first indictments in special counsel bob mueller's investigation were unsealed. president donald trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort and his top lieutenant rick gates were indicted on 12 criminal charges that focused primarily on their work as pro-russian lobbyists and their complicated money laundering schemes to hide the proceeds. those charges include conspiracy against the united states and lying to federal agents about their work on behalf of a foreign government. both manafort and gates have pleaded not guilty. separately today a lower profile aide, george papadopoulos, plead guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with russians, and he's now cooperate with investigators. according to "the new york times," the plea represents the most explicit evidence that the trump campaign was aware that the russian government was trying to help mr. trump and that the campaign was eager to accept that help.

the news has trump insiders buzzing today with questions swirling about papadopoulos and how an unnamed high ranking campaign official was also involved. some observers suggest the papadopoulos arrest earlier in the summer is part of a legal process described to me as climbing the ladder, raising the question, who comes next? the indictments track with an up tick in the president's fury over the russia investigation and what one trump adviser today described as the president's never-waning anger at his attorney general jeff sessions' decision to recuse himself from the russia probe. the clearest sign yet that the president feels boxed in on russia. he took to his favorite medium and tried to distract from today's bombshell developments by tweeting this. quote, sorry, but this is years ago, before paul manafort was part of the trump campaign. why aren't crooked hillary and the dems the focus? also there is no collusion. let's get to our reporters and

guests to break down these extraordinary developments. jeremy bash, msnbc security analyst and former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense. matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department, now an msnbc analyst. eli stokles "wall street journal" white house reporter and msnbc analyst as well. and nbc's intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. ken, i understand that nbc has some new reporting about one of those unnamed campaign officials in the papadopoulos indictment. >> that's right. we're reporting that one of them was paul manafort himself, the campaign chairman at the time. and in the e-mail, he suggests that the meeting that papadopoulos was proposing with putin should not go forward. and so that's exculpatory in that sense. it also shows that what sarah sanders said, that this is a low-level official and nobody at

the campaign knew what he was doing is not true. he was clearly coordinating with senior officials in the campaign. there's another person that he was in closer contact with who is identified as a campaign supervisor. and that person at one point said good job after papadopoulos was explaining his efforts to have meetings with these russians in pursuit of a further meeting in moscow. another point, that person, that campaign supervisor encouraged him to take an off-the-record meeting in russia with these officials. no doubt that people in senior positions in the trump campaign knew that this guy was talking to russians. >> ken, by the end of this special counsel investigation, our viewers will have honorary legal degrees. let's -- let me read the segment of the indictment that we're talking about. it says, quote, papadopoulos e-mailed the high-ranking campaign official with the subject line new message from russia. new message, i wonder if that is different from the old message. the russian ministry of foreign affairs messaged and says if mr.

trump is unable to make it to russia, if a campaign rep, me or someone else, can make it for a meeting, i am willing to make the trip. the campaign supervisor told the defendant, i would encourage you and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to make the trip if it is feasible. so, ken, let me ask you. is this an offer to collude and an acceptance of said offer to collude? >> well, i don't know that just proposing a meeting is an offer to collude. what i find more significant is this papadopoulos interaction with this professor who had ties to the kremlin who told him in april 2016 that the russians had dirt on hillary clinton and had thousands of e-mails. and as you know, because we've been talking about this for months, the public was not told that the russians hacked the democrats until june 2016. so the fact that this guy was shopping russian possession of democratic e-mails to me is deeply significant. and what intelligence experts have been saying all day is that

this is classic -- this is russian intelligence trying to infiltrate the trump campaign. the fbi documents don't say that explicitly but that's what all the experts are telling us today. >> jeremy bash, is that what this -- is that the picture that's coming into sharper focus looks like to you? >> the documents in which papadopoulos pleads guilty and it's a conviction. this is a conviction, an admission of guilt by a former trump campaign official for work with the russians and lying to federal agents about it. a classic operation by the russian intelligence services to spot, assess and recruit and handle an operative inside the trump campaign with whom they could have conversations, gather intelligence and also feed information for their active measures campaigns. >> so why is there still an ongoing attempt at a messaging level from the president and his advisers to say that there was no contact with russia? we now know there were multiple contacts.

jeff sessions is recused because he either forgot about or lied about his contact with russians. carter page has admitted on this network to his meetings with russians. you have another foreign policy a aide now admitting to being in contact with russians. >> it looks so bad for them. and important lie, nicolle, the april meeting was a breakfast meeting at a london hotel between the professor, who was a russian cutout handler and papadopoulos was -- >> can we -- so a cut-out handler. like a spy recruiter? >> could be a staff officer of the russian intelligence service, the svr or fsb. but more likely it was not a staff officer. it was probably somebody they recruited to spot and assess individuals in washington associated with the trump campaign. and it's possible this professor had this as part of their -- his recurring responsibilities. what he got paid for by the russians to do. to come back to the point. at that breakfast meeting he's

offered e-mails, the dirt on hillary clinton. at some point, those very same e-mails, that same dirt was offered again. not just to low or midlevel trump officials but in fact, to the highest echelons of the campaign at the june 2016 meeting to don junior, jared kushner and paul manafort himself. the russians finally got what they wanted which was a senior level meet with the triumump campaign and offered to interfere in the election. >> matt, we're talking about the meeting in trump tower, right. >> yes. >> with natalia viselitskaya. did i get that right? >> nailed it. >> i'm going to speak russian at the end of this. papadopoulos was arrested in july. he plead guilty and is now cooperating. he's providing information in an ongoing manner. is that the right way to describe what someone does. h what kind of information might he have about the ultimate meet

with the russians, about the don junior meeting in trump tower with the russians? >> there's a very good clue in the plea agreement. the meeting jeremy lays out with the london professor where at that meeting george papadopoulos is offered dirt on clinton and explained the russians have e-mails about hillary clinton. this is one month after john podesta's e-mails are hacked. this is realtime information that this professor is offering. he then -- you have to presume -- goes back and talks other to people about what the offer he's gotten. the document does not speak to that at all. it talks about how he communicates with other officials about having further meetings but it's intentionally silent about this offer for dirt. it's intentionally silent because bob mueller is sending a signal to all the other people on the campaign. i know exactly what happened. i know what george papadopoulos did with that information. i know who he talked to and what they said to him. you have one of two paths. take the path papadopoulos chose. cooperate with me and get a

lenient sentence as he's likely to get or take the path manafort and gates have chosen and not cooperate. you can refuse to tell me the truth. you can lie in some instances and i'll throw the book at you. >> i worked in a white house that dealt with a special counsel investigation. scooter libby for perjury. what matt miller laid out, there's no someone who knows exactly what went on whose sentencing is incumbent upon continuing to tell the truth. he's an unimpeachable witness, i would assume. tell me what that does inside this west wing. >> i think it scares the hell out of some people. what sarah huckabee sanders says today was not believable that this had nothing to do with the campaign n when she was asked the critical question, which is the indictment says that campaign officials encouraged papadopoulos to continue these conversations, to take these meetings. all she can say was, i'm not aware of those conversations and move on.

she was much less demonstrate uf and much less emphatic saying this is all nonsense. she wouldn't answer that question because that's the key question. inside that white house then the cameras are not on and privately in their offices, they've been nervous for a long time. if it was just the manafort and gates indictment this morning, they maybe feel temporarily like they dodged a bullet. you're exactly right. the papadopoulos indictment changes the game. he was arrested in july. how long has he been having conversations with other people that bob mueller is aware of. >> and my conversations with them today, they said, i want to get to manafort, but what they said about manafort privately was, well, people have -- it was an open secret he was shady, but people are trying to -- ken dilanian has already reported one of those unnamed officials. there's still a parlor game trying to figure out who the other one is because they,

obviously, know that bob mueller now knows who that was. can you talk about why papadopoulos is so much more threatening to the rest of the -- why he maybe creates more legal exposure to the rest of the campaign aides? >> he was arrested at dulles airport on july 27th. he's been secretly cooperating since that time. he plead guilty in secret. no one even knew he stepped foot into a courtroom before an article 3 judge, plead guilty and since that time he's been trying to work off his sentence, if you will. two things. one is they have a human source inside the trump campaign apparatus. more importantly if you read the guilty plea, they have e-mails. e-mails. they have every single one of his e-mails to every other trump official. they have the entire trump campaign's e-mail trove and they're going through it letter by letter. >> so when did donald trump make up this story about the meeting that don junior had? were they already working with papadopoulos? did bob mueller know at the time that don junior told the first

incorrect story that he ultimately walked back, that that was a lie? >> i have to go back through the timeline. >> it was around july 4th. a week after july 4th that don junior told his first cover story about the meeting in trump tower. says it was about adoption. two weeks later, they were working with papadopoulos. they've obviously known for a very long time that everyone involved -- it sort of puts into play some of the pieces. the list of people that bob mueller wants to talk to who are involved in crafting that false statement from donald trump that we now know is dictated by donald trump, bob mueller has known now for three months that that was a lie because of what papadopoulos could have testified to. >> not only does he know it, but he can prove it. he has a witness who can at a trial or at a hearing prove it. >> and, hey, nicolle, one thing about the roll-out here, the papadopoulos documents came out about 90 minutes after the manafort and gates indictments. and that was intentional. mueller didn't have to release

those today. he could have released them next week or two weeks from now. he did it today and 90 minutes after when we were all digesting the gates and manafort charges and when people from the white house were already starting to say and trump allies, this isn't about the campaign. this isn't about collusion. and then, boom, the papadopoulos documents landed. and here was collusion. >> here was collusion and bob mueller saying you don't know what i know. and i know now from folks i've talked to that everyone is now sort of reracking their own tapes about their knowledge and their conversations about that done junior meeting. that seems to be emerging, ken, as a central incident around which people may have perjured themselves. >> also now we know that the campaign was already on notice that the russians were peddling dirt. when don junior -- it's even the same word, dirt. that word comes up now twice in the context of the papadopoulos conversations and the trump

tower meeting. when don junior got that e-mail from the music promoter promising dirt on hillary clinton, the campaign already knew the russians were offering that, and it raises a whole set of other questions about what that meeting was really about. >> i was going to ask ken a quick question. to understand your reporting a little bit. are you saying that papadopoulos went to manafort and basically asked manafort whether the campaign could have a direct meeting between putin and trump? is that what you are reporting? >> this is from my colleague julia ainsley. there's a particular e-mail in the chain where manafort says we're not going to take this meeting, meaning between trump and putin. trump is not going to meet with putin during the cam. a. we want a low level person to answer so as not to send a signal. we're not going to meet with putin. that's crazy. it also shows he was aware of papadopoulos' efforts and interactions with these russians. >> it may not be exculpatory.

it may be incriminating. they want to keep everything quiet. >> fair enough. >> i would add to that, in the description of that e-mail and the document, it does have paul manafort saying that but then he also goes on to say in the e-mail, have a low-level person send the signal so the russians don't take it the wrong way. >> i started watching the americans but isn't that how it goes? you send some low level out to do something so that -- people knew what paul manafort looked like. that doesn't really suggest that you're not guilty of wanting to get dirt on the russians. >> i don't think it does at all. >> you were willing to sacrifice a lower level aide. >> through all of this, it's been reported multiple times that paul manafort himself was picked up on u.s. intercepts talking to russian intelligence officials or cut-outs for russian intelligence officials during the campaign. these are brand-new contacts we didn't know about today. still contacts reported that we don't know the substance of that bob mueller knows about. >> i want to talk, eli, about

donald trump's penchant for turning on people he's known for decades. the line about manafort was, he wasn't there very long and we didn't know him very well. and he came in, and then he left. he's been entangled with paul manafort either as a business associate or a tenant or someone who he knew was familiar with for decades. >> manafort is on tape saying i've known donald trump for decades, and even if they just knew each other during the campaign, the time that they were working together on this campaign from march through the late summer of 2016, paul manafort was effectively running this campaign through the republican convention. there was the whole matter of changing the rnc platform to be -- to strike the language favorable to ukraine, something that was a pro-russian move that raised some eyebrows. manafort was running the show at that point. he was instrumental in the vice presidential selection process, and he was eventually fired because of bad press related to

his business dealings in ukraine and russia. and so the campaign understood this was a public relations problem but that doesn't exonerate them. that shows some awareness they knew some of manafort's entanglements when he was on the campaign. they probably knew it when they brought him in as well. >> jeremy, talk about the two broader issues. this question of an investigation into whether obstruction of justice took place. these statements that -- ken di lanian has already proven false something sarah huckabee sanders said from the posium. how dangerous for these aides to be making statements knowing there was someone from inside the campaign cooperating with special counsel bob mueller since july? >> the justice department and prosecutors have a history of looking ining at what people s publicly about indictments, plea deals and convictions. if you try to manipulate the public record about the truth, the justice department will basically think of that as an effort to obstruct justice and to lie. to your point about the way the white house crafted that

statement about the don junior e-mail, that goes directly to it. it's important to say that the biggest issue in the mueller investigation was not implicated by any of these revelations today. that's the obstruction of justice matter, about whether the justice headand his inner most aides fired comey with russia on the brain. whether that violated the law, we don't know. we haven't gotten any indcaution from today's events. >> he did that in an interview wither own lester holt. >> we'll pick up that part of the conversation on the other side of the break. ken dilanian, thank you for your awesome reporting today and every day. when we come back, did vladimir putin get more than he bargained for with team trump, or is it mission accomplished to have simply sown this much chaos and confusion? this guy is upping his game by listening to an audiobook on audible. and this guy is just trying to get through the day. this guy feels like he can take on anything.

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is the president saying that special counsel mueller should be investigating hillary clinton and the democrats, and is he going to rule out once and for all firing robert mueller. >> i'll address the second question first. the president said last week, i believe it was last week, and i've says several times before, there's no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to special counsel. >> a carefully worded statement from sarah huckabee sanders who won't rule out that the president could fire robert mueller. as peter baker and "the new york times" writes, the indictments of president trump's former

campaign chairman paul j. manafort and two other advisers raised the stakes in the special counsel investigation that's dogged his administration for months. and could prompt mr. trump to consider actions intended to short circuit the probe before it threatens him or others close to him. with us from "the washington post," white house reporter ashley parker and "new york times" white house reporter glenn thrush, both also msnbc analysts. ashley, let me start with you. i wonder how the white house is trying to walk this fine line where the president is still raging behind closed doors but loudly enough that we hear about it, about the russia probe, about jeff sessions' decision to recuse himself from it while the white house press secretary tries to protect herself from republican ire. a lot of republicans on the record saying, trey gowdy on fox news, saying the special counsel should be allowed to finish his work. >> right. you have a president who by all

accounts is quite frustrated today and feels how he's felt this entire time which is, i did nothing wrong. i don't see why i'm being dragged sboun into this. this is his attitude. the public messaging coming out of the white house as we saw from sarah huckabee sanders and aides in quotes popping up is nothing to see here. the manafort/gates indictment had nothing to do with the campaign, nothing to do with collusion. there's sort of like a talking point that if this is the best they have, they are not super worried. that said, one of the ways these investigations work is you get someone on something like money laundering and try to flip them. and so i think the white house is still kind of processing what to do, but their argument now is the only crime may have been these were sort of bad guys who were guilty of not vetting closely enough. we didn't have a real campaign

apparatus. how could we be expected to know this. they're learning this all in realtime. finding out from tv, it's not that they head a heads-up or anything. they're scrambling to respond and we may see that messaging change in the next day or two in the if the gets further enraged. >> there was a headline in the post that basically put into words what ashley is describing that the campaign essentially hired anyone with a pulse. is this the price that they are paying for bringing in anyone with a pulse? and let me ask you how sustainable it is to say that just because paul manafort was only there for six months or because this low-level aide wasn't in contact with donald trump that his campaign couldn't have colluded. the investigation was about donald trump's orbit and whether or not it was supported by abetted by, aided by russia. how sustainable is their public

posture? >> well, look. i think, you know, it was really interesting right after the manafort and gates indictment came down. there really was that palpable sense of relief and then they got hit with the second shoe. it dropped on their head. i don't think anyone had any sense this was going to happen. look. i think we're moving beyond -- >> you're talking about the papadopoulos guilty plea, right? >> the papadopoulos thing. the president would not have tweeted out what he tweeted had he known presumably the papadopoulos thing was coming so that came as a shock to everybody. the other interesting thing is, we've got to start asking ourselves a rational set of questions about what the president knew and when he knew it. this is a man we know sits around at long dinners at bedminster, mar-a-lago, the white house, loves to shoot the breeze with people, demands gossip from everyone around him. he is not someone who tends to be short on rumor, innuendo and

gossip. we've got to start asking ourselves right now, we know don junior had access to information, true or otherwise, that there was quote/unquote dirt on hillary clinton. we know paul manafort had that in his custody. we know that other senior officials, perhaps an outsider such as roger stone were playing around in that space. this is a man whose defining characteristic is talking with people all the time about all kinds of different things. i guess the question now and it will ultimately have to be answered is did any one of these individuals ever talk to the president about this? >> and ashley, picking up on that, this is also a man for whom nothing is sacred. so there wouldn't have been that gut instinct that a normal politician would have had when offered help from russia. you can almost -- yeah, sure, why not? for a campaign that didn't have any red lines, that went after a gold star family, that didn't have any instinct when he was asked about putin and putin,

complimenting him. oh, i admire putin. he's a strong leader and his people -- there is a body of public statements of actions, if you look at the change to the campaign platform in cleveland, as president to comments that he made in the presence of two russian diplomats about how firing comey really -- the public body of evidence about donald trump's instincts on russia certainly suggests that at his level, he was very favorably disposed to being in contact at least and perhaps even in coordination with the russians. >> that's exactly right. a lot of the saufeguards you'd expect from any other campaign, this query doesn't -- from russia doesn't sound quite right. let's run it by our lawyers. or this might not be a good idea. it just did not exist in the trump campaign and to some extent, that's a little bit of their defense, but it is sort of striking how few red flags were

raised along the way. you also need to keep in mind donald trump is someone who came from the world of new york real estate where a lot of this stuff sort of bragadocio and going after people and sort of flouting the rules and in some cases even the law a little bit was often rewarded, which is not how things work, obviously, with the fbi and special prosecutor. you mentioned his gut instinct. his gut instinct was not for sort of self-preservation and a rule-toeing, line toeing way. it was for going for the jugular and being a self-proclaimed street fighter and killer. if someone had dirt or damaging information on hillary clinton, whether it was russia or someone else, he wanted it. >> and, glenn, there's no evidence that anyone offered dirt from the professor which jeremy has described as a -- some sort of spy or russian agent. that anyone says, maybe we should call the police or 911 or the cia or fbi.

i mean nobody in the trump orbit that we now know paul manafort was one of the superiors that papadopoulos floated his idea of traveling to russia to get dirt. nobody suggested going to law enforcement. >> you make that is a critical, critical point there. you would typically in the course of a campaign have had an attorney notify don mcgahn who was the counsel to the campaign. a couple lawyers bouncing around. or even a campaign manager with experience who would have been basically putting up the red flags on this. paul manafort, the most experienced person, as you rightly point out. i don't think it's exculpatory that he said we're not going to have trump meet putin. it would have been insane to have trump meet putin in the middle of a campaign. that's like, you know, that's right. why don't you ride a dirt bike. it's like he never would have done that. instead, hey, let's dispatch an

expendible to see if we can't get more of this information. so i don't think it's expullicatory. it points on the fact that manafort was intrigued by this information and wanted to figure out what else he could get. >> jeremy bash, this seems to be pointing a bleaker picture for paul manafort and the campaign aides. another group of aideses, anyone in possession of papadopoulos' e-mail with this offer, another group of aides potentially exposed to knowing russia wanted to help and they did not call law enforcement. >> far from waving a caution flag or a yellow card, they basically gave them the green light and said come on in. we'll have the meeting. all the high command of the campaign will be around. we want to hear what you got. >> it's worth pointing out trump knew papadopoulos. when he rolled out the foreign policy adviser -- >> he was there. >> everybody said who are these guys. papadopoulos, everybody pointed to him and said he has model united nations on his resume. that's something that is on his

background. >> model u.n. a bad name, eli. >> just about not getting the best and brightest to work on this campaign, but trump knew who he was. trump went into "the washington post" ed board right after this team of advisers. >> the transcript that will be etched in my brain. >> he knew papadopoulos' name and said he's doing a great job. trump says that about everybody that he's not mad at the the time. he knew who this guy was. perhaps he knew what he was engaged in as well. >> glen thrush and ashley parker, thank you. it was a blip on the radar in 2016. now with the indictment of paul manafort, a closer look at what could be a pivotal moment in the trump/russia saga. i don't want to sound paranoid, but d'ya think our recent online sales success seems a little... strange? na. ever since we switched to fedex ground business has been great. they're affordable and fast... maybe "too affordable and fast." what if... "people" aren't buying these books online,

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i will tell you that i think in terms of leadership, he's getting an "a" and our president is not doing so well. they did not look good together.

>> he's running this country. at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country. >> again, he kills journalists that don't agree with him. >> well, i think our country does plenty of killing also, joe. >> they wanted me to day vow what he said. how dare you call me a genius. how dare you call me a genius, vladimir. wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with russia? wouldn't that be good? i've always said he is very much of a leader. you can say, oh, isn't that a terrible thing? the man has very strong control over our country. it's a very different system and i don't happen to like the system but certainly in that system he's been a leader far more than our president has been a leader. >> do you respect putin? >> i do respect him. >> why? >> i respect a lot of people but that doesn't mean i'm going to get along with them. >> that never stops shocking me when i see all that together. but i've put the question to every trump surrogate i've ever met. what gives with donald trump's

affinity for putin? no one has ever provided a particularly compelling explanation with the exception of his reluctance acquiescence on russian sanctions. his time in office has not eased suspicions that there's something underpinning trump's pro-russia world view. today's indictments tell us that at least one more aide to his campaign tried to coordinate with russian agents and was willing to receive aid and assistance from russians to the degree his efforts came up short. we know that don junior did end up in a conference room with several russians under the auspices of getting dirt on hillary clinton. what does it all mean? joining the table now, susan glasser. susan, we have had this conversation over many, many months now. and if you go back to the change in the republican platform in cleveland from july 18th, 2016, the trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new republican platform won't call for giving weapons to

ukraine to fight russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all republican foreign policy members in washington. can you take us through the what? i mean, we've been trying to get at the why and the how. but what is the what? what is russia gaining? >> first of all, i talked with the former director of national intelligence and he said russia exceeded its wildest expectations. how? was it just a policy play? was it really just about arming ukraine, for example? i think that was part of it. but more broadly, right, russia has used this destabilization campaign undermining democracy, questioning, creating confusion and chaos. in many countries. the united states is not the first by any means. so that is the playbook for how to intervene in elections. we all agree they were probably as surprised as we were that donald trump was elected. but there are specific things, and that's where paul manafort comes back into it. that's one thing. people are a little confused.

this indictment today was just about paul manafort and his previous work on behalf of the pro-russian ukrainian president victor yanukovich. but manafort is a key figure when it comes to specific things russia may have wanted from donald trump. it's embroiled in a costly and -- war that's not really working out the way that it wanted to in eastern ukraine, for example. and by the way, the consequences of not really succeed with the russia reset are, guess what, a year later, donald trump's administration, the pentagon under jim mattis are talking about should we provide those same weapons to ukraine that it appears that paul manafort and donald trump knocked out of the republican platform a year ago. >> and you made a similar point in the break that what paul manafort was indicted for doing today was one of the counts was not registering as an agent of a foreign power. wasn't just any foreign power.

it was russia. >> the entire indictment showcases how much he was a foreign agent for the russian federation here in washington. how they taught him how to use these offshore accounts, these bank accounts in cyprus and elsewhere which is m.o. for how to hide funds and use those to influence the policy debate in washington. the thing that i found so fascinating about the mueller indictment of manafort here is that they went through the finances in such fine detail. page after page. and if you are in the whourite house, you have to be concerned because it's precisely what he can do with the trump organization's finances. and that tape you played of joe scarborough and mika talking, that was from the same month the trump organization was negotiating to build trump tower in moscow. >> how troubling is all of this if you are a lawyer trying to prepare your clients, don junior or jared kushner, to field questions now that we see what's

in these now-unsealed indictments? >> it's very troubling. mueller has the ability to look at everything you have done in your life. everything you've purchased, every amount of money you've moved, whether it's here or overseas. the trump organization and trump himself have far-reaching connections overseas and we know that one of the things he's been most nervous about turning over are his finances. it's the thing he said would be a red line if mueller looked into it. he resisted turning over his tax returns during the campaign. there's a chance that mueller has trump's tax returns. all he has to have is permission of a judge to get them directly from the irs. he's carefully combing through the president's finances looking for any connections with russia that might have compromised it in the same way he's done with paul manafort. >> eli, we've seen the president lash out sometimes through s surrogates but sometimes through his own twitter feed about the questions about the russia probe

exceeding what he views as a reasonable scope. do you see an up tick in that as it sinks in tonight. it sinks in just the exquisite detail that bob mueller's team of investigators who do this for a living, investigate financial crimes for a living, what they'll do when they start looking through these kinds of documents. >> this is a white collar crime team that mueller has searching through. the thing that donald trump has held the most closely to his vest, his own personal financial records. and, obviously, just the headlines, as much media as this president consumes, you know he's not happy after a day and a news cycle like this that's been consumed by this story that bothers him so much. he will let off steam, more steam on twitter, perhaps publicly. we've seen a pattern over the last couple of weeks. the president coming out and taking questions himself and trying to do his own, rather than allowing sarah to do the press briefings. he'll come out and talk off the

cuff for 40 minutes. he also has advisers in his ear giving him advice, people outside the white house about maybe we should think about getting rid of mueller. what sarah sanders said today when asked that question was, no, he's never going to fire the special investigator. he said he has no plan to do this right now. they've left that door open and as soon as donald trump makes that decision, there's nobody in this administration really that doesn't seem who can get in his way. no one stopped him when it came to firing jim comey, even though that didn't turn out all that well. this is a thing that continues to be in his mind and just a matter of how much the people around him can control and how much his lawyers can restrain the impulsive reaction that you know he sort of is eager to express. >> and susan, even paul manafort's lawyer today was on this no-collusion message. i think we have that. do we want to play that? >> i think you all saw today

that president donald trump was correct. there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> your client is charged with 12 criminal counts of not registering as a foreign agent, of conspiring against your government. do you really come out and toe the white house talking point on russian collusion? >> it seems pretty clear that manafort's legal team as well as the president of the united states, were surprised by the additional revelation from mueller's office today about the papadopoulos guilty plea. i think that this adds a new level, and i think if people will still debate about it, but arguably, already in the guilty plea has been established a nexus of collusion or attempted collusion between the trump campaign and at least this one low-level trump campaign adviser. so, you know, it does seem like paul manafort's lawyers at a certain point need to focus on

keeping their client out of jail as opposed to making the president's political point. maybe that's some signaling back and forth. to eli's point, it's an important one. you got to imagine that donald trump's lawyers are dreading the thought of trump issuing any more public comments. they may even be wondering whether trump's tweet, his trumpant all-caps tweet claiming there was no collusion was the reason this was unsealed today. and i think that for any lawyer, this has got to be a nightmare scenario, right? >> let me ask you because you and i talk about russia all the time. what was your personal thought when you saw the papadopoulos -- he has plead guilty, he's cooperating. we now have someone else who can speak to the campaign's bungled, i guess, but at least an effort to coordinate with the russians. for something where we've had so few tangible proof points there it was in black and white. what did you think when you read it? >> that's a good way of expressing it.

first of all, as i'm sure a lot of you did, i thought, wow, the chronology has just changed here. they appear to now have all of the trump campaign's e-mails, or some significant e-mails. the investigators do. and these e-mails apparently show that as far back as the spring of 2016, there was information given to the trump campaign which george papadopoulos passed up the chain inside the trump campaign that said there is some kind of a trove of hillary clinton e-mails available. so that seemed like a really big deal to me today. and again, look. this is how the russians operate. ask the germans. ask the french how russians buy influence in their capitals. >> all right. >> really two things. the legal strategy is to get a pardon. that's the message to send to the white house. it's much easier than firing bob mueller. and second, they interview papadopoulos in january and february of 2017. three weeks later the president fires jim comey.

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complete the job with listerine® help prevent plaque, early gum disease, bad breath and kill up to 99.9% of germs. listerine® bring out the bold™ i cannot possibly imagine the president terminating bob mueller. it's not even -- it's ridiculous to even consider or talk about. i mean, it just cannot happen. >> i have full confidence in him. he is someone who's widely respected for his professionalism. he's going to conduct a fair and thorough examination. with that i have no doubt. >> robert mueller is perhaps the single most qualified individual to lead such an investigation, in my view. >> joining us here, democratic congressman swallow of california, pleb of house and judiciary committees. thank you for joining us.

let's yet get your reaction of the day. >> this fits into many other meetings we've seen with george papadopoulos. that's the most important outcome as far as our investigation. an individual, who traveled as a member of the campaign overseas a number of times to meet with russians to get dirt on hillary. boy, that sounds like what don junior was doing, the e-mail exchange, e-mails to michael cohen and sounds a lot like cambridge an lalytico communicating with julian a avaunavaun assan assange. mr. papadopoulos lied three times to the fbi. >> why does that matter? the documents to be turned over. i'm not a lawyer. the rest of you are. that wasn't clear.

someone pointed that out to me. he already had comitted a crime lying to federal agents and already had him on perjury and may be why he became such a helpful witness? >> they went to him in january of 2017, and he gave a b.s. story. went back in february. again, the story didn't quit with the facts assembled. looks like they gathered subpoenas, evidence, confronted him off his dulles flight and finally he started cooperating. my fear, our witnesses come in, mostly not under subpoena, not turning over the documents we ask and a lot get up and the leave when they want to leave. if they're willing to lie to the fbi we're flying in the blind because we don't have a lot of resources they have. they're not turning them over. i wonder how many stories told were really true? >> is your investigation useless? >> i hope it's a wake-up call. not useless. >> how can you strengthen the teeth? what do you need republicans to understand not to come in and lie to you? >> understand the grand jury. we now have a person on the

trump team admitting he went over to a foreign country to work with a foreign adversary to get dirt in a presidential election. >> is that collusion? >> it's -- you know, there's a -- that's work wig the russin russians, call it what you want. teaming up with a u.s. adversary to win an election. >> does this strengthen your hand who seem interested in following shiny objects down rabbit holes? >> if it doesn't, i don't know what would interest them. someone the president called an excellent guy. >> jeremy you served as counsel to the house intel committee. right? >> yes. >> what do you make of what's going on in the congressman's committee? >> congressman and those or the democratic side of the aisle have a very tough time. there are other members including like nunez, even though technically refused, want

to investigate someone who ran for president last year, and they're have a tough time. not figure out who did what to whom but how to protect american national security. in some ways that's more important than what bob mueller is up to. >> matt, do you think the efforts at distraction of protected -- obviously, furthered and and vanced advan media. tainted, these could be the last holdouts when there was still bipartisanship. feels like another norm? >> donald trump has a way of corrupting everything he touches. you saw the chairman have to recuse himself because of one investigation launched in the spring and now launched two other investigations on the so-called ouranium one issue. it's a problem for the committee

and with these investigation, because i assume, that animosity and loss of trust that happens when the chairman acts that way, carries over into other important issues. national security issues, hard to do so when led by a chairman so many members -- i suspect republican members as well, don't have faith in as a good-faith operator. >> and played the mash of republicans saying they couldn't imagine the scenario where bob mueller gets fired. now that he unsealaled these indictments, someone has already pled guilty, what would the fallout, the earth quake look like, if donald trump were to wake up in the morning and fire bob mueller? >> i think you'd see outrage from democrats but i'm waiting for the courage of my republican colleagues to come forward and say, this is not normal. >> we just played three-- >> retiring.

>> and if you don't want to say something nice about bob mueller, he should continue. >> and will he can't file mueller piece of legislation, because until you put it in legislature, in concrete, force the president to sign it, no assuran assurances. >> how important is bob mueller to not only understanding what happened in 2016 but making sure it doesn't happen again? >> this isn't about one person. this is about an independent investigation to find out who worked with a foreign adversary to undermine our freedom to choose? that has to continue. >> if your committee is being thwarted and we don't know if the snt committee can do this work, anyone other than bob mueller? >> i wrote the legislation, every democrat and two republicans signed on for an independent commission. we did it after 9/11. we're safer in the skies and freer from terrorism because he did that. that's our best insurance policy against these committees with as trivgs on th

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thanks to everybody here in the d.c. bureau who made us feel right at home. we might never leave. my thanks to the congressman and others. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with steve ckornacki in for chuk todd. and the biggest so far in the russia investigation. >> and george papadopoulos, the guilty splee pr y plea is perha biggest news. >> the white house fires back on charges of collusion>> it h. >> it has to do with his telling the truth. >> no evidence. and mr. manafort and the trump campaign collude with the russian government. >> and what does it all mean for the president's agenda o