than he deserves because he was acting during the campaign, meeting actively with the russians, in connection with what could only be called collusion. the manafort indictment today is, it got three important points in terms of the timing. one is stt university limitations may have driven timing. but two is, it may also protect mule every because with these kinds of activities, it is going to be much harder to fire him. you can't fire someone who is actively achieving the ends of justice. so i think that's important. and i think all of those will make a big difference. it may also lead to pressuring manafort into cooperating and the question is how much does papadopoulos know and how much does manafort know and will either cooperate? the president said, no, he is not worried, they won't no anything or they won't cooperate. but that remains to be seen.

>> manafort and gates, i think you mean. and i appreciate you, with the arc behind you, you are in paris and joining us on this big day today. thank you for making that special effort. >> thank you. >> and ari melber, let's make up on that point. they aren't cooperating with the way they are being treated by the special prosecutor. what is the significance of papadopoulos as a witness? >> it is huge. it shows that an individual from the trump campaign is pleading guilty and cooperating about kremlin-backed intermediaries offers or attempts to discuss hillary clinton's e-mails and alleged dirt. i think the three headlines today number one aides to a president indicted more than any other president in the modern era. that's bad. number two, money trail going to paul manafort but predates the trump campaign which is some kind of silver lining if you

want it it call it that for donald trump at least because that doesn't go it his own personal liability if it is tre pre2016. third, biggest news of all, the headline that you have someone who was caught in january lying to the feds about what he did with the trump campaign involving the kremlin. >> i was thinking about to iran can t contraand referencing that wine burger was indicted, former defense secretary, for lying to congress allegedly or iran arms deals. then was pardon bed by former president bush 41 in christmas. >> exactly. that was made clear early on my

trump when he pardoned you'pio. he will pardon you, even if you are -- i think we have to rely more and more on mueller. >> and ari melber, from that perspective, does the president have the trump cards here, pun intended, in terms of anything that the special prosecutor does going forward? >> i will say this, signals from the white house legal team separate from the president's twitter account are that they are koorp rating. ty cob confirm theg are doing white house staff e-mails. if not for indictments we would be with that at the beginning of the week. talking to mueller's team, according to cob, as of the last few days.

the president does not have lawful authority under the rules to personally remove mueller. it would take several steps and even be challenged in court. what we are watching for is people in the know, not just trump allies an not just tweets about conspiracies, people in the know as these cases proceed and as this cooperating witness stays in the mueller orbit. >> of course we have to watch and see how sarah sanders handles this at the upcoming briefing and if she goes out in confrontational way against a special counsel or follows the lead of ty cob and the legal team. thank you, ari. thank you, jill. from paris today. up next, protecting the mueller investigation. and what is done to make sure the president doesn't ipt interfere. that question and more coming up, stay with us. it's a long distance run

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president and his advisors? join meg is ed marky, member of the senate foreign relations committee. senator, first of all, your reaction it these indictments. indictments and the papadopoulos plea agreement. >> well there is clearly major turning point in the investigation. papadopoulos plead guilty to lying about contacts with the russian officials that were seeking to inflew enthe presidential election in 2016. that is a clear major step towards creating this link, collusion that may have existed in much larger form between the russian government and the trump campaign. so that papadopoulos guilty plea is very significant. and similarly manafort and gates had contacts with russian

supported ukrainian officials that could have as well compromised the election. we need more einformation about that. this is a clear first step. we he have to make sure sthat white house, president trump, does not fire robert mueller. because that would be clearly something that he would be considering right now in order to shut down this investigation. which he has been trying to do from its very inception. >> in fairness, his lawyer says he plans to cooperate in ef way. do you still have concerns he might try to fire robert mulor compromise the investigation? >> the president continues to view that whole russian investigation is a hoax. if he he believes that, then it is clear he would seriously

consider firing robert mueller. he he would seriously consider giving a pardon to paul manafort or rick gates. either one of those actions would trigger a major constitutional crisis in the united states. so i just think that we all have to understand that the president, if he he is good for his word and thinks this is a hoax, will engage in these activities and be the responsibility on a bipartisan basis for democrats and republicans in congress to protect mueller and to ensure that this investigation moves forward with all of the aggressiveness that mueller has been giving to it. >> do you think you could get the votes? you're in the a minority. >> i think there is a strong bipartisan support for mueller. that has been the case since the first day when he he was announced. i think we have heard of those kinds of sentiments from lindsey

graham, from tom tillis and from others on the senate on the bipartisan basis and i think that republicans would be hard-pressed to support a president who actually had fired the investigator who was in the process of documenting russian interference in the selection of the president of the united states. >> the president and his allies and news organization have been focussing almost all on clinton. saying the clinton campaign firmened up producing the dossier, through the former intelligence agent through the british intelligence service and also the fact there was this uranium deal while she was secretary of state. she said she had nothing do with it. this is clinton at human rights campaign gala on saturday night. >> it does strike me that in the last few days, that at least fox

news seems to think that that's where i live, in the white house. because they spend a disproportionate amount of their time talking about impeaching me. >> so she went on to talk about the fact that she is being criticized when she actually lost the election. at this stage, do you think there is it a legitimate issue about what democrats did as well as what the republicans arguably did during the campaign? >> look, what donald trump is doing is just throwing out all of these red herrings. about hillary clinton. the president has been pointing out over the last two or three days that we probably will have to have an squaaquarium to put of these red herrings in. it is intended to get away from the central point that there has been a guilty plea and two other

indictments which have been brought down here today and the president just throwing out hillary clinton as red meat to his base in toward give himself some kind of core support. but ultimately this whole issue is just going to continue to return to the trump campaign in the trump white house. what did they know and when did they know he it about russian interference in our elections. >> senator ed marky coming us to from boston today. thank you so much. >> coming up, manafort and gates expected to appear in court in under an hour. at the top of the hour we will hear from sarah sanders in the first white house briefing since the indictments were announced. stay with us here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. for . now i want you to give it to the friend that you think is most dependable. ohhhh. ughh. wow. that's just not fair. does she have to? she doesn't have to! oh, i don't?

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that's why a cutting edgeworld. university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans.

and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. we have this statement from george papadopoulos' attorney, who says it is in the best interest of our client, george papadopoulos, that we refrain from commenting on george's case. we'll have the opportunity to comment on george's involvement when called upon by the court at a later date. we look forward to presenting all the facts that led to the events that resulted in this charge. joining me for the inside scoop,

charlie sykes, conservative commentator and msnbc contributor and carol lee, nbc's national political reporter. charlie, the political fallout from this, the president pushing back saying it really should be hillary clinton we're looking at. we'll have more to say about that in a moment. the fact is, they have a cooperating witness. clearly, his lawyer will be speaking once other indictments or other results, let's say, come out of whatever he has been telling the special prosecutor, robert mueller. >> remember, this is just the beginning. these are just the first indictments of what is obviously a rolling investigation. and the papadopoulos indictment has got to be the one that has trump world really sweating because it's a guilty plea. it directly deals with collusion. and he is cooperating. you know, and this also comes at a rather dramatic moment because it felt like there was a coordinated campaign over the last week to discredit this

investigation, to shift the focus from the trump investigation to hillary clinton. i mean, this was like a bonfire of what about-ism trying to change the subject. now you have real laws, real indictments, real guilty pleas. this comes at a crucial moment. >> and, of course, that was replicating what you just referenced, was replicating the way the president when he was a candidate handled it all just a year ago this is what donald trump was saying about hillary clinton. >> the fbi after discovering new e-mails is reopening their investigation into hillary clinton. i have great respect for the fbi for righting this wrong. we hope all, all justice will finally be served. the news this morning is this is bigger than watergate. >> bigger than watergate.

this is when james comey, 12 days before the election, reopened the e-mail investigation, which according to the nbc news politics unit, mark murray, you can tell from the polling, that is when her momentum hit an absolute brick wall. carol lee, we know there were other problems in the campaign, which she has herself acknowledged. but there's no question that the comey announcement, which donald trump seized upon immediately, understandably, given the way the campaign was going, absolutely stopped her dead in her tracks. >> and there's no question that she and people who worked closely with her on her campaign still seethe over that. you see secretary clinton bring it up, you've seen other people who are around her bring it up repeatedly. and i think the fact that, you know, you're looking at that clip and then looking at what happened today, and now we're seeing some of the things that were happening behind the scenes with the trump campaign, it's just redredging all of this up

for the clinton folks and, you know, i think we'll see a little more of that from her today. >> now, they have a very powerful mega phone in the white house. they'll have a white house briefing, the president's tweets. but let's look at the details in these indictments. >> right. there's a number of things we new, tax evasion, money laundering, false statements to federal -- the fbi and what isn't there is a link to -- explicit link to the trump campaign, which is what you're going to hear the white house seize upon. we've already seen a little bit of that. they've now moved the briefing up to -- up 15 minutes to 1:15. they're going to, i think, try to continue to distance themselves and the president from paul manafort. that's really just a very difficult thing to do. the tape is there. i mean, you know, he was a key player in the trump campaign and he came in during an important time. but that's not going to stop them. >> charlie, you're in the midwest, in wisconsin.

how is it going to play? how is it playing out there? >> well, what i would suggest to republicans, because it's not just how the white house is going to respond, it's also how republicans throughout the country, congressional republicans, speaker paul ryan, will react to all of this, just step back and ask, how would they be reacting if, in fact, it was president hillary clinton and these stories were coming out? are they really going to hold their guy to a completely different standard? i mean, i know we live in an era where there are shifting standards and finger pointing and the what-about-ism but i'm trying to imagine how congressional republicans would be reacting, what they would be saying if we had this kind of evidence about the clinton administration, the lying to the fbi. i hope there's a role here for the congressional republicans to hold this administration accountable. i'm not optimistic but it should be something they should consider because there's a lot more to come. >> indeed. we will have more as we continue to cover this breaking story. the appearance at the

courthouse. that does strike me that they moved up the white house briefing in order to try to take attention away from walking -- people walking in and out of the courthouse. carol lee, charlie sykes, as always, thank you. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,... ...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... ...no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased... ...risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have... ...a history of depression... ...or suicidal thoughts,... ...or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla... ...reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. other side effects include upper... ...respiratory tract infection and headache.

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headquarters in new york. we are just minutes away from the white house press briefing. expecting the first on-camera statement in what has been the biggest day in the russia investigation so far. two former top campaign officials indicted, including former campaign chair paul manafort. what could potentially be an even more damage revelation, a former foreign policy campaign aide has been accused of lying to media to get dirt on hillary clinton. george papadopoulos has not become the first person to plead guilty in special counsel bob mueller's special investigation but the first tying ruche sha to the trump campaign. to be clear, this indictment does not state a case for collusion between russia and the campaign. let's start with nbc news justice correspondent, pete williams, and garrett haake is in washington, d.c. and chief white house correspondent hallie jackson joins us as well. pete, let's start with manafort and gates, the indictments