p.m. local on sunday. meanwhile, national weather service said the santa ana winds, those evil winds will continue through the weekend. winds as high as 40 miles per hour on saturday, increasing to 50 on sunday over much of l.a. and ventura counties. for us, that's our broadcast on a friday night and for this week. if you so very much for being with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters in new york. have a good weekend. thanks forinning us this hour, nice to have you here. we have a special report four tonight on a story that we've been working on for a very long time now. for going on a year and a half we have been digging into the russian attempt, not just to interfere in this last election, but to interfere for the benefit of russia's chosen candidate. that candidate, of course, is now the president and his administration has been dogged since before day one by questions of whether his campaign was involved in the

russian intelligence operation that tried to influence our election. two members of the president's campaign including the national security adviser have now pled guilty to lying about their contacts with the russians. but tonight we're going to take a step back to an intriguing and many ways pressing document at the heart of the trump/russia story. we're going to step back and look at the 35-page trump/russia dossier. and depending on which wait news is blowing, the alsos contained in this document can sound outland issue or freakishly spot on. where did this dossier come from? what did we learn from it? what does it yet have to say. had what of what we've learned. >> there are any russians here tonight? any russians? >> >> they conducted watergate 2.0. >> this fake dossier was made up -- >> i don't use the term dossier.

these were field reports. is there something here that i could verify? >> i call. russian hoax. >> it's all fake news. i am not involved in russia. president of the united states. >> it started in the spring of 2016 with a former british spy who's name was almost too james bond to be true. steele, christopher steele. >> and we will make america great again. thank you, everybody. >> if you were looking to investigate donald trump's alleged russia connections, christopher steele would seem like the perfect fit. >> he can tell you off the top of his head the leading members of the russian mafia, people who have influence in the kremlin

and so on. >> nigel west knows christopher steele. he's a writer and historian whose sperkt is british intelligence. west says that steele was mi-6's man in moscow in the early nine fiend 90s. >> and thereafter he ended his career as the head of the branch that trains new entry intelligence officers. and that's actually considered to be a pretty important role. >> after retiring, steele started a new company called or business business intelligence located in this building in london. it specialized in getting corporate executives deep targeted intel on foreign countries they were dealing with. steele's specialty was russia. >> i have listened to his presentations on what he calls the kleptocracy. had is the putin regime and the way it has effectively luted the former soviet union. he's the go-to guy if there was

anybody who wanted to conduct due diligence investigations, he knows every personality. >> jonathan winer is a performer assistant deputy of state for law enforcement in the clinton administration. he says he first met christopher steele in washington in 2009. >> he knew more about russian organized crime, russian financial crime, russian money laundering, russian corruption than i did, and i knew quite a bit. >> according to weiner, steal occasionally provided reports on developments inside putin's russia to his colleagues at the state department. >> the people working russia all the time valued the reports. they thought they were well sourced. they felt they were remarkably timely. >> the state department wasn't the only u.s. agency to rely on christopher steele. >> i understood he had a relationship with the fbi relate together fifa soccer standal and had been a significant source for them in making cases in that

area. >> in 2016, though, the americans calling christopher steele weren't fbi agents. the call he got in 2016 was from a small washington research firm called fusion gps. fusion gps was found by former "wall street journal" reporters. this is one of fusion founders described his suspect company's mission when he spoke at a 2009 sem posium on investigative reporting at the university of california at berkeley. >> hoping that people who have an interest in bringing things out, do something about corruption and fraud will come to us. we don't necessarily have to have completely pure motives, you know, frequently there's people who are in business and they're sick of competitors who cheat and they want to see things exposed. that's, you know, that's a model for our new project. >> fusion had first been hired by a conservative website called the washington free beacon. that website and its funders

were opposed to donald trump during the republican primaries. >> i hear they're all going after me. whatever. whatever. i hear it. >> once trump appeared to clinch the nomination, those initial conservative funders at the free beacon lost interest in the trump project. soon, though, new clients agreed to pay for fusion's research. the democratic national committee and the hillary clinton campaign. >> friends don't let friends vote for trump. >> at first, fusion concentrated on trump's business career, his casinos, his multiple business bankruptcies. >> i've used the laws of the country to make good deals for myself. >> but they soon noticed that trump's organizations seemed do a lot of business with russian, particularly at times when trump's businesses might have been strapped for cash. >> trump is experiencing extreme financial difficulties june 2008. >> james henry is an economist, lawyer, investigative journalist

who's written extensively about post soviet russia and donald trump's russian connections. >> the only way that he survives is by calling on new sources of capital or basically money pouring out of places like russia, the former soviet union states like kasic stan. there was nothing to suggest anything immaterial legal about that, but the kesters working for fusion gps thought there might be more to know. so they went looking for someone who knew russia, someone who had sources in russia. someone like christopher steele. >> at some point in the summer of 2016, i heard from mr. steele that he had this project relating to russia which implicated contacts between russians and people associated with president trump's campaign, then candidate trump's campaign. >> steele had barely begun his investigation of trump's russian ties when a big story broke in the united states.

it was june 24th, 2016, and "the washington post" reported that the democratic national committee had been hacked. security analysts suspected that russia was behind it. >> this was a clear espionage attempt by the russian government to steal information about the u.s. political process. >> malcolm nance is a former naval intelligence officer. he wrote a book called "the plot to hack america" about russia's meddling in the 2016 election. >> putin views russia as missing its place as the number one super power in the world, even though it's economically on par with italy. but do it you can use soft power, you can use what we call hybrid warfare, which say political warfare, propaganda, ununiform special operations, everything short of war to disable your enemy. and in the case of the united states, the easiest thing to disable is democracy. because russia does not believe

in democracy. >> six days after the washington post's first story on russian hacking, christopher steele sent his first report to fusion gps. it was the very first page of the very first memo that set the tone for all of the memos and for all of the controversy that followed. steele wrote on that first page, quote, the russian regime has been cultivating supporting, and assisting trump for at least five years. aim endorsed by putin has been to encourage splits and dmiftion western alliance. according to steele's unnamed source, trump's inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the kremlin. but there was also something else. steele went on to say that russia had enough embarrassing material on the now republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished. steele's memo asserted that some of russia's alleged embarrassing

material on trump had been gathered back in 2013 when trump brought his miss universe pageant to moscow. >> thank you, moscow. >> that sa lashs claim about trump's time in moscow was a small part of the first christopher steele memo. when the full steele dossier later became public, that claim would be the headline. but it was steele's broad e assertions about russia's aims, methods, and relationship with trump that would end up slow burning through the whole first year of the trump presidency. mos are pretty much the same. but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better.

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according to jonathan weiner, steele felt if the russians intended to meddle in the upcoming american election, the fbi should know about it. >> that is the kind of thing the fbi needs to know and to assess professionally, impartially in order to protect our country. that's how i felt about it. i believe that's how mr. steele felt about it. >> in late june, with the per physician u mission of his clients at fusion, christopher steele met with an old fbi contact in the uk. his intell was raw and you verified, but his certain was real. >> you don't gather information like this and not pass it on to the fbi. that would be wrong. passing on to the fbi would be the right thing to do. >> the fbi had interacted with steele before on the fifa soccer bribery scandal and other matters. christoph christopher steele was a known

quantity to the bureau and they were interested in what he had to say. after that first meeting the bureau told steele they wanted more. steele promised to keep them in the loop. weeks later on july 19th, 2016, steele sent off his second trump memo. this was the headline. russia, secret kremlin meetings attended by trump adviser carter page in moscow. according to steele's sources, those meetings involved a move to lift ukraine-related western sanctions against russia. on the day that report was filed, the republican national convention was getting under way in cleveland, ohio. at the time, a few american journalists were starting to see the vague outlines of a trump-rush story. trump's appointment of paul man ta for the as his campaign chair raised eyebrows because manafort had spent years working for pro putin politicians. >> what really started to give the russia story some traction

was paul manafort's role. >> this is a veteran investigative reporter who writes for yahoo news. trump had put manafort in charge of managing the convention. >> it seemed odd that the trump campaign had this senior official who was so closely associated with a government that had become a foreign adversary. >> to him, that was the first red flag. >> then the republican conventions platform is changed to remove language that had been proposed that would offer lethal assistance to the ukrainians who were fighting russian intervention in their country. >> from his perspective, this was red flag number two. >> and then you had michael flynn who was emerging as

perhaps the chief foreign policy national security adviser to the trump campaign. >> lock her up, that's right. yeah, that's right, lock her up. >> i interviewed flynn that day, the afternoon of his speech. he flew over to moscow. and one thing that i pressed him on was the trip he made to moscow in december, 2015, and i asked an obvious question, which was why did you take the trip and who paid for it? >> i didn't take any money from russia, if that's what you're asking me. >> well then who paid you? >> my -- my speaker's bureau, ask them. >> okay. it's like what's going on here? everyone knows the way these things work. speakerer's bu row is the kont witness, takes a cut, sets up the speech, but the money comes from the client, the client here

was r.t., the russian propaganda station. >> i humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the united states. >> the final red flag came on the day after donald trump accepted the republican nomination. on july 22nd, 2016, days before the democrats were to open their convention, wikileaks published thousands of stolen democratic party e-mails. >> that was something new. that was something we hadn't seen before. and it clearly shook up the democrats. >> malcolm nance says it was the moment he knew america was under attack. >> when wikileaks released that whole lot of information, the first thing i thought was this san old-style, kgb political warfare operation, but it's been modernized with computer technology. and that they've conducted

watergate 2.0, successful watergate. >> soon after the wikileaks dump of dnc e-mails, christopher steele filed another trump memo, quote, russian regime behind the embarrassing leak of e-mail messages emanating from the national damn democratic committee to the wikileaks platform. one of stooe's sources described as an ethnic russian close to donald trump told steele this, quote, it was a well developed conspiracy of cooperation between them and the russian leadership. this was managed on the trump side by the republican candidates campaign manager paul manafort who was using foreign policy adviser carter page and others as intermediaries. now at that point, american journalists knew nothing of christopher steele and his reports. but there was a rumor that was making the rounds to fusion gps. the rumor was that russia had something compromising on trump.

there were whisfers in d.c. reporting circles about a sex tape with prostitutes at the rilts carlton hotel in moscow. >> so people associated with the democrats were pedaling that story. >> ken dilanian. >> we did hear things like look, if you did anything at the ritz carlton moscow, that whole place is wired by russian intelligence for video and sound. so it's perfectly plausible that anybody who engaged in embarrassing activities there would be on tape and russian spies would have that tape. but there was really no way could you prove it. >> alongside those swirling rumors were other new questions about trump in russia. questions sparked by trump's own public remarks and his own behavior on the campaign trail. >> russia, if you're listen, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be

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three major stories broke within minutes of each other. first came at 3:30 eastern time that friday afternoon. the directors of homeland security and national intelligence issued a statement declaring for the first time that the russian government was behind the dnc hack and the weaponization of those sonl e-mails, that the wikileaks dump of those dnc documents was part of a russian government operation ordered at the highest level. >> and the statement is very dramatic. it says that the u.s. intelligence community is confident that the russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from americans and u.s. institutions, including u.s. political organizations. >> just 30 minutes later, "the washington post" seized the news psych whl it posted the now notorious access hollywood tape. >> in the audio you can hear trump talk about a married woman he tried to have sex with and how he behaves with women that he's attracted to.

he claims he can do whatever he wants to them because he's famous. >> when you're a star they let do you it. you can do anything. >> then 30 minutes after that wikileaks appearedtor counterpunch with the release of e-mails hacked from the person account of clinton campaign chairman poe lefta. >> this is another hack there are say download from one of the hacking organizations that has alleged ties to the russians. >> in the middle of that wild news cycle in october, david corn of the left leaning mother jones magazine got wind of something big, something unprecedented if it was true. his sources told him that russia had something on trump. and the details were written down in a series of secret documents. >> i was told about the memos in great detail. >> david corn discovered whoever wrote the memos, a former british intelligence officer named christopher steele. >> i was able to do some

research on him and find out at the very least he was who he said he was. and that he had the intelligence pedigree that he -- that i had been told that he had. >> by mid-october, christopher steele had filed 15 of the 16 memos that would later be called the dossier. david corn saw several of the memos. >> and i don't use the term dossier, because it's not really a dossier. that gives the impression of sort of a finished product that was compiled into one single, you know, entity, one document. these were field reports if the was very much the way a reporter in the field would send notes to an editor. >> to try to var fight credibility of steele's memos, david corn started calling his own sources. malcolm nance was one of them. >> corn, the journalist who was the first one to receive the christopher steele dossier contacted me and he wanted to ask me some questions about how do you evaluate this

information. >> after doing his own due diligence, corn atrienrrange do interview via skype with christopher steele himself. >> our agreement at the time was that i could quote him but i would not identify him by name. >> the former spy didn't want publicity, he wanted action. in the interview steele told corn this is something of huge significance, way above party politics. he said i think trump's own party should be aware of this stuff as well. corn had his scoop, but he knew had he to be careful. >> i wasn't going to take any of the specific allegations, particularly the salacious ones, because even donald trump is owed a degree of fairness. but just for journalistic integrity you don't want to report allegations about anyone that you can't verify that aren't true. >> still, corn believed steele's reputation and the fbi's interest in the broader outlines of steele's story gave it

credibility. >> the fbi, you know, hadn't just said get lost. they were oh, give us more information here. >> a few minutes before midnight on halloween, 2016, mother jones mosted dav posted david corn's headline under this hard a veteran spy has given the fbi information allowing russian to cultivate donald trump. it was the public's first glimpse at a story that a handful of report hers been chasing for months. a candidate with a americasy relationship to a hogg hostile foreign power, a russian plot to tamper with our election. possible trump campaign collusion with the kremlin. the story was potentially huge and intriguing, but it was vague. who was this veteran spy and what was the russian operation? how serious were these allegations? ultimately, david corn's article was swamp by the news cycle. days earlier the fbi had reopened and investigation of

hillary clinton's use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state. >> the fbi dropped a bomb in the race for president this afternoon. >> that story and reaction to it would dominate the headlines right up to election day. >> very proud that the fib was willing to do this actually. really. very proud. >> when the calendar finally flipped to november 8th and election day arrived, donald trump won enough electoral votes to become president of the united states. the election may have been over, but the hard work of finding out what role the russians played in the 2016 election, that work was just beginning.

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cabinet and his white house staff. david corn's october scoop about those trump memos from a western spy, that was long forgotten. until, ten days before the inauguration, that story came roaring back when cnn reported that both president obama and president-elect trump had been briefed by the intelligence community on a two-page summary of the christopher steele dossier. >> the information was provided as part of last week's classified intelligence briefings regarding russian efforts to undermine the u.s. election. >> that report set off alarm bells in the new york offices of buzz feed news. as was true at several other news organizations, reporters at buzz feed had obtained a copy of christopher steele's memos. >> we looked at things that seemed confirmable. >> ben smith is buzz feed's editor and chief. he says buzz feed was not able to verify claims in the dossier, but, smith felt that the fact that such a dossier was being

taken seriously by u.s. intelligence, that itself was news. >> kwe we knew that this document was being circulated, talked about and in some cases acted upon at the very, very highest levels of government. and you see important decisionmakers making decisions about how they are relate together administration, how they're thinking of russia that are explained by this piece of dark matter. >> ben smith and others at buzz feed felt it was time to let their audience in on what was fast becoming the worst kept secret in washington. >> the questions we ask ourselves is why would we keep this from our audience. >> at 5:20 p.m. on january 20th, buzz feed hit publish, all 35 pamgs of the dossier went online with a warning that the allegations are unverified and the report contains errors. >> that was really our main goal in our summary of of it was to say very, very clearly, we haven't verified this, there are

some -- as you say are minor but real errors in that could give you becaupause and here's what know about it. >> it was explosive stuff, and not just the lewd alsos. there were other serious charges, names named in black and white. the public was seeing it all for the first time. according to the dossier's unnamed source, paul manafort managed a conspiracy of cooperation with the russians. foreign policy adviser carter page served as an interimmediatary with the russians. trump's personal lawyer traveled to prague to meet with russians trying to cover up the scandal. >> damaging allegations about trump and his dealings with russians. >> the reaction from the trump camp was immediate and furious. >> the buzz feed memo is total, complete garbage is what it is '. >> the trump associates named in the dossier vehemently deside any wrongdoing. they said they where are a

democrat party dirty trick and completely false. >> it's so crazy that it's laughable. >> carter page admitted he had been to russia but insisted he had gone on personal business, not as trump's russian go between. >> i had no dealings in russia that would directly lead -- that had anything do with the trump campaign. >> as for michael cohen, you trump's lawyer, he tweeted a picture of his passport and said he'd never even been to prague. and although it is month to travel in europe without getting a passport stamp in every country visited it was tweeted by the president-elect as a refuted of the dossier. >> it's a disgreat andthy think think they ought to apologize to michael. >> the president attacked not just the dossier itself, he accused the u.s. intelligence community of lacking it. >> i think it was disgraceful,

disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out. i think it's a disgrace. and i say that and i say that and that's something that nazi germany would have done and did do. >> trump also lashed out at buzz feed. >> buzz feed, which is a failing pile of garbage. >> on top of the criticism from the president-elect, buzz feed also took heat from other journalists for having published admittedly unverified allegations. >> are you knowingly spreading false information? >> i think as with the obama birth certificate thing during the obama campaign there are say incredibly difficult balance that everybody in our business navigates every day. >> because buzz feed did not react all personal identifying information for people mentioned in the dossier, several russians named in it later said they had been libelled by it's publication. at the they are now suing buzz

feed and fusion gps. david corn fears that are buzz feed may have put at risk the lives of christopher steele's sources. >> one concern i had was this could put some sources into trouble and, you know, maybe even, you know, put steele into some trouble as well. >> days after buzz feed published the dossier, the "wall street journal" publicly identified christopher steele as the dossier's author. >> the report's compiled by former british spy christopher steele and push lished by buzz feed. >> within hours of be being outed steele went into hiding with his wife and children. >> the immediaty were all over him. >> christopher steele's friend nig nigel west. >> it was exactly the correct advice that everybody in management would give which is say nothing and disappear. >> in the days immediately after the dossier's publication, anyone interested in russia's role in the 2016 election had read it, including christopher

steele's old friend, jonathan weiner. >> i looked at that time like i look at all humans reports, you look at the professionalism of the person gathering it, their background, the care with which they operate, and you say this is serious stuff. but intelligence is not evidence. these are two very different things. >> now that the dossier was a matter of public record and a fierce political kroes controversy, the core question remained, were the allegations in it true. >> intelligence professionals wondered if perhaps the russians might have deliberately fed steele some bogus information. >> the thing, it depends on who indeed christopher steele's sources were. they might indeed have genuine access of what he talks about, and 70%, 80% of what they are

telling him was true. however, there might be that 20% that actually comes from putin's administration and it is information that they want to put over, it's not necessarily correct. >> the truth deliberate lies, weaponized half truths, it would be up to investigators to sort those out. on the russian side, though, their response was clear and consistent from the beginning. deny everything. de metro peskov is putin's press secretary. >> but i can assure you that the allegations in those -- in this paper, in this so-called report, they are untrue and they are all fake. >> fake may have been the word for it in moscow, but in washington the dossier and some of its allegations were starting to bear out under scrutiny and

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i, donald trump do solemnly swear. >> after donald trump took the oath of office in january, 2017, a steady bore wrath of news report started to reveelt character of the russian campaign to influence the american presidential election. the circulation and hyping of internal party documents that had been stolen by russian hackers, fake social media profiles pushing divisive story lines and attempting to drive support for trump. thousands of russian bot online ads targeting and trying to sway millions of american voters. and alongside those revelations, time and again previously unreported meetings between trump associates and russians link to the putin government. both during the campaign and during the presidential transition. >> a storm of controversy swirling around national security adviser michael flynn. >> we're staying with breaking news that donald trump's attorney general met with the russian ambassador. >> jared kushner met with the

russian ambassador in secret. >> in response, the president would invert the revelations about russia flooding propaganda and disinformation into the campaign. he flipped that. he denounced mainstream american journalism as fake news. >> the leaks are absolutely real. the news is fake because so much of the news is fake. >> by late january, the white house had been warned that the president's national security adviser, michael flynn, had been compromised by his undisclosed contacts with the russian ambassador. in february, flynn resigned. >> national security adviser michael flynn is out. >> in march, attorney general jeff sessions as forced to admit he had also had unrereported meetings are the russian ambassador. >> i have not decided to recuse myself from any exist organize future investigations. >> and in may, the most stunning turn of all, the president fired fbi director james comey, the

man who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into whether the trump campaign colluded with russia. >> president trump called me and informed me he was firing director comey. i told the president, mr. president, with all due respect, you are making a big mistake. >> in an interview with nbc's lester holt, trump acknowledged that the russia investigation was one reason for the firing. >> when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. >> under oath comey would later testify that on four separate occasions the president had pressured him over the fbi's russia investigation. the president firing james comey did not derail that investigation, it led instead to a special counsel taking the reigns, former fbi director robert mueller. in march, 2017 oar after two months of hiding, christopher

steele eventually reemerged. >> i'm really pleased to be back here working again at the offices in london today. >> but he left it to others to solve the puzzle his dossier had created. >> and just to add, that i won't be making any further statements or comments at this time. thank you so much. >> true his word, steele stayed out of the public eye but he has reportedly been interviewed by the investigators working for special counsel robert mueller and in a november 2017 book by luke harding, a reporter for the guardian newspaper, harding says steele has told friends that he believes his dossier is 70 to 90% accurate. and that it will be vindicated by robert mueller's investigation. according to harding, steele said, quote, i've been dealing with this country for 30 years, why would i invent stuff? now more than a year after the presidential election, steele's memos remain an object of fierce

controversy. some elements of the dossier have been verified, a number remain neither verified nor proven false, but none so far have been publicly disproven. the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee in the house is california congressman adam schiff. >> when you look at just what has become public, some of the public information is very much in line with what is reported in that dossier. >> msnbc contribute bore john mc clauf lin spent 40 years analyzing the dark matters for the cia. he said while they do seem to be bearing out, collusion say hard thing to prove. >> if you're looking at the fact pattern that we have here involving a number of figures in the trump administration having had one interaction or another with the russians whether financial or otherwise, you know, if you're in the intelligence business, that still amounts to smoke. >> it may be only smoke, but there seems to be a lot of it

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it began as a hunch, a feeling among donald trump's political opponents that his frequent praise of vladimir putin. >> i respect putin, he's a strong leader, i can tell you that. >> might be based on something more than mutual admiration. >> putin did call me a genius and he said i'm the future of the republican party. >> that is what christopher steele was hired to check out. now nearly a year avenue filed his last report, his dossier has become a virtual roadmap for anyone investigating the trump campaign and russia's role in our 2016 election. here's why. point one, according to steele's source, the kremlin had been

feeding trump and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton for several years. >> a new link has surfaced between the president's name sake and a russian lawyer. >> we now know that at least nine trump associates had contacts with russian officials during the campaign or the transition. meetings happened in new york, in washington, in europe, in russia. former trump adviser carter page has now told congressional investigators that despite his previous denials, he did meet with high-ranking russians in moscow in july, 2016. christopher steele had reported as much at the time in the dossier. >> he's been forced to acknowledge that he had encounters with senior russian officials. now he tips to say this was meaningless and it wasn't about collusion and the things asserted about him in the dossier are not true. but nonetheless, the account is significantly changed from when we first heard about this trip.

>> what is now the most notorious trump campaign russia meeting happened in june, 2016, at trump tower. donald trump jr., paul manafort and the president's son-in-law jared kushner met with a group of russians with kremlin connections. a now public e-mail chain shows that the trump camp accepted that meeting on the understanding that they'd be given russian provided government dirt on hillary clinton. one e-mail read this is part of russia and its government's support for mr. trump. the president's son, son-in-law, and former campaign chairman have all denied that anything of significance happened at that meeting. here's what donald junior said about it on fox news. >> i can't help what someone sends me, you know. i read it, i responded accordingly, and if there was something interesting will, i think it's pretty common. >> the trump people refuse in a lot of ways to recognize the significance of this. when revelations and disclosure come out like this, it's often just the tip of the iceberg.

this was the tip of the iceberg, the iceberg has to be damn big. >> a russian lawyer who attended the meeting now says that donald trump jr. indicated his father's administration would consider lifting economic sanctions on russia if he won the presidency. so point one, like steele had said, russia had been feeding information to trump and his team. point two, according to steele's sources, the russians hoped their election meddling would shift u.s. policy consensus on ukraine. we know now that at the republican national convention in ohio, the trump campaign intervened to soften the language for support for ukraine in the republican party platform. and we know once they won't election, they did take action on russian sanctions. nbc's ken dilanian. >> these sanctions really biting the russian economy. it remains a main goal of the russian government to get those lifted. >> we now know that as soon as

the trump administration arrived in washington, they directed the state department to start working on plans to lift the russian sanctions. senior state department personnel pushed back alerting both capitol hill and the press. >> what was concerning to those state department officials to talked to our colleagues is that they felt this was not in the best interest of the u.s. and was too premature to be considered. >> so, steele's point one, intel from russia to the trump camp. steele's point two, the trump camp acting to help russia on both ukraine and on sanctions. .3, before u.s. intelligence agencies made public their conclusion that american democracy was under an orchestrated attack from russia, christopher steele had reported in the dossier, quote, kremlin behind recent appearance of dnc e-mails on wikileaks. the intelligence community now says that is true. we also now know that the russian hack of the dnc and the

weaponization of stolen democratic e-mails through wick wi i can leaks, that was only part of russian campaign to influence our election. >> russia was buying ads, setting up fake accounts, using twitter bots to push advicive messages. . fueled misinformation, fueled fake news. they were designed to drive turnout in favor of hillary clinton oopponents and what u.s. intelligence officials is this is the most sophisticated operation they've ever seen. >> point four, crist fear steele reported that trump's campaign chair paul manafort was managing the campaign's relationship with the russians. we now know that in october 2017, a federal grand jury indicted paul manafort and another top trump campaign official on multiple counts of money laundering, perjury, and conspiracy against the united states. at that same time, special counsel robert mueller also announced that a third trump

campaign adviser george papadopoulos pled guilty to lying about his own contacts with russian operatives. then a month later another person mentioned in the steele dossier pled guilty to lying if the was trump's former national security adviser michael flynn. flynn has agreed to become a cooperating witness in the mueller investigation. above all else, we know that about the now famous dossier. christopher steele had this story before the rest of america did. and he got it from russian sources. and whether or not the compromise, the alleged american-russian extra spr they heart of steele's narrative is ever proven out, our understanding of what russia did and why and how well they did it and whether they had help, it's all still in its early stages. >> what is important is that the american public gets the truth, the full truth, and nothing but

the truth about what happened in our elections in 2016. >> it took an ex-british spy to get our first look at what moscow might be up to. american investigators, journalists, and prosecutors will now have to fill in the rest of the picture.