it remains a bit of a mystery in terms of who he is but he claimed to the attorney, alan futerfas, thats not there on behalf of the russian government but there representing the agalarov family and the attorney also told me that he was also there to kind of help the russian attorney, the female russian attorney to get to the meeting and make sure she got there okay. and so this is sort of putting the pieces of the puzzle together as we try to figure out who was in the meeting at trump tower and why. futerfas also said, because what he's trying to do here is make sure all of the stories line up and he said that this mystery eighth person, this representative of the agalarov family, also what he said was consistent with what others have said went on in this meeting, that there were pleasantries exchanged and the russian attorney talked about this alleged degr alleged derogatory information showing russians contributing to the dnc. what's worth mentioning here, the russian attorney in an interview with nbc mentioned that she left behind documents in this meeting. the attorney, though, says

has now hired an attorney that he's clearly not listening to, named alan futerfas -- which i believeredient in ricola. now, futerfas, besides being a mob lawyer, futerfas is also a "juilliard-trained trombonist." that's going to come in real handy at the end of the trial when they need someone to play "mwah mwah waaah." ( laughter ) "mwah mwah waaah." you got it over there? you got it over there? ( piano riff ) here's another thing. don, jr. said that before they all went to it, he told jared kushner and paul manafort "nothing of the substance of the meeting." but at the very top of this email chain, that he tweeted this morning, you can see that the day before the meeting, he forwarded the whole thing to jared kushner and paul manafort. they knew! as a lawyer close to the case said, "they're in the soup, too." yup, they're all sharing a big old cup o' colludles. ( laughter ) ( applause ) delicious. high salt. high salt content. of course, the president leapt to his son's defense. let's go to trump's twitter page. ( howling wolf ) >> stephen: not good. but this afternoon, like a fath

. >> reporter: well, that was the highing -- hiring of alan futerfas, working on behalf of donald trump jr. he's a 25 year veteran of criminal defense cases whose expert east is in ethics investigations. that's the breaking news within the last minutes and specific to your questions about sarah huckabee sanders the deputy press secretary is speaking off camera a short time ago. following the defense we have heard from other white house officials. first kellyanne conway. among them today saying that donald trump jr. did nothing wrong and remains no evidence and there was no collusion between trump campaign officials and any russian operatives. here's sarah huckabee sanders in her own words a short time ago. >> don jr. took a very short meeting from which there was absolutely no follow-up. frankly, i think sometimes that may make sense just looking at the democratic national committee coordinated opposition research directly with the ukrainian embassy. this is not an accusation, but an on the record action they took. if you're looking for an example of a campaign coordinatoring with -- co

the most significant legal hire made this week was this guy, that is criminal defense attorney alan futerfas a name for himself by defending high-profile mobsters including the alleged head of the lucchese crime family and defendants accused of working with the gambino and event casy families. that lawyer was retained yesterday by none other than donald trump jr. >>> the revelations of donald trump jr.'s meeting along with paul manafort and jared kushner, with a russian lawyer, came to light through dogged reporting and leaks. imagine for a momentum what kind of information this can guy can get husband hands on. robert mueller has quietly been leading a justice department investigation into russian interference in last year's election. and as part of that, the investigation of the president himself for possible obstruction of justice. and doing so with an army of investigators in what is widely considered an all-star roster of lawyers known for their work in public security, corruption, and financial crimes. but what we're hearing from a lot of the president's defenders today is even if his

now the recap the attorney alan futerfas who called back nbc news to clarify there was a third personr, donald trump jr. and palm manafort in addition to the attorney and in addition to this fifth person that we've reported at nbc news, he now says he spoke, he believes, perhaps, to this sixth person in the room and that the way he characterized that person in the statement we read about 30 minutes ago as a friend of the attorney, may actually have been the sixth not the fifth person if that makes sense. >> anyone of those omissions this goes for the entire crew here making false statements and having to correct themselves, could be plausible in a vacuum. the problem is we are reaching a tipping point here of omissions on all of this i think it's just going to be really hard for them to have anybody to believe what they say, because even if this lawyer is right about the specifics of how this went down on his statement, it doesn't take away from the fact that don jr. was just on fox and he was pointed blank asked, is that it? are there any other russians that you met with? he said no,