and to show them we really will fight for them. i think that's what this election is going to be all about. >> senator, good to see you. thank you for joining us today. senator elizabeth warren. >> good to see you. time to hand over to andrea mitchell, reporting live from aspen, colorado. >> thank you so much. and right now, a special edition of "andrea mitchell reports," live from the aspen security forum. quad shot. three days and four different takes from president trump on russia's hacking of america's democracy. >> do you hold him personally responsible? >> well, i would, because he's in charge of the country, just like i consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country. interrogating americans. is the white house considering vladimir putin's suggestion that president trump turn over americans to be questioned by russian agents, including the former u.s. ambassador to russia? >> my government, i hope, will step up today and categorically

swat this back. when i say my government, i mean my president of the united states of america, when he just said last night america is no longer under attack, i'm sorry, i'm an american and i'm under attack by vladimir putin right now. so i hope he'll stand up. and man of steel. here at the aspen security conference, the fbi director does not deny that he threatened to resign, during an interview with lester holt. >> have you ever hit a point on that issue of sources or methods or anything else when you said, this is a line? >> as i said, i'm a low-key, understated guy. but that should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell at the aspen security forum in colorado, where i'll be speaking exclusively in a couple of hours with the director of national intelligence, dan coats, about

the mixed messages that we've been hearing from president trump this week on russia. >> dan coats came to me, and some others. they said, they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. i accept our intelligence community's conclusion that russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place. could be other people also. >> reporter: is russia still targeting the u.s.? is russia still targeting the u.s., mr. president? >> thank you very much. no. >> is putin lying to you? >> i don't want to get into whether or not he's lying. i can only say i do have confidence in our intelligence agencies, as currently constituted. >> joining me now, our team is in place. nbc white house correspondent kristen welker.

white house correspondent jeremy bash. and msnbc global affairs analyst john mclaughlin, acting cia director. kristen, the mixed messages from the president continuing. sarah sanders trying to say yesterday that the president wasn't saying that he believed russian intelligence, even though he said that, and another interview with cbs where he for the first time came down hard on vladimir putin. what are we to make of all of this and what is the intelligence community to make of all of it? >> reporter: i think first of all, in terms of what to make in terms of what's happening here at the white house, andrea, this is a white house in full damage control mode. the president clearly realizing it, trying to take a much tougher tone when it comes to vladimir putin during that interview with cbs news in which he finally says yes, he does agree with the intelligence

community's assessment that russia meddled in the 2016 election. he caveated that by saying "because he's the head of the country." the mixed messaging is something the president's critics have seized upon. we saw that in full display yesterday when my colleague, cecilia vega, asked the president whether he thinks russia is a threat. he looked at her and said no. sarah sanders later said he was saying no more questions. based on my experience, andrea, when i have been the reporter in those situations, when i ask the president a question, if he doesn't want to answer, he doesn't say "no," he just says "thank you" and then you are ushered out. make of that what you will. the bottom line here is this is an administration that is trying to deal with really the avalanche of criticism it is getting. you have republicans on capitol hill saying that the president is really just confusing this message more and that that is damaging. and they're pointing to the fact that something that you raised in your introduction, the white

house now says it's considering an offer by vladimir putin for some type of joint investigation that would allow the russians to come and interrogate americans, including ambassador michael mcfaul. the state department dismissed that as absurd. that shows you, you have the president, the intelligence community, and top officials here really speaking from a different playbook. >> they certainly are. the president tried to fix this by doing an interview yesterday, again, with cbs, and praising dan coats, head of national intelligence who has been standing strong, standing firm. i'm going to be editing shortly after our show today. let's listen to dni coats. >> he's an expert, this is what he does. he's been doing a very good job. i have tremendous faith in dan

coats. if he says that, i would accept that. i will tell you, though, it better not be. it better not be. >> have you tone spoken to coat since you got back? >> yes, sure. >> what did he say? >> just talked generally speaking, he agrees with the statement you made. >> then the president today blaming the media again for this confrontation with russia, rather than blaming vladimir putin. first of all, jeremy and john, you both worked at the cia. john, you for many years, jeremy, at the cia and at the pentagon. how demoralizing is this to the intelligence community, to have the president wavering and going back and forth and having that extraordinary news conference with vladimir putin? can he fix this with an interview here, an interview there, when the message is so inconsistent? john, first to you. >> no, he can't fix it this way.

what is starkly revealed here, andrea, is that our government isn't working on foreign policy. the different messages we're getting, particularly on something as crazy as the idea of allowing the russians to interview a former american ambassador, the president seemingly open to discussing that, the state department firmly saying no way, that doesn't happen in a normal government. mixed messages occasionally occur, but this is not a normal situation. so i would say one of the problems here is they didn't go about this in the right way. they didn't have meetings prior to this summit. no one, as far as i can tell, has really been debriefed. the russians are already putting out their version of what happened in that meeting, offering to cooperate with our military officials and so forth. we haven't heard anything here from secretary mattis or secretary pompeo, as you normally would after a conference like this. for the intelligence people,

jeremy would agree i'm sure, they'll get up and do their job every day, but it has to be puzzling to them and has to make them wonder what impact they're actually having with the intelligence they're generating. >> isn't one of the problems that there was a one-on-one meeting, which is not unprecedented but is very unusual in this context, brief meetings, obama one on one telling putin, back off, we know you're meddling, completely appropriate. but this was two hours, with no note-takers, only translators, and a big dust-up at house intelligence, by the way, adam schiff and devin nunes, schiff arguing they should get the translator in to reveal what was said so that at least someone in the american government would know what the president may have actually conceded to vladimir putin, and nunes shutting that down, republicans outvoting democrats in a roll call vote.

jeremy, who in the u.s. government knows what went on in that one on one? because vladimir putin is spinning it today in moscow. >> nobody knows other than the president. on a bipartisan basis, we should want to know what the united states' position is vis-à-vis russia. to your question, i've been talking to intelligence professionals, i've been talking also to leadership of nato intelligence agencies, some of whom were here at this conference. they basically are saying, we're working together, we're forging ahead, we're strengthen iing ou intelligence and working against nato. we're ignoring the president. that's kind of stunning. in an intelligence agency, a military operation, you need chain of command. you need to know the commander in chief is in sync with the troops. it may be the right policy outcome now but what happens when there's a new president or a new policy? you don't want to have people ignoring the policies of their leadership. so this is a recipe for chaos and it's a recipe for actually undermining american security. >> you can talk about ignoring

the president at the working level. but for instance dan coats said last friday that the warning level on cyber, and cyber from russia more aggressively than any other foreign actor, was blinking red. to the extent that the threat level from terror was blinking red before 9/11, john mclaughlin, you lived through that. jeremy, so did you, in and out of government. and the fact is, certainly the aftermath of it, the fact is, if there is nobody in the white house anybody in charge of cyber, because they fired the cyber coordinator and did not replace him, there is no interagency motivation propelling it if it doesn't come from the top, from the president. am i right about that? >> yeah, you are, andrea. i think what's going on here is this. jeremy indicated, there are almost two governments working at this point. whatever is going on in the white house, all of these mixed messages. i think the regular government people, call at it deep state if you will, people are showing up, going to work, doing their jobs.

but without the kind of mobilizing direction that typically you have, and which is necessary in the executive branch, until the president and the white house raise the flag and say, charge forward, and point in a direction, the whole executive branch does not operate that way. people can do their jobs but there's not this coordination that you need in a world where you're dealing with adversaries who are very well-coordinated. one thing about the russians, they always know in a meeting what they want. they come in knowing what they want. if you don't know what you want, they're going to get what they want. and i fear that that's what happened in those two hours. >> let me just add here, intelligence requires very precise language. the president is making a hash of what happened. he's the master of imprecise language. let's be clear. in 2016, the russians were responsible, the russian government were responsible. there weren't other people involved as the president

continues to suggest. it was directed by vladimir putin, something that the president still heretofore has not acknowledged. third, it was designed to help donald trump. and that's also something the white house and the senior officials won't exactly say directly. we need to be clear. those three things are facts. if we don't accept those as facts, we're simply not going to be prepared when they try to hit us again. >> and kristen welker, when we talk about the malign influence and the propaganda effects, what i've been told from talking to people here, it's not that we have clear evidence that they are hacking into state elections systems, but there is plenty of evidence that the russians are again trying through social media to set americans against each other, taking both sides on controversial issues like police against black minorities, black lives matter, things that they did very effectively in 2016, forging or fomenting, i should

say, dissent, further dissent, to poison the atmosphere that's already toxic and make it more partisan than it already is. >> reporter: that's right. and sarah sanders, other top administration officials like the dhs secretary who spoke with our colleague peter alexander moments ago, say that they are trying to counter those efforts, particularly through cybersecurity, although there hasn't been sort of a full briefing to the public on what specifically they plan to do to make sure that it doesn't happen again in 2018. and i can tell you, andrea, that in terms of the political strategy here, they are hoping to turn the page on the whole discussion. we know that the president today is having his meetings, preplanned meetings with his secretary of state, secretary of defense, and then he's going to be holding an event focused on jobs initiatives. so they want to put the focus on the economy even though the questions are mounting, andrea, about what specifically they plan to do to make sure this doesn't happen again in 2018. >> kristen, very quickly, after

helsinki, there wasn't an intelligence briefing on the president's public schedule for the first couple of days. did he have one on his schedule today? >> reporter: he does have an intelligence briefing on his schedule today, andrea. that's closed to press. he does have that on his schedule today. >> good to know. thank you very much, kristen welker. of course thanks to jeremy bash and john mclaughlin here with me at aspen. at 3:35 eastern this afternoon, right here at the aspen security forum, i'll be interviewing the man of the hour, director of national intelligence dan coats, who has been standing firm about russia's involvement in attacking the 2016 election despite the president's shifting explanations on that point. watch the interview live here on msnbc, at nbcnews.com, or aspensecurityforum.org. coming up, unprecedented. the white house considers letting russia interrogate a former u.s. diplomat. a former ambassador to nato who

had her own brush-ups with vladimir putin joins me next right here on "andrea mitchell reports" live in aspen, only on msnbc. your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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crimes, their term, including former ambassador michael mcfaul. is president trump open to having u.s. citizens questioned? >> the president will meet with his team and let you know if we have an announcement on that. >> reporter: has putin raised this with president trump? >> there was some conversation about it. but there wasn't a commitment made on behalf of the united states and the president will work with his team and we'll let you know if there's an announcement on that front. >> sarah sanders not ruling out what would be an unprecedented move, turning over a former u.s. diplomat to russia for questioning. joining me now, victoria nuland, former u.s. ambassador to nato, former assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs in john kerry's state department. victoria, great to see you, thank you very much. what went through your mind when you saw that, when you understood that the president talked to vladimir putin at putin's suggestion about turning over a list of americans for

questioning by russia? and is considering it, didn't rule it out. >> the president fell into a classic putin intelligence training trap, which is to create moral equivalency between things that are not equivalent. you cannot equate the work of a u.s. ambassador to the work of russian intelligence officers who are trying to suborn u.s. democracy. i was pleased to see secretary of state mike pompeo that that notion is absolutely absurd. i think if we actually went there, the entire diplomatic service would probably resign. >> and there was also the implication in one of the comments, i think from mcfaul, that he would hire a lawyer and was getting protection, of worrying about, we don't have an extradition treaty, but if the president ordered somebody to be taken over to the russians

covertly, those things happen. >> well, i'm going to count on the u.s. checks and balances system to ensure that the judiciary of the united states would never allow that to happen. but i think mike mcfaul is well-advised to have a lawyer. what's most worrisome here, andrea, is that in this summit with president putin, the president had a chance to say, we know what you did, we know what you're trying to do again in 2018 or 2020, and if you do it, here are the extreme economic and other consequences for russia and we're not going to be able to do anything else if this doesn't stop. instead he seems to have fallen into this putin trap, that oh, we all do this, which is absolutely dangerous for the united states. >> now, there is another check and balance. we haven't seen very much of it from senate republicans. but lindsey graham responded to this whole suggestion today on capitol hill. >> naive and absurd.

there is no rule of law in russia. there is the rule of putin. the courts are not independent. the intelligence services are there for one purpose, to keep him in power. i can't imagine a scenario where it would be in our national interest to allow russia to have access to our intelligence community or people defending our nation. >> so lindsey graham made it very clear he and a number of other republicans certainly see this as a red line. you have had your own experiences with vladimir putin. during the uprising in ukraine, you were seen handing out bread to the protesters in kiev. >> and to the police who were ordered to abuse the protesters. that was a gesture of solidarity that there shouldn't be violence in this circumstance. >> and we have a picture of that up. do you think that that's what engendered the hacking of your communications by putin's

intelligence agencies? >> well, putin obviously ordered a full court press to try to discredit my diplomacy and discredit president obama's diplomacy. it didn't succeed, as you know. but i was one of the first to experience how far putin is willing to go to undercut u.s. democracy, undercut u.s. influence. as you know, i was having a private phone call with our ambassador in kiev at a time when we were trying to negotiate a coalition government. we needed the eu or the u.n. or somebody to come in and help midwife that deal. i said something, a barnyard epithet with regard to the eu. i knew the russians were listening. we thought it was a good idea to be transparent as to how we were trying to de-escalate the ukraine conflict with the russians. but then they put that out on the street, out of context, as

an effort to try to discredit me, discredit president obama. but of course it didn't work, and in fact backfired because everybody could see that it was the first foray into this really aggressive use of social media that they later perfected in the 2016 election. >> you also as nato ambassador certainly experienced a lot of the ups and downs of nato expansion and putin's objections to it. here putin apparently engaged the president, perhaps in that two-hour private conversation, about montenegro and its role in nato. >> also remember that montenegro was subject to a russian plot itself. the russian intelligence services tried to exact a coup in montenegro just before it was formally admitted to nato. and one of the reasons that the 28 other countries in nato wanted to admit montenegro quickly was because it was this security grace base that putin

was trying to grab. so we need to understand that as the president's own national security strategy says, we are in a serious great power strategic competition with russia, with china. and we need to stand firm. i was in favor of the trump/putin summit because we need to talk absolutely firmly with putin. but that doesn't appear to be what happened. >> victoria nuland. how many years did you serve at the state department? >> 32 years. and all of that experience is lost to the american public. thank goodness you're still able to do interviews and we're still able to hear your knowledge of this region. >> well, thank you, andrea, great to be with you. it's very important that we now defend the united states rather than the individual interests of one person, our president. >> thank you. >> thank you. and coming up, highlights from lester holt's exclusive interview here in aspen with fbi director christopher wray who reveals whether he actually considered resigning from his

short tenure. "andrea mitchell reports" live from aspen, only on msnbc.

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russia was by far the most aggressive actor in the space we're talking about right now. what they will do is identify a divisive issue and through a variety of means, some overt, some covert, some through fake news, some through propaganda, will essentially sow divisiveness, spin people up on both sides of the issue and kind of watch us go at each other. >> fbi director christopher wray in an exclusive interview with nbc's lester holt here in aspen, making it crystal clear he believes russia is still targeting the u.s. joining me now, mimi rocah, former u.s. assistant attorney, and chouck rosenberg, former fb official, both msnbc contributors. thanks to both of you. christopher wray was much more

personal, he also seemed to be acknowledging, he certainly didn't deny that he is under pressure from congress to turn over sensitive current investigative information about sources and methods, considered or at least threatened to resign at times in his very short tenure. >> chris was very forthright. look, he's a thoughtful guy, he's a smart guy, he's been around the block, andrea, he knows this area. it was good to hear him very, very clearly articulate that his views of russian interference in the election have not changed a bit, nor of course should they. it was comfortable in a way to know that he leads an institution that is still out there doing its job every single day despite some of the nonsense going on. >> mimi, the other message from chris wray is that the investigation is protected. he said he would not budge when there are attempts to interfere with it. it's implied, certainly not literally, that if there were

some effort to interfere with the mueller probe, that the fbi has got it, they're on top of this. >> yeah, i think everything about his interview, particularly on this issue, was reassuring. you know, first of all, he portrayed someone who didn't look quite as nervous as many many of us in the american public feel. he looked at ease. and you really have the feeling, as he said, that the fbi has got this. and he reaffirmed that he and, you know, many of the people in law enforcement and the fbi are institutionalists, and they believe in process and following the norms and the rules that are in place to apply in every situation, particularly in situations where you are sort of facing a crisis. so i think that's an important message that he kept coming back to, and that we can rely on those norms and those processes now.

>> one of the other things that came up along the way was lester asking chris wray about, looking forward beyond this particular case, what about that suggestion from vladimir putin about turning americans like mike mcfaul over to russia and sharing in the investigation and letting them question us. here was his response. >> moving beyond this case, in general, would you ever envision a world in which you would allow suspects to be interviewed by russia and observed? >> i never want to say never about anything, but it's certainly not high on our list of investigative techniques. [ laughter ] >> it's certain that they would be ruling it out. it's pretty astounding that the white house wouldn't rule it out. the state department did.

the state department spokesperson also said she can't speak for the white house and sarah sanders left it wide open. >> she left it wide open, which is, in a word, astonishing. it would be like inviting drug cartels to help the d.e.a. investigate drug cases. chris, in an understated, professional way, said not a chance. look, the white house has to rule this out. we cannot possibly let russian intelligence officers into our investigations. they're the culprits. they're the bad guys. they're the ones who did this. the notion that we would be working with them on other things, sure, that's possible. maybe in a counterterrorism case, our interests align. the notion that we would be working with them on a counterintelligence investigation of something they did, that's nuts. >> the other thing, mimi and chuck, that happened is that another former fbi and cia director, judge william webster,

very careful in what he says, wrote an op-ed in "the new york times" saying basically hands off of mueller, let mueller do his job. lester asked chris wray about mueller. >> we're big boys and girls. we get criticized by all sorts of people. i come back to the answer i gave lester before, which is my focus is not on what the people affected by our work think. i do not believe special counsel mueller is on a witch hunt. it's a professional investigation conducted by a man i've known to be a straight shooter. >> so mimi, do we think that the mueller probe is safe from, you know, rod rosenstein being fired or mueller being forced out? what is your bottom line? >> well, i don't put anything

past this president at this point. although i think that really what they would try to do is undermine it, which they've been doing, not try to do, that's something they've been consistently doing, try to undermine it, sort of their own information warfare on the mueller probe, kind of equivalent to what the russians did in our election. i think that's the tactic that trump and his allies are taking, not actually something as bold as firing mueller or rosenstein, because that would create more of a backlash. they're doing it in this more underhanded way, that, you know, is just as damaging, frankly. we know that from public opinion polls, even though i don't think that's something that should be relevant to law enforcement, but it's clear that it's having an effect. and they're unfair, unjustified attacks. everyone should see from the two

meticulous, careful indictments that mueller has already done, he's following the facts, following the evidence. and this is a nonpartisan investigation that is leading to uncover attacks on our democracy, and they should be allowed to proceed. >> mimi rocah, chuck rosenberg, thank you both so much. and coming up, separating families. in an interview that just concluded here in aspen, homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen talks to nbc's peter alexander about the administration's controversial immigration policies and about russia. peter joining me here ahead, right here on "andrea mitchell reports," only on msnbc. your mornings were made for better things than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for psoriatic arthritis. taken with methotrexate or similar medicines, it can reduce joint pain, swelling, and significantly improve physical function.

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that's your family. which is why you didn't grab just any cheese. you picked up new kraft expertly paired cheddar and swiss for eggs. beat that! kraft. family greatly. you're there, you've seen this. you're a human. when you see that, did you think to yourself, this is not the way america acts? did that ever cross your mind? >> i say this is crazy. look, we have a constitutional imbalance right now, to be clear. this empirical truth, these values, should all be true at the same time. we should be able to keep families together. we should be able to secure our borders. we should be able to protect our communities. >> homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen with nbc's peter alexander just within the hour, weighing in on the border crisis as the trump administration of course faces a looming court-ordered deadline to reunite all migrant children

separated from their parents just one week from today. that's thousands of kids. nbc's peter alexander joins me now, fresh from the interview. you talked about russia, you talked about immigration. in fact russian malign intent, disinformation on everything from charlottesville to other election issues. and on charlottesville she seemed to stumble. we'll get to that in a moment. on immigration first. she defended the policy of separating kids. >> she did. i asked her on multiple occasions if she looked, as you heard, if she saw this and ever said to herself, what are we doing here, do we need to do this again? she's effectively pushed the blame over to congress, as she has in the past, saying it's its failure which is why we're in this position. she said effectively our border security situation is weaker because the zero tolerance policy is not in effect. she made some news, the secretary of homeland security, in an effort to demonstrate the violence and cruel treatment young women face, these migrants

when they come to the u.s., saying all of them, ten years and older, are getting a pregnancy test when they arrived to see if they were raped in the course of that time. it struck me that there wasn't any sort of sense of personal responsibility, any idea that this was un-american or was a mistake or should have been better planned out. i asked her specifically if it she knew this was coming before jeff sessions made that famous announcement saying we're going to do this, it's an effort as deterrence, were his words. she didn't answer me directly but it certainly sounded like she was caught off guard at the time. >> and that they had no plan for how to reunite families once separated. >> no doubt. >> and they keep saying come legally, but as we know from our colleagues at the border, when people did come across that bridge legally seeking asylum, they didn't have the judges ready for the hearings that were supposed to be held and many suggested that that was a deliberate policy to delay, delay, delay, so the people would just turn back in

frustration. >> and speaking of delays, you were talking about this court mandated deadline, for those who have been paying attention to this, one week from today is the deadline to reunify a number of the government lawyers say it's 2,500 children with their parents. i asked if they would meet the deadline. she wouldn't say they would, she said they won't cut any corners. she and other members of the administration says we have to be careful, we have to make sure the children aren't being sent with the wrong people or bad people. but the court has mandated they do this and a lot of people are frustrated from the way this was handled, a botched effort from the start. >> as we remember, the president got into some real difficulty when he suggested there was blame on both sides in charlottesville. and she seemed to stumble into the same big mistake, we have that piece of your interview. let's play it. >> we have to work with everyone to help communities understand what are the warning signs, what

are the ways in which we can prepare. and that's no matter who it is. i think what's important about that conversation is, it's not that one side is right, one side is wrong. anybody that is advocating violence we need to work to mitigate. >> that was in the context of charlottesville? >> i was asking her, as we approach august, the year anniversary of charlottesville. i asked whether the president's sort of tone on this, his saying there's blame on both sides, whether that made it tougher for her to do her job. effectively she said it's not that one's right or one's wrong, all that violence isn't good. there wasn't like a condemnation of white nationalism and white supremacy that i think a lot of people would want to hear from the secretary of homeland security on this issue. you heard her in their own words, they were striking to me and i think striking to a lot of people in the room, that perhaps she couldn't be more firm on that topic. obviously we've witnessed the president use the language, but

the idea that a lot of members of that community believe the president is giving them a green light, this would have been a chance to hit it out of the bark and say we condemn that. and she didn't do that. >> peter alexander, thanks so much. >> good luck tonight. >> thanks for bringing it to us, live, fresh off the griddle. thank you. coming up, behind bars. a u.s. judge denies bail for the accused russian agent who allegedly offered sex for power. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports," stay with us, live from aspen, only on msnbc. come away with me barnabas! but i am a simple farmer. my life is here... [telephone ring] ahoy-hoy. alexander graham bell here... no, no, my number is one, you must want two! two, i say!! like my father before... [telephone ring] like my father before... ahoy-hoy! as long as people talk too loudly on the phone, you can count on geico saving folks money.

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welcome back. a woman accused by the justice department of being a secret russian agent who cozied up to conservative republican politicians and the nra to infill trace u.s. politics is now behind bars. 29-year-old maria butina is being held without bail. prosecutors deemed her a flight risk and persuaded a judge she me pleaded not guilty. and tried to trade sex for political access.

let's get the inside scoop on this fascinating story from betsy woodruff, politics reporter for the daily beast, and msnbc contributor, and david ignati ignatius, "washington post" foreign affairs columnist and msnbc political analyst. she's not accused of being a spy. there are levels of being a foreign agent to espionage, and i guess there's a level of proof here, but what was her role in the nra? >> she worked assiduously for years to build relationships with people in the conservative movement, the republican party and particularly the gun rights space. >> some bold face names here. >> exactly, people like wayne lapierre, another senior, senior person. she started a gun rights group in russia, so that was part of the way she was able to wend her way into these networks. one thing that makes the butina case unique from any other

russian indictment we've seen over past year or so is that the court documents about her case make it clear she appeared to have knowing help from an american. the documents that came out yesterday showed she was in a romantic relationship with a significantly older american man. other documents show that man was working essentially for the benefits of the russian federation by introducing her to people and if, in fact, one e-mail this man wrote, that's included in court documents, he said he's part of setting up a very secret back channel between the kremlin and political actors in the united states so it appears from those documents there was an american who knew what he was doing who was working alongside this woman. >> this sounds like a david ignatius spy novel. you're a best-selling author, books that have been made into films. this has all the makings of one of your next plot. >> it sounds like to me an episode from "the americans." amazing television series watching over the last few years. in fact, david, just to make a point here, peter strzok, for

all of the criticism of peter strzok that we saw, you know, from republicans at that hearing and gosh knows he was controversial, he, for a decade, was in charge of this big counterintelligence operation against a canadian, a russian couple, through canada, went to harvard, who were the models for the americans. >> a number of models that the russian intelligence services have for decades open rate e s they call their illegals network. people who were not officially connected with the russian embassy, any russian organization that swims below the surface. if you've seen "americans," you know these agents used sex, used secret relationships, ways of building influence, ways of manipulating americans in key positions. as you look at the details of this case, it's extraordinary. it is alleged that maria butina had sexual relationships with

several people who were in a position to help her. it's alleged she was in contact with a central bank official, who was talking about her as if she was part of a secret network, and they even joked about anna chapman, who was a member of an illegals network that was rolled up and traded back to russia. it's a fascinating case. it just shows how -- pardon the allegations, how aggressive russian intelligence has been under vladimir putin, in trying to hit the weak points of vulnerability in our country. >> i did want to ask, david, and betsy, is there any doubt that that soccer ball that putin tossed to the president might have been -- had bugs embedded in it? i mean what do we think is really going on with that soccer ball? >> well, that's a classic technique, is to give a gift in which a microphone is hiding. we've done it. russians have done it. most intelligence services

probably do this. you know, picking up all the details of baron trump's conversations with his schoolmates, i don't know what good that would do vladimir putin, but it was a funny moment. i'm sure that soccer ball, in any event, would end up in some fbi vault somewhere. >> i don't know, betsy, do you think it was brought back on air force one? >> that's a good question. i think it certainly highlights the dramatic difference between how the president appears to think about vladimir putin and russia and how the rest of the intelligence community thinks. exactly, right, he seemed delighted to get that president, thrilled to toss it over to melania, treated it like it was no big deal, but of course just about anybody else who works in intelligence saw that and immediately had sirens going off in their heads. >> betsy woodruff, david ignatius, the next book? >> i hope, i hope it can live up to real life. >> real life is too much like a novel. coming up next, more from right here at the aspen security forum.

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and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." at 3:35 eastern this afternoon right her at the aspen security forum, i'll be interviewing director of national intelligence dan coats, who has stood by the intelligence about russia despite the president's obvious doubts. watch that interview live right here on msnbc and at

nbcnews.com. follow our show online on fab and on twitter @mitchellreports. craig melvin is up next right here on msnbc, hi, craig. >> looking forward to that interview, my friend, take care. >> thank you. >> craig melvin here, msnbc headquarters in new york city. good afternoon to you as well. summit 2.0. in a week, the president has faced intense bipartisan criticism for his meeting with vladimir putin. he seems ready for another meeting. he hinted at it today on twitter and nbc news also has a new interview with new dissent from inside his administration on russia's role in attacking our election. plus, not a witch hunt. the fbi director christopher wray reinforcing his belief that the russia probe is, in fact, not a hoax. how to contrast between his claims and the president's could affect members of our intelligence community who put their lives on the line every single day.