london we have a massive number of demonstrators, demonstrating against the president's actions and statements. in london, president trump has been trying to explain away his diatribe about prime minister theresa may in an interview with a rupert murdoch newspaper, "the sun." as you can see, the vehicle known as "the beast," the president's motorcade arriving as he drives through the historic gates into windsor castle. it's a range rover, he's actually driving in a british vehicle as he approaches the queen. this is not the visit that he

had intended. originally it was supposed to be a state visit. that was downgrade e ed appreci to a tea, not the overnight dinner that president obama and his wife enjoyed at buckingham palace. the queen has been waiting. they will together see the honor guard, as you see melania trump getting ready to greet her majesty. as is notable, there are no microphones close by. the american pool and host television are being kept at quite a distance. now posing with the 92-year-old monarch, the longest serving monarch in british history. queen elizabeth ii, beloved by her people and around the world.

she's met every leader. and we can hear now the national anthem played by the british military band. let's listen. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> and as we've heard the anthem, the guard, the troops of the household division arrayed there at windsor castle. the queen has met every foreign leader, every head of state, since 1952, the coronation, the death of her father. she is very smart, very well-versed in world affairs but extremely observant to the caution that there never be a public statement by her of anything political. she would certainly not opine on the controversy now going on some 30 miles away in london, where masses of people are protesting against the american president. unprecedented, to have this kind of hostility between the british

people and the american leader. they will be going inside for tea. there will be no coverage inside. a still photo, we understand, will be released. ♪ this is the kind of pageantry we know president trump loves. but it is not the ride in a golden carriage through london that he had once thought of, we understand, which would have been his had there been a state

visit, prior to a series of gaffes and policy pronouncements on everything from immigration to trade. most notably, as he was arriving in london for this meeting with the queen and before that, with theresa may, phrasing boris johnson, her rival who just resigned from the cabinet as her foreign cabinet, the equivalent of our secretary of state, over differences over her strategy for implementing the brexit, the separation of england from the european union mandated by that referendum, a referendum now that we understand may well have been aided covertly by the kremlin in the same way that russia hacked into the american election. and that of course set the stage for a remarkable split screen. we're about to have a news conference from rod rosenstein.

no official word on what to expect. but we understand there could be some significant announcements from the justice department. nick burns, as you watch this with me, former ambassador to nato, as someone who is in administrations as a veteran diplomat, republican and democratic, we are now hearing that 12 russians have been indicted by the justice department, russian intelligence officers charged with hacking. now, we know how difficult it would be to ever pursue them in terms of getting them here and prosecuting them, but this adds to the 13 russians who were not directly involved with the government per se. but these are russian intelligence operatives who are charged with hacking the democratic national committee in the run-up to the 2016 election. >> and andrea, these are russian officials who actually attacked

the democratic national committee in 2016. it puts enormous pressure on president trump to raise this issue directly with the kgb spymaster vladimir putin in helsinki on monday. if he doesn't, you could make the charge the president is not defending our country from this type of russian attack. >> even earlier today, at the news conference at chequers with theresa may, he was asked by kristen welker whether he had played into the hands of america's oldest adversary, and he reacted angrily, calling it fake news and saying he was stronger than ever coming out of nato. you were a nato ambassador. >> yes. andrea, i must say, you and i have seen a lot of summits. no american president has ever had such a chaotic, disputatious trip to europe as president trump has had.

he's attacked angela merkel, theresa may, nato, the european union. he's gone after all of our allies. yet no criticism of our adversaries. such a contrast. >> vladimir putin is of course the chief adversary of nato. right now ken dilanian has the indictment. ken, brief us on who has been indicted. these are officially members of russian intelligence. >> andrea, we're waiting for pete williams to transmit that to us, he's at the justice department. we reported some months ago that robert mueller and his team had the evidence to do it, had it for some time in fact, and was waiting for the right time. and the right time appears to be just a few days before donald trump is to sit down with vladimir putin for a summit, which is remarkable, that this decision was made. it really looks like a stick in the eye of trump by robert mueller and rod rosenstein, who

is supervising this investigation. and, you know, i was talking to people in the intelligence community today. they had no idea that this was coming. i'm certain that some people within the director of national intelligence, within the state department, have been consulted about a decision to indict foreign nationals, because that's the way it often would happen. but at the operational level, many people had no idea this was coming, even as a summit was being planned with vladimir putin, andrea. >> and the implications are so broad here, ken. first of all, this is the first indictment that actually involves russian officials. and we know that these may be the officials reporting through former ambassador kislyak who was the ambassador for quite a long time during this period in the united states and also in the oval office with president trump and foreign minister lavrov. there have been all sorts of questions raised about that. what we have yet to see, if this report is accurate, we're going

to await rod rosenstein's briefing on it, there are no americans yet indicted and implicated in colluding with the russians who have so far been indicted. there is a fairly short timeline, ken. we know from a lot of practice and certain by the report of the inspector general criticizing former fbi chief comey for doing things so close to the election back in 2016, within days of the election, reopening the investigation of hillary clinton, you know that there is pressure on robert mueller to do whatever he's going to do before labor day or right early in september but not close to the midterm elections, ken. >> i think that's absolutely right. and i think we should consider this indictment of 12 russian intelligence officers as part two of a story that robert mueller is trying to tell through court filings about how the russians interfered with the election. if you will recall a few month ago, he issued a massive indictment of russians accused

of manipulating social media and the internet research agency, the troll farms, facebook, ads. and they were charged with illegally interfering in the american election, election law violations. but there was no mention of the hacking in that indictment. apparently this indictment will lay out how the russian government hacked the democrats, hacked hillary clinton's campaign chairman john podesta, transmitted that information to wikileaks, which is distributed strategically to hurt the democrats in the campaign. the question is whether any americans, either affiliated with the trump campaign or not affiliated, helped that effort. many people believe these operation was so well-placed, so weaponized, the russians would have had to have americans who knew about the american political system. they targeted local raisces in

florida. >> rod rosenstein is beginning to speak. we're bringing this to you live. >> an indictment presented by the special counsel's office. the indictment charges 12 russian military officers by name for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. 11 of the defendants are charged with conspiring to hack into computers, steal documents, and release those documents with the intent to interfere in the election. one of those defendants, and a 12th russian military officer, are charged with conspiring to infiltrate computers of organizations involved in administering the elections, including state boards of election, secretaries of state, and companies that supply software used to administer elections. according to the allegations in the indictment, the defendants worked for two units of the main intelligence directorate of the russian general staff known as

the gru. the units engaged in active cyber operations to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. there was one unit that engaged in active cyber operations by stealing information, and a different unit that was responsible for disseminating the stolen information. the defendants used two techniques to steal information. first, they used a scheme known as spearfishing which involves sending misleading e-mail messages and tricking the users into disclosing their passwords and security information. secondly, the defendants hacked into computer networks and installed malicious software that allowed them to spy on users and capture keystrokes, take screenshots, and exfiltrate or remove data from those

computers. the u.s. presidential campaign, including the campaign chairman, starting in march of 2016. they also hacked into the computer networks of a congressional campaign committee and a national political committee. the defendants covertly monitored the computers and planted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code and stole and other documents. the conspirators created fictitious online personas including dcleaks and guccifer 2.0 and used those personas to release information including thousands of stolen e-mails and other documents beginning in june of 2016. the defendants falsely claimed that dcleaks was a group of american hackers and that guccifer 2.0 was a lone romanian hacker. in fact both were created and controlled by the russian gru.

in addition to releasing documents directly to the public, the defendants transferred stolen documents to another organization that is not identified by name in the indictment and they used that organization as a passthrough to release the documents. they discussed the timing of the release in an attempt to enhance the impact on the election. in an effort to conceal their connections to russia, the defendants used a network of computers around the world and they paid for it using cryptocurrencies. the conspirators corresponded with several americans during the course of the conspiracy through the interpret. there is no allegation in this indictment that the americans knew that they were corresponding with russian intelligence officers. in a second, related conspiracy, russian gru officers hacked the website of a state election board and stole information

about 500,000 voters. they also hacked into computers of a company that supplied software used to verify voter registration information. they targeted state and local officials responsible for administering elections and they sent spearfishing e-mails to people involved in administering elections including attaching malicious software. the indictment includes 11 criminal allegations and a forfeiture allegation. count 1 charges 11 defendants for conspiring to access computers without authorization and to damage those computers in connection with efforts to interfere with the presidential election. counts 2 through 9 charge those 11 defendants with aggravated identity theft by employing user names and passwords of victims in order to commit computer fraud. count 10 charges those 11 defendants with money laundering

for transferring cryptocurrencies through a web of transactions in order to purchase computer servers, register domains, and make other payments in furtherance of their hacking activities while trying to conceal their connections to russia. count 11 charges two defendants for separate conspiracy, to access computers without authorization and to damage those computers in connection with efforts to infiltrate computers used to administer elections. finally, the indictment seeks the forfeiture of property involved in the criminal activity. there is no allegation in this indictment that any american citizen committed a crime. there is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. the special counsel's investigation is ongoing. there will be no comments on the special counsel at this time.

assistant attorney general john demaris is with me today because we intend to transfer responsibility to this indictment to the justice department's national security division while we await the apprehension of the defendants. principal associate deputy attorney general ed o'callahan is with me. people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. we do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings. most anonymous leaks are not from the government officials who are actually conducting these investigations. we follow the rule of law, which means that we follow procedures. and we reserve judgment. we complete our investigations and we evaluate all of the relevant evidence before we

reach any conclusion. that is how the american people expect their department of justice to operate and that is how our department is going to operate. in our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. it should go without saying that people who are not charged with a crime also are presumed innocent. the indictment was returned today because prosecutors determined that the evidence was sufficient to present these allegations to a federal grand jury. our analysis is based solely on the facts, the law, and department of justice policies. i briefed president trump about these allegations earlier this week. the president is fully aware of the department's actions today. in my remarks i have not

identified the victims. we confront foreign interference in american elections. it's important for us to avoid thinking politically, as republicans or democrats, and instead to think patriotically as americans. our response must not depend on which side was victimized. the internet allows foreign adversaries to attack america in new and unexpected ways. free and fair elections are always hard-fought and contentious. there will always be adversaries who seek to exacerbate our divisions and try to confuse, divide, and conquer. so long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the constitution, they will not succeed. a partisan warfare fueled by

modern technology does not fairly reflect the grace, dignity, and unity of the american people. the blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference. we need to work together to hold the perpetrators accountable. and we need to keep moving forward to preserve our values, protect against future interference, and defend america. i have time to take a few questions. >> reporter: a quick question for you, sir. number one, the timing today on the eve of the president's meeting with putin, can you talk about that? and also, just today, the president described the mueller investigation as a witch hunt. your response? >> the timing, as i mentioned, is a function of the collection of the facts, the evidence and the law, and a determination that it was sufficient to present the indictment at this time. as i mentioned, i did brief the president. with regard to the nature of the

investigation, i only comment on the evidence. the evidence that is reflected in our indictments and in our charges represents a determination by prosecutors and agents without regard to politics, that we believe the evidence is sufficient to just the charges. >> reporter: deputy attorney general, i know you've talked about the fact that in your view, the evidence doesn't show any votes were changed as a result of this hacking. but you did say that a company used as a passthrough coordinated with these defendants to enhance the timing of the release and the impact on the election. can you talk a little bit about what the evidence you have shows in that respect? >> what i've talked about today is what is alleged in the indictment. we know that according to the allegations in the indictment, the goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the elections. what impact they may have had or what their motivation may have been independently of what's required to prove this offense is a matter of speculation.

that's not our responsibility. what i said is there's no allegation in the indictment about it. and that's not our charge. >> reporter: in terms of the state election information, 500,000 voters' information collected, is there any evidence what the russians did with that information, and is there evidence of other states being successfully penetrated by the russians? >> it's important to understand what i've told you about the allegations included in the indictment, the fbi and other intelligence community agencies are working constantly to defend against cyber attacks in the united states. this case is just about one particular effort that was made during the 2016 election. the efforts of our department, of the department of homeland security, of other federal agencies, and of the state election boards throughout the country are ongoing. and those efforts preceded this indictment and they're going to postdate this information. we have continued to share any relevant intelligence with all of our partners. it would take a longer time to

talk about this, but there is a concerted and organized effort by the federal government to make sure that we do deter and prevent any sort of cyber attacks on our elections and that we harden our election systems to prevent against any kind of intrusions. >> reporter: deputy attorney general, you mentioned that you briefed president trump on this earlier this week. did he indicate his support of this action and what was his reaction? >> i'll let the president speak for himself. obviously it was important for the president to know what information we've uncovered because he's got to make very important decisions for the country. so he needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference. thank you very much. >> reporter: who ordered the attack? >> with that, rod rosenstein has announced the indictment of 12 intelligence operatives from the gru, that is military intelligence in the kremlin. and that directly links this operation of alleged election hacking directly to vladimir putin.

joining me now, ken dilanian, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. matt miller, former chief spokesman for the obama administration and former fbi special agent clint watts, an msnbc national security analyst. and with me on set, nick burns, former u.s. ambassador to nato during the george w. bush administration and michael carpenter, former assistant secretary of defense. pete williams, what is your takeaway? >> reporter: no, russians are not going to cooperate in arresting them. rod rosenstein says he looks forward to their apprehension. that's not likely to happen. but by filing these charges, it makes it very difficult for these folks to ever -- these 12 people to ever travel outside of russia or a country that doesn't cooperate with entinterpol, bece if they do, they'll be arrested, there will be red notices put

out on them. it limits their travel and limits to some extent their ability to access any funds they have outside of russia or any funds in the west. one of the interesting things i thought in at it news conference, lester, was the deputy attorney general saying this information was passed through to an american -- or to another entity he declined to name, the big question is whether that was wikileaks, that's certainly been the supposition. finally, lester, the deputy spent a lot of time, not looking at his notes, talking about the need for bipartisanship. he's been on the receiving end of pretty harsh criminal frtici congress. yesterday you had the hearing with peter strzok that went on in the house for hours. he's trying to be above all that and saying in essence to his congressional critics, come on, let's get on the same team, it's not you against us, it's the

u.s. trying to defend itself from this overseas attack on the election. >> that's pete williams talking to lester holt on the nbc news special report. joining me now, ken dilanian, the importance of this indictment, no americans are named, they're russians, out of reach, clearly, of american apprehension unless they travel outside of russia with which we have no extradition treaty. they are drawing a line, and rod rosenstein said he briefed the president. we saw him at the white house earlier this week, there was a lot of speculation, what was he doing there, and now we know, he was briefing the president that these russians were going to be indicted and the timing, before his summit with vladimir putin. >> that's right, andrea. i find the timing to be the most significant thing about it. we're not actually learning very much from these charges that we didn't already know, because after all, there's been a

detailed intelligence assessment, there's been a lot of reporting. we have names of the russians in the indictment which we didn't have before. but we knew the broad strokes of the story, how the russian intelligence agency hacked the democrats and hacked john podesta, hillary clinton's campaign chairman, and disseminated the information through wikileaks. we knew this indictment would happen eventually, robert mueller with an issue an indictment explaining how the russian government did this and potentially naming russian government officials. what's amazing to me is doing this on the eve of a summit where donald trump is going to sit down with vladimir putin. and yes, the president was briefed, but what's not clear is, did he have any choice in the matter. if he had said, look, rod, i would rather that you do this after the summit, would rosenstein and mueller have delayed this announcement? why now? that's an interesting unanswered question. i also think it is deeply significant that the justice department and mueller have taken this step of naming

russian intelligence officials in an indictment. that's a dangerous game. american intelligence officials also hack russians and chinese citizens and others around the world. and it's a rare step when the united states government calls out officials of another intelligence agency. we've done it a few times with iran and china when we feel like a certain line has been crossed. i think that's the message here, this is not fair game, to actually hack into an election and interfere with the democratic process in the united states, we don't consider that a fair use of intelligence resources. we wouldn't do that to them. i think american officials would say that. it's one thing to gather information, it's another to deploy it and weaponi izize it was done here. rod rosenstein said it's a matter of speculation in terms of what the russians wanted to do with the election. i take issue with that, the u.s. intelligence community has said definitively their intent was to hurt hillary clinton and help

donald trump. >> pete williams, our colleague reporting again from the news conference. pete, there are no americans named in this. that's the other piece of it. we've all been waiting to see whether robert mueller can connect the russian hacking to any american operatives helping them to weaponize it. the russian e-mails, the hacks from the dnc, are really targeted. i can this of a number of instances where i would be traveling with the campaign, covering hillary clinton, and a particular e-mail by one of the millions that were taken from ten years, for instance, of john podesta's e-mails, would be put out there at a particular moment in the campaign for maximum damage to hillary clinton. so no americans helping the russians, so far. >> reporter: not wittingly. i think that's the main point that the deputy attorney general was making here. he was saying that some of these russian folks were in touch with americans. but he says there's no indication that the americans

knew that they were dealing with russian intelligence officials. so they may well have been aware, the americans who were caught up in this, may well have been aware that they had material that was hacked from democratic computers. but according to the justice department, these americans who were unnamed had no idea what the source of the information was, who it was who stole it. so that's a significant point, andrea, here. this is an indictment that looks in one direction only, it looks at what the russians did in the u.s. it doesn't look in the other direction. it's not focused on whether americans helped them. and to the extent that that happened, it was after the material was obtained. and so this is all about how it was initially stolen using these time-tested techniques that seem to keep constantly working, known as spearfishing, where you send out an e-mail that looks like something innocent, you click on it and it ends up either stealing your log-in and

password information or implanting software in the computer that allows them to basically remotely access what's on the computer, to look at the screen, to monitor keystrokes and to download information. it's a pretty blunt instrument that they used, and once they used it, then they were quite crafty, the indictment says, about how they peddled it, trying to make it look like it was coming from american entities when in fact the russians were behind it all the way. >> is it accurate to infer that this is it? or the investigation continues? so this does not mean definitively there was never any conclusion? or will the president be able to say, well, nobody in my campaign cooperated with this? >> reporter: i think it's too soon to tell that. this is the second shoe that we've been expecting to drop here in terms of how this information was hacked. remember, the indictment that came out in february was about sort of self-initiated efforts by russian operatives to falsely

create information and plant it on social media. so always, the focus has been on who stole this information from the democrats. so we've been expecting the second shoe to drop. i think, andrea, it has to be pointed out here, this is an amazing bit of detective work, to actually, as they say in this intelligence world, to attribute this attack not only to a country, not only to a part of that country, but to actual individuals, which suggests the fbi and the other intelligence agencies have really developed amazing tools to figure out where these attacks are coming from, the actual computers that were used and who was sitting at them. it's an astonishing bit of detective work. >> and with us now, pete, as well, is nick burns, former nato ambassador, russia expertise from the nsc and state department. nick, is this going to increase pressure on the president to cancel a very controversial

summit with vladimir putin on monday, or can he say, well, this gives me an opportunity to ask him about it? >> it's going to have a direct and major impact on that meeting in helsinki. if you think about the primary responsibility of the president of the united states, defend the country, defend the country from foreign attack. this is an extraordinary grand jury indictment alleging a criminal conspiracy by the russian military to undermine our elections. they're very specific, into the computer system of the democratic national committee, of the hillary clinton campaign, of the volunteers for the hillary clinton campaign, and of state election officials. if the president goes to this meeting, this has to be number one issue. and he has to be tough about it. i doubt he's going to do that, given his remarks in london this morning. but that's what he owes us. >> only this morning he called it a witch hunt. eric swalwell is a democratic congressman and member of the house intelligence and judiciary committee, who was at that very controversial hearing yesterday.

congressman, we also heard rod rosenstein cautioning everyone not to presume where the mueller investigation is going, not to speculate, and saying they follow the rule of law and the rule of evidence and that partisan politics does not play a role in justice department decisions. it's hard for a lot of americans, with what they witnessed yesterday, with the republican majority trying to control that joint hearing and the way peter strzok, an fbi agent, was being treated as a witness and threatened, really, from the chair, it's hard for americans to really have confidence in the system. >> yeah, that's right, andrea. and yesterday was an opportunity for us to use unity as an antidote against what the russians have done, to find ways to protect the ballot box. but it's not too late. i hope this is a wake-up call for my republican colleagues. we have the strongest evidence at the highest standards of proof to show the russians attacked us, they hacked, they stole, they disrupted.

the best thing we can do is make sure they don't do that again in this next election. i wrote legislation in december of 2016. we can still bring that forward, put our best elders and states men on this task to make sure we're better protected, as mr. rosenstein called for, as we go to the ballot box this november. >> what do you want to see now in terms of protection of the mueller probe, of rod rosenstein, amidst all this pressure, including the president today calling it a witch hunt after he had been briefed earlier this week, we now learn, by rod rosenstein that 12 individual gru members, russian intelligence operatives, would be named and decided toin today? >> first, let mueller finish. the president throughout has called this hacking a witch hunt. in 2016, he said there's no way the russians were responsible. we see today that they are responsible. andrea, if the president wants

this investigation to end, he should answer the questions bob mueller has for him. peter strzok underwent hours of questions. if the president does that, this investigation will end a lot sooner. >> what should the president say to vladimir putin on monday in helsinki? >> if president trump is unwilling to confront vladimir putin about this strong piece of evidence, he should cancel the meeting. he should tell vladimir putin this is unacceptable to do this, and make sure that president trump can report to the american people that he made that confrontation to vladimir putin. if he doesn't do that, it makes us and our president look weak. >> congressman, thank you very much for joining us, as well as michael carpenter, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, and eurasia, now a senior director at the penn-biden center for global engagement. michael, we're learning from this indictment that on july

27th, the day that president trump -- i'm sorry, we're going to get this straight. on june 27th, 2016, the day when president trump, then-candidate trump, said, russia, if you're listening, you know, go after those hillary clinton e-mails, where are those other e-mails, the e-mails that they claimed at the time were missing from her private server, which did not prove to be the case. on that very day, these russian operatives started spearfishing. there's a direct connection to what the president as a candidate was saying publicly. >> this is a spectacular bit of cyber forensics that we're learning right now. what we're seeing from this set of indictments is, we are tying both the hacking and doxing campaign of the dnc and dccc to the intrusions by russian military intelligence into state election boards and into that private company that did voter registration efforts, which by

the way is a potential avenue for influencing an election via voter suppression. if you can mess with the voter registration rolls, you can affect outcome on election day. so we see that. we also know, by the way, this gru, russian military intelligence persona, was talking to americans, roger stone and a florida gop operative. this sets the predicate for being able to investigate exactly what the russians were after in terms of americans, who they were talking to, why they were talk to them, what they were trying to get from them. i think this is just the first shoe. >> i want to clarify, it was exactly a month later, july 27th, when the president said what he said about russia, if you're listening, and they already were doing their phishing operations. clearly there is a nexus between what was happening that summer and the comments of the president. nick, this is a critical moment.

he comes out of nato, he's criticized theresa may, who is politically vulnerable given what's happened with brexit and the resignation of her foreign minister, her foreign secretary, and he praises boris johnson, that foreign secretary, and a rival of theresa may's, and says that he would make a good prime minister. when have we last seen an american president interfere with an election of an ally? >> we have not seen this wrecking ball tour by any american president, to go after germany, go after britain, go after the eu. now the white house has a problem with optics. they've had this disputatious tour of europe, our best allies. the president is going to see putin, if he doesn't cancel the meeting. this cannot look like an embrace of putin. it can't look like two buddies getting together. our president needs to be tough on this issue of interference, on crimea, on the nerve agent attack which cost a british

woman her life last week. the president indicated at the press conference this morning at checkers, he's not prepared to do that. he wants to have a nice meeting with putin. how can he do that following these indictments? >> clint watts, an msnbc national security analyst, joining us as well. clint, the forensics are pretty remarkable. as a former fbi official, tell us how hard this is, to have tracked these specific 12, according to the allegations in at it indictment. >> yes, this is a multi-agency, probably, multiyear effort to try and track down these forensics. it's hard to prove, you've heard that there is no proof of this direct connection between russia and the dnc breach and other hacks that went on. this is a substantial document with lots of details, comparable to the research agency indictment we saw back in february. it puts names on personas.

the other key thing this indictment does is links hacking and influence. this was something that was elusive, when you would hear putin say, oh, it was patriotic russians that were involved. this is clearly russian gru intelligence officers that were undertaking actions at the behest of the russian government. and they were using those to influence the campaign. this is where social media and hacking had come together for this influence. this is where that indictment fits really well with that february one, which was also of great detail. it shoots down alternative theories about the dnc breach. if you remember, the conspiracies about seth rich. maybe this came from alternative locations. it pushes back on media personalities who have levered these conspiracies as well. it's important to note that putin has consistently used the answer, it was not of, you have no proof of it, show us. this is an indictment, and there's a whole lot of proof in here. and so when we look to monday, whenever president trump is going in with president putin,

he cannot accept that answer anymore that it was patriotic russians. it was clearly putin's russians that were doing his business. >> matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department. as clint just pointed out, this was hard evidence, alleged. does this insulate robert mueller and rod rosenstein from attacks or are those attacks in such a political arena that this indictment will also be disputed? >> it certainly helps. i think they can't be unaware of the attacks that have been occurring against them and they can't be unaware of the damage it's done to robert mueller's reputation, not with the broad mainstream public, but if you look at the polls and how republicans' opinions have changed over time, the attacks of the president and his counsel, rudy giuliani, have launched against robert mueller have taken their toll.

today mueller put a lot of new facts on the record that show convincingly this is not a witch hunt, it's a serious investigation that's producing fruit. you have to ask about the timing of this. obviously we've talked about this, ken i think raised the important question of whether the president, when he was briefed earlier this week, would have objected to the timing, whether the department of justice would have coordinated the timing with the president. it is such a hard question to answer because in a typical investigation, we've talked for months about how the justice department and the white house don't coordinate on criminal investigations. that's a big exception to that, and that's national security investigations. with a typical president who is defending the country and responding to an attack on our country, you might coordinate with the white house the announcement of this indictment so the president can go to the meeting with a new piece of ammunition in his pocket, hold it up to vladimir putin and say, this is hard evidence that you attacked our elections. of course i don't think anyone thinks donald trump is going to

do that in a meaningful way. i have to question whether the timing of this indictment was both a way for mueller and rosenstein to push back against coordinated attacks and a way to force the president's hand as he goes into this meeting on monday. >> and joining us by phone now is john brennan, an msnbc senior national security and intelligence analyst and former cia director. john, in looking through this indictment and these operatives, these gru members, tell us the significance of naming 12 members of the gru and how this connects it to the kremlin. >> i think this is the next step in robert mueller's investigative efforts in terms of first the internet research agency and private russian citizens, and now the actual perpetrators of this attack, russian intelligence officials from gru. and in order for there to be any type of conspiracy indictment

that might be levied against any u.s. persons, you need to have that indictment involving russian intelligence officials, because you cannot conspire with just a foreign individual, you need to conspire with a foreign government. as was said, the indictment dogs not say that any u.s. person was cooperating with them wittingly. but that doesn't mean there's not future indictments that may be coming down that will indicate that there was some type of cooperation, collusion with russian officials. i think the timing of this was appropriate, given that mr. trump had announced previously that he was going to meet with vladimir putin. and so it was right for the department of justice to let mr. trump know that indictments were coming down, to give him the opportunity to decide to call off the meeting with mr. putin, or as was just said, use it as further ammunition against mr. putin that the russians clearly

were involved in trying to interfere with our election. now mr. trump has demonstrated so far that he does not take a lot of this information from the department of justice and the special counsel very seriously. but i do think it was critically important for the department of justice to come forward with this now so it's not going to be on the eve of the midterm elections, but there's still, you know, a fair amount of time between now and the beginning of september. so there could be other actions that the department of justice may decide to move forward with. >> john brennan making some key points about the timing of this as well, as well as the substance. and to that point, chuck rosenberg is a former fbi official and nbc and msnbc contributor. let's talk about what the president said today, even today, not softening his criticism, not backing down from the "witch hunt" allegations about this investigation. he had already been briefed by rod rosenstein. if he was going to take this in and arm himself with it to prepare for the putin meeting,

it doesn't seem, so far, at least, that he has. >> no, that's right, andrea. look, if this is a witch hunt, it's a remarkably successful one. it seems like there are 12 more witches that we now know about. one of the key things that rod rosenstein said today is this investigation is ongoing. that was his word, not mine. that shouldn't surprise us. what we continue to see time after time is bob mueller and the fbi agents and prosecutors working with him, acting in an extraordinarily professional manner. quietly, diligently, and methodically uncovering facts and bringing cases when those facts dictate. another shoe has dropped today. there are more to drop, i can almost assure you. i don't believe that is rank speculation. this indictment itself makes reference to u.s. persons who were in contact with the russians. it doesn't name those persons. it doesn't say that the u.s. persons did anything wrong. but there is clearly more facts that are going to be laid at our doorstep in the months and maybe even years to come.

>> there's even a reference on one page of this indictment to a congressional candidate being contacted by guccifer, perhaps unwittingly, not knowing that guccifer was actually russian intelligence. so a congressional candidate looking for democratic dnc or dccc democratic campaign committee information on that candidate's opponent. >> that's right. and so again, no allegation that this candidate or these persons knew that they were dealing with russian intelligence. but flip that around, andrea. it's very clear that russian intelligence knew precisely with whom they were dealing. this was not random. this was not all political campaign committees. this was the democratic congressional campaign committee and the dnc. they were very clear in who they were targeting and what they were going to do with the stuff that they stole from these campaign committees. they were going to publish them. and so whatever the president wishes to call this, putting

that aside for a moment, this is a very thoughtful, clear, precise federal criminal investigation. and great credit is due to the fbi who worked on this. the reason i on this. die despite the criticism of the fbi and by others, they continue to do their job. >> it was a difficult day for the fbi yesterday. we saw nine hours and 41 minutes where peter strzok and the fbi agents were questioned by the combined committee. >> absolutely. >> a large portion of rob rosenstein's statement appears to be a response to that. i am not mentioning the party of the people who are hacked in hi remarks. i want us the think of this as a democratic or a republican issue but a patriotic issue. he defended the integrity of the

fbi of the justice department and we follow the facts where it leads. a day where republican members of congress spent hours of this fbi clearly made some mistake trying to suggest that he's bias not only of the hillary clinton's e-mail investigation but the russia's investigation. >> there was a time during the presidential campaign when donald trump in a news conference made a remarkable statement. he says russia if you are listening, please try to find the 30,000 missing e-mails. that was a reference to e-mails that clinton deleted. there was a passage on this indictment on page 7, on that very day, the russian conspirators attempted to spear fish used by the clinton's

office. it was at or around the same time. they targeted 76 e-mail addresses at the domain for the clinton's campaign. this is only speculation. that date is mentioned specifically in this indictment. and one can imagine that's not as coincidence. the president of the united states made an instruction to the russians and apparently these hackers were listening and followed through. a reasonable person may assume and obviously whether he intends to do that or campaign rhetoric, you would think he would have something to say about that. there is an sxaction by these russian hackers of the clinton e-mails. >> let me bring in jeff bennett in london. you are there where thousands of british people are protesting against this president on a lot of issues and now the timing of

this just when the president is going to the windsor skcastle f tea with the queen of england. you can see the picture that's been released to the american traveling pool reporters of melania trump and donald trump smiling and the queen sort of an impressi impression on her face. she's done this kind of moment and thousands and thousands of time of her long time reign, this is most the awkward of the timing. >> as i speak to you from london, i can hear two helicopters hovering above. the president is wrapping his trip here in the u.k. and ending it with this meeting with the queen. he heads to his home of scotland. he's going to spend the weekend there at his private golf club. we have reached out to the white house, the official channel to

find out if the news of these indictments will change the scope of the meeting in any way. we have not heard yet from the white house. we reached out to the treasury department to get a sense of whether there may be any new sanctions enlightment of the indictment. this is fairly remarkable stuff of this news comes just as the president would leave this trip with a different message of certainly also leaving a trail of chaos behind him from the contentious nato summit and the stunning interview he gave to the son although he tried to do damage control and clean up on both counts, andrea. >> jeff, with me here, michael carpenter from the defense official and of course, nick burns, former ambassador to nato. both of you with long experience in government, michael, what does the president do? vladimir putin obviously has a

wish list and it is not just a handshake. what he wants is some specifics on perhaps baltic exercises and the president seems to give that on crimea and sanctions and normalizing relations and more of a push back against nato. he already received that as a big pre-benefit. >> yeah, president putin wants this summit to result for the united states and russia. we'll work together coming out of this thinking our relationship is entering a new day, we are going to move forward and potential lyanly an agreement. president trump says he's going to go into this and challenge him on elections interference but putin is going to deny it and there is nothing that i can do. that conversation got interesting as a result of this indictment. if putin is denying it, we have

the proof in moscow who carries out these series of hacks. how is trump going to frame it? that's an important conversation going into the summit. >> joining us as well is joyce span, former u.s. prosecutor, joyce, how tough is this indictment in terms of a major step for the mueller's team. there is certainly going back to the well on the russia end of it, we have yet to seen any evidence alleged so far about the american piece of it. >> this is like another giant footprint landing for the muller's investigation. we saw the russian troll farming earlier this year which talked about social media manipulation. now mueller is coming forward of information that russians were responsible of hacking and using the information they obtained to

influence the united states presidential election. i the we are sink we are seeing march forward. rosenstein tells us the investigation is ongoing and there is so many commentators have pointed out. there is a lot of information available to us, mueller undoubtedly has far more and i think we'll inevitably see additional indictments that link up the american participation in this process. >> nick, this does put more pressure and not just on the president but on the republican party. the republican senate in particular have been uncomfortable. we saw a 97-2 vote this past week. supporting nato, there are a lot of republicans and not just bob corker and others who are leaving the senate. other establishment republicans very uncomfortable, lindsey graham about the president embrace of vladimir putin. this indictment makes it so clear that the intelligence

operation was allegedly involved. >> i think there is going to be a response. there has to be from both republicans and democrats and congress. >> congress has to exert its authorities here. you have a criminal conspiracy launched around your country is an attack. we should all think of it as an attack and you have as well of this chaotic week through our nato capital where the president has diminished us and you have the mueller investigation probably intensifying. it is a crisis presidency and at times like this congress has to defend us and protect us. >> we see the president leading windsor castle. that's a very abbreviated royal welcome. this is not at home. this is the state visit over night and the state dinner of the obama's and other president and ronald reagan and he was at the windsor. this is a direct results of his policy and denouncement and

violation of intelligence agreement by announcing things of what happened with mannest whicher and oth manchester and other offenses have been made and again with this interview that he did with the british tabloid which so offended and could not be undermining the theresa may prime minister. this has been a remarkable three-way show of what's happening in windsor and most importantly of the american election process of what happened here with rosenstein announcement. >> david is next. >> hi, i am in for craig melvin. >> twelve russian intelligence agents charged with hacking into the dnc server.

the news comes days before president trump is scheduled to meet with his russia counter part, vladimir putin. dismay, president trump is striking a different and less controversial tone with the britain prime minister one day after trashing her in an interview. taking on trump. thousands of protesters marching through the streets of london as the president has tea with queen elizabeth. a wide scale hacking operation in an attempt to undermine the 2016 election. the justice department announcing criminal charges against 12 russian military officers. rod rosenstein made the indictment public at a news conference just a short while ago and added this. >> i want to caution this that the people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant