today, the white house said it was considering a request made by the russian government to hand over to russia for questioning america's former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. the white house and this president have done a lot to shock people over the last 72 hours. this is kind of at another level. the great national security reporter, spencer ackerman rounded up response tonight from even some serving u.s. officials. "current and former american diplomats are expressing disgust and horror over the white house's willingness to entertain, permitting russian officials to question a prominent former u.s. ambassador.

one serving diplomat, currently in the government, who spoke on condition of anonymity said he was quote at an f'g loss. he didn't say f'g. quote, it's beyond disgraceful, it's fundamentally ignorant with regard to how we conduct diplomacy or what that means, by failing to reject the idea out of hand immediately and forcefully, trump signaled that absolutely nothing is off-limits when it comes to putin. this is a currently serving u.s. official, saying about this threat, basically, that the white house is now making they might hand over mike mcfaul to russia, saying quote the president has first and foremost his interests, his interests at the top of his mind opposed to the government's. that is very clear over the past week and a half between week and a half between bleeping a word that starts with sh, bleeping on our nato allies and kissing putin's butt but he didn't say butt. this is a serving u.s. diplomat.

"he cares more about himself and the nation and any of us who serve it." he continued either he's compromised by putin or he's a word that starts with the p, in which case he should grab himself. this is a serving u.s. official, a current u.s. official who just said that tonight. and there's more from america's former ambassador to afghanistan who is now president of the american academy of diplomacy. "if it the u.s. would make a former diplomat available for questioning by a foreign government without evidence of wrongdoing, that would be quite horrifying." susan rice, former national security adviser calls it "beyond outrageous." if the white house cannot protect and defend our diplomats like our service members, they are serving a hostile foreign power and not the american people.

former chief of staff at the state department saying the white house refusing to disavow putin on mcfaul, refusing to stand up to putin on mcfaul crosses a line for american diplomats from demoralizing to dangerous. literally, what the white house said today in response to a question about this russian demand that the u.s. government hand michael mcfaul over to putin, what the house said in response to that is quote the president will meet with his team and let you know when we have an announcement on that. they're talking it over. the president is meeting with his team because they need to do some thinking, cogitating, they need to do a little chat chat over whether or not we're going to hand over an american ambassador to putin so putin can do whatever he wants to. might do it. they've got to talk about it. putin asked. not like we'll just say no, right? this is unbelievable. to the extent that this seems

like a marginal new development, in a worrying week, this is not that. this is a qualitatively different thing. we have these abstract ideas and ideals about patriotism and not betraying your country. we have a sort of ominous but maybe vague worry about what it might mean for us as individual american citizens if there's somebody in power in our government who is subordinate to a hostile foreign government. it sounds very ominous and very bad. what's the real concrete nuts and bolts threat to any one of us? what could that really mean in our daily lives? it could mean people you know, americans you know are handed over to foreign dictators when those dictators ask, not because that american has done anything wrong, not because there's any real allegations against him or her but because that foreign dictator doesn't like that american, wants him or her eliminated.

and they hold sway over somebody in power in this country he can order to do what he wants and so an american gets handed over. that's what it could mean. yes, this president could be trying to dissolve nato. he could be trying to tear apart the european union and all of america's most important international alliances. yes, he can continue to do his best to attack and weaken american law enforcement and american intelligence. among other things, russia can keep running what ever operations they want to keep running over here. we've been watching all these things russia wants this president has been working diligently to get done. another one of the things he could start doing is handing over to putin american who's putin wants dead. the president, the white house says as of today the president is meeting with his team about that. talking it over, thinking about it. we will have the man in

question, ambassador michael mcfaul here to respond in just a moment tonight. today in washington, there was one expected but rather ominous development in one of the criminal cases brought in the russia scandal. in another one of those cases there were a few surprises, starting with the expected but ominous category, that was this order today from the federal judge in d.c. hearing one of the two felony cases that concerns paul manafort, the campaign chair. today the judge in d.c. denied paul manafort's latest motion in which he was trying to deny prosecutors the right to use evidence that they had seized from him with a search warrant. if that sounds familiar, it's because paul manafort keeps losing motions like this over and over again in both jurisdictions he's being tried. in fact, i think this gets us pretty close to the end of the road in terms of manafort's attempted defense thus far. with the exception of a few motions very early on after he

was initially arraigned where his lawyers did succeed in briefly loosening the conditions of his house arrest for a while before that fell apart and manafort ended up in jail, where he is right now, i think today's motion means the president's campaign trail, paul manafort has shot the moon, i believe batting 1,000. he has a perfect record now of losing on every single substantive motion that has been brought before the judge in both of his cases. i think he's lost every single thing his defense has tried thus far, every one. that is not a good sign for the president's campaign chairman, especially not now, when the first of his two felony trials is due to start one week from today. so that was not unspeblged but it was ominous for paul manafort today. >> in the other case we're watching very closely today, in the mariia butina case today,

they were definitely some prizes. we knew she would be appearing in this washington courtroom whether or not she would continue to be held in jail before she's put on trial. she was put on charges of operating as a secret foreign agent of the russian government in this country, she pled not guilty. then, there was this little surprise. this is from the transcript of today's hearing. courtroom deputy, quote, this case is on the calendar for detention hearing and arraignment. the judge says, good afternoon. mr. kenerson speaks, eric kenerson, the federal prosecutor who appeared at monday's hearing as well. kenner son, says good afternoon. >> look at this, somebody else pops up and says hello. you see that in the transcript? ms .curtis? she says good afternoon. the judge says, at the table is a lawyer the court recognized but whose name was not called.

maybe we would ask you to please add for purposes of the record your name please. miss curtis says thank you, your honor, good afternoon your honor, deborah curtis on behalf of the united states. this is new. we knew that mariia butina was not being charged and prosecuted by special counsel's office by robert mueller's office. we knew she was being tried by the federal prosecutor in d.c. we knew at the initial appearance while the case was still under seal, the prosecutor from that u.s. attorney's office who was leading the government's case was this is eric kenner son. but today they added another prosecutor in the courtroom. the person they added is the deputy chief of the national security division at the d.c. u.s. attorney's office, an experienced counter espionage prosecutor. before her current national security division girks she was at main justice in the national

security division in the justice department where she was the deputy chief in the espionage office for the department of justice. they brought someone into the mariia butina case. there was a moment where we have the transcript, her lawyer is arguing his client should not be in jail. his client you can see from the sketches, she's sitting there in an orange jail jumpsuit. her lawyer is arguing to the judge about the injustice of that and how unnecessary that is that she is being held in jail. the lawyer said, i submit to you, your honor, she is entitled to leave on her own there could be other conditions that could be set that could give the court assurance of her return but certainly keeping her in jail for what is -- this is not an espionage case, this is not a spying case. her lawyer says.

actually, dude, don't look behind you but veteran counter espionage prosecutor from the national security division of the justice department has actually been brought in to try this case. you may not want this to be an espionage case but there's a counter espionage prosecutor and your client is being charged as a russian secret agent. which is something that rhymes with pie but starts with an "s." in this hearing today and in the filings in her case today, prosecutors argued at lengthing that maria butina should not be released from jail, should not be released from her own recognizance or recognizances. they argue that she has to be held in custody because otherwise they believe she will try to flee the country. they describe at length her contacts and relationships with multiple russian officials and her meeting with a suspected russian intelligence agent operating out of the russian

embassy in d.c. prosecutors say this, quote, due to international law and treaty restrictions, law enforcement would be prevented from stopping miss butina from entering the russian embassy. under such circumstances a passport would not be necessary for maria butina to depart the united states even with the most restrictive measures, for example, house arrest, electronic monitoring, any agreement to forfeit property or a retained passport or a third party custodian. even with a full combination confident most restrictive measures, the defendant need only seek refuge in a diplomatic facility well before pretrial services would ever be alerted let alone be able to respond. she could leave the facility, and law enforcement could not stop her or have recourse of remedy in the event miss butina decided to seek safe harbor in a diplomatic facility. saying you let her out of here, judge, she will go to the

embassy and we will never see her in a coup again. this is interesting. at the hearing today, the prosecutors actually brought in a wit from the diplomatic security service to explain that it wasn't only that she might seek refuge at the physical russian embassy. he explained the way diplomatic immunity works, she could get picked up by an aaccredited russian diplomat in this country in that diplomat's car. and if she were in the car, the car would offer her safe harbor, too. that would essentially be a mini russian embassy an that would allow her to escape from having to turn up in court, too. >> the prosecutor says to the witness, are you familiar with ways in which a foreign country could get a foreign national out of the country if they so desired? witness, yes. >> what are some of the ways? >> answer, if they chose to put somebody inside of a vehicle and drive it, we cannot stop and search or arrest anybody inside

the vehicle for the inviability meaning for the inviability attendant to diplomatic immunity. if they got inside the compound we cannot implement any kind of arrest or search warrant. anything like that. this is the prosecutor arguing bringing forward witness testimony to show she is a dramatic flight risk and must be kept in jail because she's not just some random russian in the united states, charged with operating as a secret agent for the russian government and very easy for the russian government to spirit her out of this country and out of the reach of the court if anybody lets her set foot outside of the courtroom before her trial. she would go to the em bates or she would get picked up in a russian diplomatic registered vehicle and game over, never see her again. that was one big argument today from the prosecutors. the other big argument from prosecutors today was interestingly about the unnamed american person who is basically described as her co-conspirator.

in the indictment. you might have seen headlines about this today because it was about sex and deceit and there was therefore too juicy for anybody to avoid writing about it. you should know why the sex part of this is legally important. sounds so weird to say. i'll show you what i mean. this is the prosecution laying out their case why maria butina needs to be in jail, why she might flee, why she has to be kept in custody, can't be released on her own recognizance. in this part of the court filing from the prosecutors today, you see their headline there. number five. butina's "tie" to the united states is a dupe police to us relationship. during the course of this investigation the fbi has determined that butina gained access through the u.s. person 1 to an extensive network of u.s. persons who could influenceply activities in the united states.

butina, age 29 and the person 1 aimed 56 are believed to have cohabitated and been involved in a personal relationship during the course of her activities in the united states, but this relationship does not represent a strong tie to the united states because butina appears to treat it assism plie necessary aspect of her activities. for example, on at least one occasion, she offered an individual other than u.s. person 1 sex in exchange for a position within a special interest organization. further in papers seized by the fbi, she complained about living with u.s. person 1 and expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate with u.s. person 1. ouch ouch ouch. if you're u.s. person one, that probably hurt your feelings, right? but legal reference here is listen, she's only got ties to russia. she doesn't have real ties. not real ties to the united

states. we let her out awaiting trial, she will be in russia faster than you can say borsct. her supposed american boyfriend is an intel operation, not love. this veteran counter espionage prosecutor saying, dude, it wasn't love. it was spying. we have the documentation to prove it. that probably hurts the feelings of u.s. person one. that said, if you are u.s. person one, you may have bigger worries. it is noted beak in passing late in today's hearing that u.s. person 1, who is again the american implicated as a co-conspirator in this spying case, u.s. person 1 is apparently the subject of another federal investigation involving the fbi and the u.s. attorney, the federal prosecutor in south dakota. from the transcript, mr. kenerson as the prosecutor says, it's my understanding miss butina's defense lawyer's offer

in that matter was one in which she is not a subject. "uss person 1 is the subject. the judge says, what is the basis of your contention ha that's so? the prosecutor says, it is in both conversations with counsel and with the fbi agent who is in south dakota. this appears to be the first direct russia collusion indictment we have seen in this whole scandal. u.s. persons accused of knowingly conspiring with agents of the russian government in a secret influence operation designed to affect politics in the 2016 campaign. the accused russian agent in this alleged scheme is now being held without bond. the unnamed american alleged co-conspirator apparently thought he had a real girlfriend here. prosecutors say he did not. there is also apparently another federal case, another fbi investigation already unfolding related to him, where he lives in south dakota. lots more shoes to drop there. the other important person in this indictment, the other important unnamed person,

is russian government official. he's easier to figure out. he's believed to be aleksandr torshin, currently a senior official in russia's central bank believed to have significant ties to russian organized crime. he is now sanctioned by the u.s. government. mr. torshin can no longer visit people like scott walker in the united states. but prosecutors accused miss butina acting at his direction secretly in this country and provided a lot of evidence of their interactions. some of the evidence we know of their interactions is on public facing social media, like this photo of them together from maria's facebook page. mr. torshin also maintains a robust presence on twitter which gives did us lots to go through including this rather remarkable post from july 6th, 2016 in which he shows these pictures of a medal he says he received that day from the fsb,

the russian spy agency. this guy is supposedly somebody who works at the russian central bank. why did they give him a medal for his work, a medal of appreciation right after donald trump clinched the republican nomination for president. i don't know why the fsb gave him a medal. here's one last thing that you want to hear. in the case against maria butina, accused of being a secret federal agent working for torshin on this russian influence operation in the u.s., one of the things we learned in the charging documents is how she spent election night for 2016. according to online conversations the fbi says it obtained, just a couple of hours after the election was called for trump, maria and torshin discussed online who trump was going to nominate as secretary of state. a couple days later, according to the fbi, butina sent torshin a message who she predicted might be the secretary of state and she asked torshin

to find out how our people felt about that potential nomination. here's why is that should jump out at you and why we should consider why federal prosecutors might have put that you conversation in particular in this public charging document. >> march, jane maier at the new yorker published a profile of christopher steele who's memos it became the infamous steele dossier. one little bombshell was that in addition to the dossier of christopher steele's memos that buzzfeed published last january, there was also a previously unknown previously unreported additional memo that christopher steele wrote after the election. one subject steele is believed to have discussed with mueller's investigators is a memo after his contract with fusion had ended. this memo is shorter than the rest based on one source described as a senior russian official.

that official said he was merely relaying talks circulating in the russian min administrative foreign affairs. he heard people were saying that the kremlin had intervened to block trump's initial choice for secretary of state, mitt romney. a couple days later, "the wall street journal" showed in during that same period right after the election, russian-backed online trolls flooded social media to try to block mitt romney from getting the secretary of state job. several of the most popular accounts slammed the forrer massachusetts governor encouraging tens of thousands of followers to take action. we all know how the story ends. trump picked as his secretary of state, not mitt romney but out of nowhere, the exxon ceo, rex tillerson whom vladamir putin had previously ordered the russian role of friendship in honor of the big oil deals they

signed together. tillerson was someone trump never had any dealings with. where did he come up with that as a choice for his secretary of state? the russian trolls who were so up in arms about the prospect that romney might be the choice, they were publicly delighted when trump instead pick this had guy he had never met before when he picked rex tillerson. the idea that a foreign adversary may have exercised some kind of veto power over our president's cabinet choices, that is an explosive allegation. that's not affecting the election. that's affecting the conduct confident u.s. government after the election. at this point, we have potential evidence that may have happened and it comes from several different sources including now a federal indictment. there's the medal that russian official number one from the latest indictment got from the fsb when trump got the nomination and the medal russian president vladamir putin gave

trump's surprise pick for trump's secretary of state right after russian official 1, an accused russian spy mariia butina talked about checking out whether president trump's choice for secretary of state was okay with our people. that seems like something probably warranted looking into. did russia just not help elect donald trump? did they pick the cabinet? if republicans in congress professing to be so concerned and puzzled and concerned about trump's behavior in helsinki this weekend, if they're interested in uncovering what has gone on between trump and russia, what the extent is of russian involvement in our democracy, this is exactly the sort of thing they could hold hearings on if they wanted to. and a lot of other things besides. ambassador michael mcfaul joins us next. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now.

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on your tv, online or on the go with the xfinity stream app. we're on to something. come on. and it's all on us, and it's all week long. so you should probably start canceling your plans. you've got some serious watching to do. this is the russian state news agency tass, asking to question one of america's former diplomats, they want to question former u.s. ambassador

to russia, michael mcfaul. they would like the united states to make mcfaul available to russia for questioning. being a diplomat in a country that's an adversary of the united states can make the host country really mad at you, right? sure. diplomacy is like that. diplomacy is hard. we protect our diplomats as a matter of course. you might expect the u.s. government would just instantly tell russia that when they made this demand about ambassador michael mcfaul. no, today, the trump white house said they're considering it. the white house press secretary telling reporters too, "the president is going to meet with his team and we'll het you know when we have an announcements about that." that went off like a rocket today. here's a taste from democratic congressman eric swalwell saying online, take this to the bank, donald trump, you turn over former u.s. ambassador mcfaul to putin, you can count on me and millions of others to swiftly make au ex-president.

we know how at least one member of congress feels about this. what does ambassador mcfaul think about the white house's apparent willingness to consider russia?joining us is ambassador michael mcfaul, former russia -- u.s. ambassador to russia under president obama. thank you for joining us. i guess this is a weird couple of days. >> definitely a weird couple of days. thanks for having me on. >> my guess from having had conversations with you over the last couple of years, you are not necessarily surprised that russia has made thid demand that they want to question you. i guess you are surprised by the u.s. government fielding the request, not rejecting it and essentially saying they're considering it? >> correct. you're right. vladamir putin has been after me for a long time, even when i was ambassador harassing me in ways no other u.s. ambassador there has ever experienced. i wrote a whole book about it to try to educate the american people about this man.

he's done some outrageous things around the world but even to our diplomats and to me personally. what i was totally flabbergasted by was the white house would not defend me. i'm an american citizen. i worked for the government for five years. it would have been so easy to bat it back. it's not just about me. i want to make sure people understand this. by not doing that, they are allowing moral equivalency between an indictment issued by mr. mueller last week against russian intelligence officers and a handful of us, it wasn't just me, several american government officials to request, for this cockamamie crazy scheme, nothing is true in what they said about it and by the president allegedly saying okay, i'm going to look into it. he said at the press conference in helsinki, i think it's a great idea.

then 4 hours later you would think they could come up with a policy and understand why this is so crazy and not in america's national interest. for some reason, they didn't get it right at the white house. i wish him well. i hope tomorrow they'll get a better statement out. >> what is the diplomat community, what is the understanding how a normal white house would be expected to respond to this kind of thing? if as you say, you're being generous here, you expect the white house might eventually find their way to getting this right and responding the right way, what is the right way for them to respond? >> see, aren't i great diplomat, rachel? actually, they should call up their counterparts at the state department. i think the statement they put out today was correct. i would add a few more adjectives. it's outrageous. you can't establish this precedent. you can't put people like me -- let's be clear, they don't just want to question me about this

crazy scheme that mr. browder laundered money and then gave $4 of it to the clinton campaign. actually putin in helsinki said $400 million but then they corrected the record. but they are insinuating that i and these other americans were part of the conspiracy, whether we're criminals. that's why they want to question us. you have to push back on crazy stuff like that. it's in not just the interests of people like me and others, it's in the american national interests. you can't in any way dignify such an outrageous claim of tit for tat, moral equivalency, for some reason our president continues to do when it comes to vladamir putin. >> i think the reason -- i don't mean to -- i'm not even playing devil's advocate here. i can see a reason why they're doing this, to create an equivalence between the indictments brought by the justice department over the russian interest interference in our election and crazy conspiracy about there being

russia trying to help elect hillary clinton and it being a scam against vladamir putin where he's the real victim. to create that kind of equivalence is the kind of thing the trump administration would love to do in order to undermine the justice department's investigation. that to me doesn't at all seem nuts. my question for you in terms of being at the sharp end of this, does this put you in danger? does this change the way you think about your bait to travel? are you worried about your safety? >> well, it's a good point about, that's a classic putin ploy, right? i think there was even 11 americans, if i'm not mistaken. the equivalence was very clear, imagine that one-on-one meeting between the two presidents, no note takers there. he's laying there all out. i've been in those meetings with putin. he's a good story teller, adding little facts, not real facts but pieces of information to spin it together. i hope our president didn't just nod along. with respect to me, i have

confidence, i still do, in the american government, the system, the department of justice. i don't see how they will let this go forward. just to remind you, vladamir putin actually outlined the treaty in the press conference in helsinki under which people can be interrogated in this way. i expect them to push back. i do have to worry about interpol if ever they go farther and indict me. i hope that doesn't happen. if it does happen, then i will have to experience the horrific harassment mr. browder has been living under several years now. >> and the u.s. government officials can usually expect the defense of their own government in protecting them against. michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. i'm sorry about the circumstances and you're one of the americans caught up in this. thanks for talking to us about it. >> sure. thanks for having me. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. [ coughs ] ♪

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it was surprising to read. including i think some people in the law enforcement community were enterprised to read it. like wow, a, we can do that and b we're letting everybody know we can do that. while the amount of forensic detail in that indictment made for fascinating reading and makes for a very airtight indictment, it wasn't necessarily unprecedented. indictments like this are rare but they exist, a relatively new phenomenon. prior to 2014, we had never seen an indictment like there. that all changed when the the u.s. government brought an indictment against military hackers who were working for a foreign government. 2014. >> reporter: the justice department today filed the first ever criminal charges against officials of a foreign government by stealing secrets of a computer. inside this building in shanghai, prosecutors say, five members of the chinese earp each

named in an indictment hacked directly into the computers of u.s. companies. they say it's unlikely they will ever see the inside of a u.s. courtroom. they say it's a way of letting the chinese know the u.s. is watching more closely than ever. >> a way of letting them know the u.s. is watching that closely. question, i think both then, with that ground breaking indictment and now with this new blockbuster one, what's the overall strategic benefit here? why disclose all this technical information what the u.s. government knows and how it knows it, when those same foreign military hackers really won't ever see the inside of a u.s. courtroom. you spell out what we knew about the russian hack and how we penetrated their operations. that means we all know and the russians all now know that america was on to in this whole time and what america's capabilities are for looking at that kind of foreign operation.

from what they call a sources and megds standpoint, it sounds like a lot of information to give up particularly if the people you're charging are never going to jail because they're never coming to this country. like mueller's indictment of the chinese military attackers was meticulous in its detail down to specific actions and locations of specific individual named chinese hackers. the architect of that 2014 indictment and strategy behind it was a former u.s. attorney for the western pennsylvania, cybersecurity expert named david higdon. he started the u.s. government down this path. now we're seeing how it works in the russia scandal. joining us for the interview is that former u.s. attorney for the district of pennsylvania, now the founding director of the university of pug institute for cyber law and security. it's really nice to have you here. >> thank you for the invitation. >> was that a fair description that chinese hacker was the first time that had been done? >> well done. that was the first time that tool had been used and we indicted nation state

adversaries. we're very proud of that. it was very important not only because it was a legal event, it was also representative of describing what hacking meant to our citizens because we put a face on not only the adversaries who were attached to the back of the indictment, but we were able to describe the vips and tell the story about what hacking meant in the context of the chinese signature. >> am i right in that indictment the american public, anybody who bothered to read that indictment any of us who saw news reports about it, essentially learned something not just about what china was doing but what our government could do to witness that, to document it and trace it back to the bad actor who's did it and to monitor those kinds of activities in the future. we learned a lot about america's counter intelligence capabilities. >> we did. i'm among those who believe we needed to reverse a default position in the government to allow hacking to occur without

any consequence because it was difficult. our four principle state adversaries are china, russia, north korea and iran. that was about china and it reflected our unmasking of their signature. i personally believe long term russia is our most significant adversary and they have a different signature reflected in the mueller indictment of last week. because being invisible is the principle currency of our hacking adversaries, unmasking them is very important. >> how does it hurt them to show what they are doing? obviously, it means for the individuals who are charged, they can't come to this country, in some cases depending on the jurisdiction they may find it hard to travel internationally at large not just travel to the united states. how else does it hurt them if their government will never send them here to be tried? >> cyber hacking is not an incident, it's a campaign. therefore, our response to it has to be a campaign. >> okay.

>> so, by bringing these indictments, we are opening up the toolbox to expand the number of tools we can use against this. now, i brought that indictment against china and another one against russia two weeks after that with the full expectation we might be able to bring them to an american courtroom. i was not limited in that. in an actual fact the chinese indictment led, one year later, to an agreement between president obama and president xi in september 2015, where there was an agreement between the two countries about the difference between spying and intellectual property theft. there are other forums we can take these cases to. we can take them to treasury and cop mers, we can debar companies. they can be used as president obama did as the basis for sanctions against north korea where we can identify who the adversary is but can't necessarily get our hands on them now. we've done this before in this country in regards to the drug wars we had in the '90s with a

country named colombia which we now have you good extradition with and we haven't solved the drug problem but we've largely improved the situation in places like south florida. that was the same campaign. some of the naysayers said you're going to let them know what evidence you have on them and can't get them in the courtroom. that is a reasonable point of view which i strongly disagree with because we cannot -- we have to treat the effort to stop hacking like the effort to go to the moon. president kennedy said we do this not because it's easy but because it's hard. i said that. times as u.s. attorney. sure it's going to be more difficult to bring someone from china to pittsburgh for a trial. but what had we do otherwise? surrender? i wouldn't accept that. and i think tsignificance in th recent disclosures by the case by mueller is not only the

specificity with respect to the synchronicity with regard to the campaign and the tease who might be americans connected to the russians but it reflects another general proposition. the russian architecture in this country sitting there which creates the avenue for them to do hacking. >> the work that they did to implant things in our systems. >> that has to be taken account of. that circle is now complete. >> david hickton is our guest. we'll be right back with him for more right after there. 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. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management.

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hacking, spying and cyber theft for commercial advantage can and will be prosecuted criminally, even when the defendants are state actors. >> that was david hickton. then the u.s. attorney in the western district of pennsylvania announcing in 2014 the first criminal indictments against state actors for hacking and in that case it was five chinese military hackers widely considered to be the blueprint for how to bring these basically counter intelligence charges as criminal actions against foreign government actors. we are now living through a very big important development in that history with the special counsel bringing a big indictment against russian agents for hacking the 2016 election. back with us again is david hickton. let me ask you about, i guess, a narrower question about how to pursue these things.

organization one in the gru indictment from friday, everybody believes that's wikileaks. international organization. we don't know how big an organization it is anymore. they seem to have clearly have known they were dealing with russian military intelligence, certainly they had an active strategic role in disseminating that informationing to try to influence the u.s. election from outside u.s. boarders. why aren't they charged? do you expect more indictments related to that hacking? >> i can't answer the question why wikileaks hasn't been charged because i don't have enough information. that would be within the province of the special counsel. i think the important point to make is our principal adversary senior russia unlike china which was seeking economic advantage through our innovation and patents and discovery for purposes of commercial purposes,

russia seeks to destabilize us by attacking our infrastructure, our air traffic control system, our energy grid. these are the things that are at risk. in the world's leading democracy, our election infrastructure. when we deal with russia, it is a different approach. and i would, not knowing all the facts, consider addressing the russian threat to be the principal challenge. and i think it is important for your visitors to -- your viewers to know that not only is it the principal challenge, it is a grave threat, but we can do something about it. >> david hickton, a former u.s. attorney in the western pennsylvania, ground break thinker on these matters. thank you very much for coming and talking to me. i appreciate it. >> thanks. >> we'll be right back, stay with us. ♪

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you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. very quickly, we're going to have a big night here tomorrow. sally yates, former acting attorney general, the woman who personally brought the warning to the white house that national security adviser mike flynn was compromised by russia, she was fired when she wouldn't defend it because it was unconstitutional. we will join us live tomorrow. i have wanted to talk to her for a very long time. tomorrow night 9:00 p.m. eastern. sally yates right here. can't wait. now it is time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening. "the new york times" has published the breaking news of the night.