about donald trump's support of the false birther conspiracy. >> it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. and for this i'd never forgive him. >> so for me i still think it's my responsibility to use my voice to help people. there are values that we understand and, you know, values of kindness and appreciation. we owe it to our kids to keep them on the right track. even when there are grown-ups around them behaving badly. >> she's a great example of what's possible when you believe in yourself, when you believe in your community, when you believe in the power of people. does the russian government have any compromising material on president trump or his family? >> does donald trump fear vladimir putin? personally, i believe he does. why does he fear him?

i don't know. >> he has loomed over the trump presidency. >> there's no doubt among the american intelligence agencies the cyberattacks on the american election in 2016 were ordered by vladimir putin. >> here comes fake news. here comes cyberattacks. it comes right out the intelligence officer's brain. >> the end of the soviet empire shook him to the core. >> he likes to tell that the collapse of the soviet union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. >> and paved the way for his rise to power. >> he gave us back the feeling that we have a country. >> people who run afoul of vladimir putin don't just get their hand slapped. they get their hand cut off. >> of course i'm afraid of putin. that's the price you pay for what you do in russian politics now. >> vladimir putin is like the crime boss, but he's a crime boss with nukes. this is a guy who's more dangerous than the world has ever seen.

♪ he's ruled the nation of 144 million people for almost two decades. but even vladimir putin is sensitive to poll numbers. in mid 2018, after announcing plans to raise the pension eligibility age, he suffered a nearly 20% drop in his approval rating. so the intimidating president appealed to his fellow russians in a very modern way. starring in a reality show. featuring the man with an arsenal of approximately 7,000 nuclear weapons at his disposal kicking back with nature. of course, he's not the first tv star president. >> you're fired. get out of here. >> except unlike president trump putin first proved his mettle as

intelligence agent and ruthless politician. experience the russian leader seemed to use to his advantage when the two met in helsinki in july 2018. >> putin is disciplined. he doesn't do anything he isn't prepared for. he's taken his measure of donald trump. he's going to walk into a room with donald trump, he's going to know exactly what he wants and he's going to know exactly how to get it. trump by contrast is famously undisciplined and is the opposite of a trained intelligence agent. >> vladimir putin is somebody who has operated on the world stage for decades. he knows international issues very well. he has seen presidents come and go. and i think he has been very, very skillful in terms of using his political acumen to his benefit. >> vladimir vladimirovich putin, former kgb colonel and current president of the russian federation. first elected in 2000, he's the longest serving russian leader

since josef stalin. >> he's corrupted by power because just imagine 18 years you're the czar. >> putin's former prime minister, mikhail kazianov, has been outspoken in his criticism of the russian leader. >> russia is not a democratic country at all. and we tried to build up those institutions. mr. putin destroyed everything what was built up. and now he wants for leaders to accept him and his regime. >> at the july 2018 summit vladimir putin became the only russian president in history to meet alone without advisers from either side with a sitting american president. while no one knows what transpired during their private meeting, the press conference afterward held several revelations about putin's views of donald trump. >> president putin, did you want president trump to win the election, and did you direct any of your officials to help him do

that? >> yes, i did. yes, i did. because he talked about bringing the right u.s.-russia relationship back to normal. >> there is speculation that putin was replying only to the first part of the question since he's vehemently denied interfering in the election. but american national security agencies came to a different conclusion. >> intelligence agencies have all said not only did putin intervene in the elections, he intervened on behalf of trump to combat putin's worst fear, that hillary clinton would become president of the united states. >> vladimir putin was responsible for directing the scope, the magnitude, and the scale, the intensity of that attack. >> reporter: former kgb agent and russian state duma deputy again nady gutkov agrees with the findings of american intelligence. >> putin did everything possible to help trump be the american president. that's why i can believe in these accusations of russian hackers.

>> tonight state-sponsored russian tv is pouring praise on president vladimir putin, calling him a master of rhetoric, a more skilled negotiator than president trump. >> putin's diplomatic power play over president trump at the helsinki summit was a pinnacle moment that reverberated around the world. >> he showed he was not willing to stand up to the russian leader. and tonight foreign diplomats are saying that for the first time in 70 years they cannot depend on an american president. >> but putin's show of intellectual force in helsinki was not just about trying to prove his dominance over president trump. >> vladimir putin doesn't care about donald trump. vladimir putin doesn't care about the republicans. vladimir putin doesn't care about the democrats. he hates america. he hates the united states. he wants to create problems and trouble here. >> he wants to see western democracies in crisis, in chaos, mostly so they can't challenge him. >> vladimir putin is one of the most powerful men in the world. and he has forced himself onto

that stage, no matter how much anybody else might want to keep him off. >> that's a toughness that came early to putin. he was a child of the soviet union, born in leningrad in 1952. the only surviving sun of vladimir and maria putin. in a city still reeling from the ravages of the german invasion during world war ii. >> no country's ever suffered the losses the soviet union suffered between 1941 and 1945. over 20 million dead. the siege of leningrad, putin's home city, was surrounded for 900 days. >> people in leningrad talk about eating human flesh to stay alive, how people are just dying on the streets as they're walking around of starvation. anybody who grew up there would have heard these stories. >> it was a hardscrabble life. the putins lived with two other families in a rat-infested communal apartment. >> he was himself kind of a

little bit of a street hooligan. he's a small guy, and he would make a point of finding the biggest kid he could and literally attacking him to show all the others that he shouldn't be trifled with. >> but amidst grim post-war len ingrad putin saw a beacon of light. the kgb, the soviet union's intelligence service. >> he literally worshiped the kgb. it was perceived as something like an elite. the best and the brightest. >> he was enchanted with this serial called "the word and the shield" which was a heroic take on kgb intelligence officers during the war. and it was romantic. it was presented to russians as this james bond kind of lifestyle. russian soviet intelligence officers who would do judo and fight each other. so he talks about learning judo at a young age to try to represent those people that he was seeing in movies. >> vladimir putin has always built himself to be stronger than he actually is. judo. that's essentially using your

adversary's weaknesses against them. it's manipulating them or putting them into a position where you can achieve victory. >> in first person, a book of interviews putin gave in 2000 about his life, he stated "what amazed me most of all was how one man's effort could achieve what whole armies could not, one spy could decide the fate of thousands of people." >> he went as a teenager to the local kgb headquarters and said i want to volunteer, i want to become a spy. and they said no, no, you don't join us, we recruit you. >> put inwent on to study law at leningrad state university. then during his last year there finally got the call that had been his dream since childhood. coming up -- vladimir putin and millions of his countrymen had no idea of the calamity that awaited the soviet union. calamt awaited the soviet union deserves the hard work that went into the science behind

vascepa. prescription vascepa. vascepa, along with diet and exercise, has proven results in multiple clinical trials. vascepa looks different because it is different. over a decade of extensive research and development achieved proven results. that's the prescription power of vascepa. vascepa is not right for everyone. do not take vascepa if you are allergic to icosapent ethyl or any inactive ingredient in vascepa. tell your doctor if you are allergic to fish, have liver problems or other medical conditions and about any medications you take, especially those that may affect blood clotting. 2.3% of patients reported joint pain. ask your doctor about what the science behind prescription vascepa can mean to you. amarin thanks the clinicians and patients who participated in the vascepa clinical trials.

amarin thanks the clinicians and patients who participated this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today.

after vladimir putin graduated leningrad state university with a law degree in 1975, he fulfilled his youthful dream of joining the kgb. in the mid 1970s the cold war was in its third decade, and the kgb played a prominent role both inside and outside the soviet union. >> one of the most vile murderous intelligence services in modern history. a service whose object was to imprison the people of the soviet union, keep them in line and murder those who were not in line. >> they would put people in barrels that were studded with nails and roll them around. they would pour cold water on them in the freezing moscow winter and create literally ice statues of them. the kgb also had another role, which was to recruit assets and individuals in the west who could serve as spies to try to

undermine democratically elected governments. >> putin hoped for a foreign posting, but he spent his first decade as a kgb agent in leningrad, ultimately as an intelligence officer, recruiting foreigners to be sources and spies. not much is known about vladimir putin's private life. in 1983 at age 32 he married ludmila skrebnev, a flight attendant five years his junior. they initially lived with his parents and within a few years had two daughters. >> it seemed to be a fairly normal russian marriage. i think she didn't work after their children were born. putin is intensely private about his daughters in particular. >> after ten years in the kgb putin received his long-desired foreign posting in 1985. but not to a plum spot like a city in the u.s. or western europe. he was sent to dresden, east germany. >> he was a mid-level bureaucrat

in some ways, a case officer who ran agents but not some sort of super spy. scl i don't think he felt invigorated, that he was really making a meaningful contribution. so i think he felt a bit lost. >> the soviet people -- >> back home in the soviet union a progression of economic crises were exacerbated by ronald reagan's determination to outspin the russians in defense and bring the ussr to its knees. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> the soviets and the kgb were reeling under tremendous strain and pressure from the west. >> soviet president mikhail gorbachev's attempts to reform the dying economy, glasnost and perestroika, were embolden's people behind the iron curtain to demand more liberty. for several years putin watched from a distance. in dresden. >> he missed out on perestroika. so the great breakthrough in terms of liberty is something he mentions, my wife and i saw this

on television but we weren't there when it happened. >> but after the berlin wall collapsed in november 1989, putin soon came face to face with changes sweeping the soviet bloc. the following month he was inside dresden's kgb headquarters when protesters surrounded the building. >> putin takes a pistol from a security guard, he holds it up and makes clear he will shoot anybody who fritries to get ins. but they don't know what to do beyond protecting the headquarters. >> he went inside, talked to the military attache, said contact moscow, find out what we need to do here, and the military attache responded to him, i've contacted moscow and moscow is silent. >> in the book "first person" putin states that "i got the feeling then that the country no longer existed, it had a terminal disease without a cure." >> this was this searing moment for him when suddenly he felt cut off from everything he'd

understood. he'd been part of the system. he'd helped hold up the system. and now the system was in effect abandoning him. >> if the kgb is his signature experience that shapes and informs all of his tactics and techniques, the unraveling of the soviet union literally is a defining story for vladimir putin. >> by the end of 1990 putin, his wife and two daughters returned to leningrad. his international spy career had fallen far short of his hopes. and the following year he resigned from the kgb. he was 38 years old. just four months later the fate of the soviet union was revealed to the world. on christmas day 1991 president mikhail gorbachev appeared on state tv, resigned the presidency, and declared his office extinct. >> the soviet union ceased to exist. hammer and sickle came down from

the kremlin walls. and the flag of the russian republic went up. the one word that sums up the collective feeling of people like putin, devoted to the soviet state, humiliation. >> he was then at a loss for figuring out how he is going to then make his mark in the world. >> coming up -- >> he never abandoned his basic thought that the united states of america was a mortal threat to the survival of the russian state. to the survival of the russian state.

when the soviet union receded into history at the end of 1991, it took with it the foundations of a society that had existed for seven decades and left chaos in its wake. boris yeltsin was president of the newly formed russian federation, a country that had to create itself from the ground up. >> it was a wild west time. there were no clear laws. there was a new parliament that was trying to make laws. there was no real system in place. >> crime was rampant. basic necessities unavailable. and unemployment was widespread. but 39-year-old vladimir putin was a lot better off than many russians. he had a job. he had befriend eed anatoly sobchak, a leningrad university law professor who became the

city's elected mayor and appointed putin to his administration. >> he was just one of the guys who was working with my father. and well, he came to my home and they were close. but putin was also a workaholic. he didn't like to be in the spotlight. >> by 1993 putin had become deputy mayor of st. petersburg. the city, like all of russia, was struggling. boris yeltsin's government of democratic reformers fought to transform a failed state-run economy into a capitalist system. yeltsin initiated the mass privatization program in 1992 to help spur the process. american-born investor bill browder moved to moscow in the mid 1990s and ran hermitage capital, the largest hedge fund in russia. >> over a period of about three years they effectively transferred all state property away from the state to private citizens. the intention was to give it

broadly to everybody. but in reality, 22 people ran enormously valuable assets from the government for nothing, often illegally and ended up becoming spectacularly rich. >> some of putin's leningrad colleagues moved on to kremlin jobs in moscow. by august 1996 he also began working for the yeltsin government. and quickly began climbing the kremlin ladder. >> he was someone who understood the way people ticked, and putin figured out a way to get into the senior ranks of yeltsin's leadership. >> if you're loyal, if you can get things done, in this case for a faltering boris yeltsin, who's really consumed by alcohol vmz, you want to give that person more responsibility. >> in 1998 yeltsin appointed putin director of the fsb, a successor agency of the kgb. the man who had always wanted to be a spy now commanded the motherland's domestic intelligence service.

>> i can imagine that vladimir putin was looking at the fsb as being a very important institution that he understood because he was from that world. >> putin soon had the fsb utilize some old kgb tricks, obtaining compromising material called kompromat, on a targeted individual to gain leverage. >> when he became director of the fsb, the prosecutor general of moscow, a man named skaratov, was starting to prosecute a number of the crimes around the yeltsin family, and mr. putin at the time helped out mr. yeltsin by taking a clandestinely acquired film of mr. skaratov with prostitutes in a moscow hotel. >> covertly shot film was broadcast on russia's rtr state tv network and ended skaratov's career. >> to yeltsin this showed loyalty and therefore he was someone who could be trusted to protect yeltsin and the family. >> but putin could not fix all

of yeltsin's problems. >> yeltsin needed to come up with somebody who could succeed in becoming president and then pardon him as the first activist presidency so that yeltsin wouldn't end up facing criminal liability. >> a decisive man, a man who knew how to manipulate power. vladimir putin. >> in august 1999 yeltsin appointed 46-year-old vladimir putin prime minister of the russian federation and endorsed him for the presidency. but yeltsin's plan for his new prime minister to become president and then pardon him soon looked like it would backfire. >> translator: and i remember how the parliament was laughing. they were quite happy actually and very pleased. and that's why they voted for putin. a person who was embraced by yeltsin himself would lose any chance for a political future. >> but yeltsin hadn't played his final card. on december 31st, three months

before the next election, boris yeltsin resigned and designated vladimir putin acting president until the election was held a few months later. that afternoon putin addressed the nation on russian state tv. >> translator: i am turning your attention to the fact that even for a minute there will be no vacuum of power in the country. not before and there will never be. i want to give you a warning that any attempt to break any of the russian laws, to violate the russian constitution will be decidedly foiled. >> for many russians the new president was a welcome replacement for yeltsin. >> he first becomes president, they take a poll. what was the attribute about vladimir putin that russians admired most? something like 40-some percent said he was sober. >> he has this face that doesn't show any human emotion. you can basically take any of your own emotions and sort of project it onto his face and think that's the kind of person he is.

and everybody did that. everybody at the very beginning was very hopeful and optimistic and supportive of putin. >> coming up -- >> putin just built up his own system. i call this system capitalism for friends. s. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner that's... proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop.

xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can... to help protect yourself from another dvt or pe. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. but he has plans today.ain. hey dad.

so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong.

i'm milissa rehberger. happy ngz th thanksgiving. republicans on the house judiciary committee formally subpoenaed top o'bomba officials former fbi director james comey and former attorney general loretta lynch. comey tweeted in response that he's happy to answer questions in a public hearing. and thousands in northern california are spending their holidays helping those affected by the deadliest wildfire in state history. 50,000 meals are going to be served to survivors and first responders. back to "headliners." just three months after he was appointed acting president of the russian federation, in

march 2000 vladimir putin was elected to the nation's highest office. putin's early actions encouraged many russians and the rest. margarita semenyov the editor in chief of russia's state funded television network rt as well as two government news agencies was a young reporter at the time. >> one of the first laws that was introduced was a law that it was now a criminal offense not to pay salary. that was probably the biggest problem for the average person. >> with respect to capitalism, he has a package of reforms that were championed by western analysts including me. consolidating the tax system, reducing corporate taxes. >> putin's challenges weren't only economic. a long-running conflict with chechnya brought on a rash of new bombings throughout russia which killed hundreds of people and were attributed to muslim chechens demanding independence. >> mr. putin sent almost 100,000 russian troops to chechnya,

which was called the second chechen war. and at this time it was much more brutal. >> chechnya for him, it's a criminal state, bandit state, terrorist state. >> terrorist networks were on putin's mind when he met with george w. bush in slovenia in june 2001. he warned the american president and his national security adviser, condoleezza rice, about the taliban and al qaeda. according to rice, both discounted his alarm. >> apparently, aw pla plane has crashed into the world trade center. >> the very first leader in the world to call george w. bush on 9/11 was vladimir putin. he wanted to pledge to the united states that we would fight this together. that made for a close and effective relationship in those early years. >> putin thought, well, perhaps now bush and his european allies will finally sign up for my war of civilization against what he perceived to be islamic

terrorism. >> but beginning in 2004 nato began expanding to include countries formerly in the soviet eastern bloc. and putin's early warmth toward the united states took a cold turn. >> what drove a wedge between the united states and russia was that we were trying to create democratic countries in ukraine and in georgia, countries that he hoped to keep under his influence. that fit the sort of historical sense of grievance and betrayal by the west. so someone who may have had instincts to become more democratic, by 2004 that pretty much had ended. >> putin was also putting an end to democratic reforms inside russia. he restricted elections for the russian parliament and the state took control of all three independent tv networks. >> he's trying to consolidate power in autocratic ways and to reduce the autonomous activity of the media, of business, and of political parties.

>> it was the closing of a society that had this brief period of openness. >> journalists were singled out for attack. >> he made journalists his big enemy. he got lots of journalists killed. these crimes were never properly investigated. >> putin also targeted the oligarchs, especially those who opposed him. mikhail khodorkovsky owned yukos, russia's largest oil company, and was the country's wealthiest man. >> mikhail khodorkovsky didn't accept the idea that putin was going to be the sole arbiter of the state, and he began funding other parties. and putin saw him as a threat. >> in late 2003 khodorkovsky was arrested for fraud and tax evasion, a move applauded by many russians. >> putin very quickly showed the oligarchs and showed the country that they're not going to be in charge. and we now knew we actually had a leader. >> putin had khodorkovsky displayed in a cage during his trial to get the attention of

other oligarchs. according to bill browder, he issued them an ultimatum. >> the other oligarchs of russia, they went to putin and said vladimir, what do we have to do to make sure we don't sit in a cage? and putin said, 50%. 50% for vladimir putin. and at that point he became the silent business partner of all the oligarchs. >> putin was re-elected in a landslide in march 2004, winning 71% of the vote. six months later, in september, tragedy struck the russian city of beslan when chechen militants occupied a school for three days, taking more than 1,100 people hostage including almost 800 children. army troops stormed the school to end the siege. by the time it was over, 334 people were dead. half of them children. it was a turning point for putin

and for russia. >> this was used by putin's surrounding to start new political -- which in fact moved us to strong consolidation of political power in one hands. and putin in fact started to be more dictator than elected president. >> in the wake of beslan putin eliminated elections for governors across russia. he would now appoint them. and those who crossed him were punished. in november 2005 american-born investor bill browder, who had made billions in the russian stock market, was deported from russia after living there for nine years. >> my offense was to expose corruption at the largest economy in russia, gazprom, multibillion-dollar scams that government officials were benefiting from. >> browder had issued reports of his findings to western media.

his russian lawyer, sergei magnitsky, investigated the corruption for three years after browder's deportation and discovered a trail of evidence that browder claims led directly to the kremlin. >> sergei magnitsky had basically uncovered a $230 million crime but it was only one of a series of crimes, thefts from the state so, we discovered that putin was one of the bep fisheneficiaries of thi and so this set off a firestorm of consequence. >> sergei magnitsky was arrested in 2008. for the next year he was repeatedly tortured and denied medical care. browder later learned of magnitsky's fate from a report published by a moscow ngo. the public oversight commission. >> on the night of november 16th, 2009 they chained him to a bed and eight guards with rubber batons beat sergei magnitsky to death. he was 37 years old. he left a wife and two children.

>> coming up -- >> you don't get to be a rival of putin's in russia. you're one of two things. you're either an ally of his or you keep out of sight. we've shown just how far love can go. (grandma vo) over one hundred national parks protected. (mom vo) more than fifty thousand animals rescued. (old man vo) nearly two million meals delivered. (mom vo) over eighteen hundred wishes granted. (vo) that's one hundred and forty million dollars donated to charity by subaru and its retailers over eleven years. (girl) thank you. (boy) thank you. (old man) thank you. (granddaughter) thank you. billions of problems. morning breath? garlic breath? stinky breath? there's a therabreath for you. therabreath fresh breath oral rinse

instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. so you can... breathe easy. there's therabreath at walmart.

moscow increasingly confident. >> well into his second presidential term in 2007 vladimir putin rode a strong wave of popularity among russians, even as he steadily eliminated democratic reforms. >> there is economic success. there's the creation of a russian middle class. pensioners live better. he shows that he can be effective in keeping people safe. and he stands as a world leader, he gives the russians pride. >> but putin was constitutionally barred from serving a third consecutive term. for the upcoming 2008 election he endorsed his deputy prime

minister and chairman of oil giant gazprom, 42-year-old dimitri medvedev for president. >> medvedev is like putin a lawyer by training. he's a member of the core group for sure. he's loyal to a tee. >> as president medvedev appointed putin his prime minister. >> it's really quite extraordinary. the authoritarian leader gives up the presidency but you know behind the scenes putin is pulling most of the strings. >> later that year the united states also had a new president, barack obama, who announced a reset with russia as an effort to improve relations between the two countries. president obama traveled to moscow in july 2009 and met with president medvedev and prime minister putin. >> putin expounded on his theory of american power, and he said look, you guys do this and you make things worse off. and he was focused on iraq. and he was surprised when president obama agreed with him.

and in that moment i think that putin thought, well, maybe obama is different. >> in the wake of the meetings there are agreements forged between the medvedev and obama administrations, including a reduction in nuclear arms. >> it was quite clear, though, that this was only being done with putin's approval. he was giving some rope here, giving some slack. >> while putin pulled strings behind the scenes, he also stepped out on stage at times. at a 2010 celebrity-studded children's charity event in st. petersburg. ♪ on blueberry hill and in the wild. seen in footage that went viral around the world. >> when he's walking around with no shirt on and hunting tigers and going underwater, it looks odd and strange to us in the west. but he understands that those

things resonate with people through the russian land mass, which is what, 13 time zones across. >> even as he cultivated his image at home, prime minister putin remained focused on world events. beginning in 2010, a wave of protests against authoritarian governments erupted across the middle east. the arab spring. when medvedev didn't object at the u.n. to president obama's initiative for an american-led intervention in libya, putin was no longer willing to stay behind the scenes. >> the arab spring is the pivotal moment where putin decides, a, we are dangerous. we the united states of america and barack obama. and b, medvedev is naive about how dangerous we are. >> and that drives putin to decide he's not going to let putpu medvedev stay in the presidency, he's going to come back himself. >> putin ran and was elected

president for a third time in march 2012. medvedev didn't oppose him and once again was appointed his prime minister. >> it's a system that is created for him always to win. the chances that martians will come and save russians from putin are bigger than putin not winning in those elections. >> but for months before and after the election people took to the streets of moscow and other russian cities, claiming the electoral system was a sham. >> first 50, penthen 500, then 5,000 and eventually 200,000 people around the streets of moscow. putin's pissed, why are they protesting against me? i'm the one who made them rich. but the next is fear. these are the kinds of demonstration that's led to the collapse of the soviet union. and that's when he developed an argument that these people are not acting independently, that they're supported by america. >> putin viewed one american in particular as the mastermind

behind the demonstrations. president obama's top diplomat. >> we do have serious concerns about the conduct of the elections. >> secretary of state clinton criticized legislative elections. putin came out and said that hillary clinton was orchestrating this. >> hillary clinton was such an overt supporter of democracy, human rights. okay? lesbian rights. women's rights. everything putin's against. >> obama's ambassador to moscow, michael mcfaul, also was on the receiving end of putin's animosity. the fsb followed him and his family throughout moscow. russian state tv broadcast stories about him, inciting revolution against the government. and then mcfaul recounts during a meeting at putin's residence he felt physically intimidated. >> and just out of the blue he kind of turned to me and, you know, this guy is causing trouble for us. and he stared at me. it seemed like for 15 minutes. it was probably 15 seconds. but it was a scary moment.

he was angry at me. >> mcfaul wasn't the only object of putin's ire. since sergei magnitsky's death bill browder had been lobbying western governments including the united states congress to punish those responsible. >> i took this idea to senator benjamin cardin and senator john mccain, and i said can we ban the people who killed sergei magnitsky from coming into the country and can we freeze their assets? and they said we can. and that was the genesis of the magnitsky act. >> browder's theory is that the magnitsky act affects putin directly. >> vladimir putin doesn't keep any money in his own name. he keeps money in the name of many russian oligarchs. and this piece of legislation can and will freeze the assets of those oligarchs. i believe that putin is the richest man in the world. i believe he's worth $200 billion. and this piece of legislation puts that money at risk. >> interest in putin's wealth spiked when legal documents indicating offshore bank

accounts were leaked to the press and became known as the panama papers. they pointed to a money trail of approximately $100 million that reportedly led to putin but was held in the name of a musician friend, sergei roldugin. quite a large sum for an orchestra cellist. >> there was big confusion and a big scandal, and putin took it very personally when panama papers are released because his personal fraud was exposed. >> putin is corrupt. he created a corruption system in russia. and this system with all his friends is taking the money out of russian economy. >> vladimir vladimirovich putin. >> putin's annual government salary is the equivalent of about $300,000. and while there are no official accounts of his net worth, there are a few indications such as a home he allegedly built on russia's black sea coast that was speculated to cost $1

billion. >> the right way to think about it is he's like the czar of russia. he can use anything he wants. so you own a yacht. if he says you know, what i'd like to spend a week on this yacht, you have no choice but to do that. >> protests and violence broke out on the streets of kiev in 2014 by ukrainians wanting closer ties to the west. >> a country like ukraine looking to move to the west, to move to nato or move to the eu, he sees this as a personal insult. >> putin believed ukraine is a part of the zone of russia, of russia's influence. and it was a very emotional reaction when ukraine turned to european union instead of russia and they decided to punish ukraine. >> putin sent in russian soldiers. within a month he had annexed crimea. by the following november russia occupied eastern ukraine. >> he did something that no european leader had done since hitler and mussolini, fracture

and divide ukraine. >> he needs to show power. he needs to show that people on his periphery need to be oriented toward russia or they're considered enemies. >> coming up -- >> here news. here comes cyberattacks. it's classic putin. george woke up in pain.

but he has plans today. hey dad. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong.

rather have a puppet as president. >> no puppet. >> it's clear. >> you're the puppet. >> it's clear you won't admit the russians have engaged in cyberattacks. >> the 2016 election season was in high gear. so were vladimir putin's cybertroll hackers and intelligence operatives. >> it was such a big deal because it's in the united states, because of the sanctions. because of hillary clinton. and we felt any kind of online activities in 2016 couldn't be done without his approval.

>> the russian cyberattack of 2016. really have three elements to it. the first was to penetrate the democratic party servers and the e-mail top official of the hillary clinton campaign. the other was to get into state election systems, to their databases. and the third element of this was to inflame or create divisions within the american political culture. they did this with twitter and youtube and probably, most of all, facebook. creating fake pages, fake personas, fake tweets. >> putin's goal, according to u.s. intelligence agencies was to hurt hillary clinton, help donald trump and provoke conflict without leaving any fingerprints. >> the documents stolen by wikileaks. >> blasting russia and vladimir putin. >> state-sponsored russian hackers. >> polls now open. the most contentious and controversial presidential campaign is history.

>> the election is over. donald trump will be the next president of the united states. >> vladimir putin's campaign to attack our democracy probably exceeded his own expectations. i don't think he could have imagined that donald trump would emerge the victor. >> might it have influenced the election? yes, it might have. we'll never know. >> inside russia, there was also surprise and relief as seen on russian tv. >> we remember very well when they applauded to trump when he became the president of the united states. all his support is in russian parliament. they drank champagne for election of president trump. >> before president obama left office, his administration levied sanges levied sanctions and expel led 5

russians in retaliation for the cyberattack on the united states. once president trump was sworn in, any further actions would be up to his administration. >> the most people believe that hillary clinton was going to win the election and believed that whatever we were able to do in response to their interference was going to be continued by a clinton administration. but then the election results dictated otherwise. >> a little more than a year later, special counsel robert mueller issued his first indictments of 13 russian nationals for election hacking. >> putin is an intelligence officer. he can always say, this isn't us. he understands having known up through the kgb and creating this system that it is all part and parcel of the same thing. he is controlling it. >> the american election wasn't the only target of putin's attacks. in march 2018, sergei skripal and his daughter, a former russian double agent, were poisoned in england with a

chemical agent. only produced in russia. they survived. two men traveling on russian passports were later identified by britain as the would-be assassins. putin denied russia had anything to do with skripals' attack. >> in going after skripal and assassinating him, he showed he wouldn't abide by any rules or norms. he'd do whatever it takes to hunt down anybody who he believes was an asset of the west. >> two weeks after skripal's poisoning, vladimir putin was re-elected to a fourth term. >> breaking news tonight. major new charges in the mueller investigation. a dozen russian agents charged with hacking the democrats. >> on july 13th, special counsel robert mueller's investigation into collusion between the trump campaign and putin's government issued another indictment linking the kremlin to the election attack.

three days later, putin met with president trump in helsinki. >> president putin, why should americans and why should president trump believe your statement that russia did not intervene in the 2016 election? >> putin denied the allegations. instead, he offered to allow mueller to observe russian law enforcement interviewing the alleged hackers. but he wanted something unprecedented in return. access to u.s. government officials he claimed were criminals. >> translator: officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the united states whom we believe -- who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of russia. >> on putin's list, former ambassador to russia, michael mcfall. >> i'm shocked. the audacity of what putin was doing. he was saying, we want to arrest the former ambassador of the united states of america to the russian federation. and he was daring the trump

administration to bat that back. and the president didn't bat it back. >> vladimir putin never would have made the proposal to barack obama or bill clinton or george w. bush. he would know that they would have turned him down flat. >> i think vladimir putin felt that he was in command. i don't know what was going through his mind other than donald trump is not going to be a real problem for me. >> while his attack on the american election mon opized the summit's press conference, vladimir putin seemed unfazed. he strolled out of helsinki as the world's premier alpha male, unbothered by evidence or inquiry. and so far, unrebuked by president trump. >> vladimir putin knew in order to ensure the success of the russian nation state he'd have to have someone in the white house who would deforemoscow. that's exactly what vladimir putin has gotten in donald trump. >> he got what he wanted. and he was never held fully to

account. >> vladimir putin emerged from the wreckage of the soviet union determined to put russia back in the center of the international universe. and he's done that. it's a very complicated story. and why am i in the middle of it? >> the infamous trump tower meeting, it's consumed washington for more than a year. now, the man who holds the key to how it all happened shares new details. >> it was a dirty offer that they accepted? >> yes. that is true. >> is the meeting the special counsel's best evidence of possible collusion between the campaign and russia? we go inside the room with a firsthand account. >> suddenly what should have