but after trying to dupe federal investigators george papadopoulos has been cooperating with them, suggesting papadopoulos may be providing information against other trump campaign insiders. court documents further revealed papadopoulos e-mailed a high-rank ing campaign official about some of these interactions. cnn has learned that official was former campaign chairman paul manafort. tonight manafort is under indictment for alleged money laundering and other charges. another trump campaign official richard gate also is named in the 12 count indictment. both are under house arrest. both have their passports seized as the special counsel targets former trump associates in this critical new phase of his investigation. sources are telling our white house reporters meanwhile that the president is seething about all this. even as the white house tries to down-play the developments publicly arguing they have nothing to do with mr. trump, cnn has learned meanwhile that the president's former chief strategist, steve bannon is urging the president to fight back against mueller and his investigation wi

what is the deal with george papadopoulos? who was this professor, this unnamed professor in contact with in terms of the russian government and of course who is george papadopoulos responding back to with this information with the trump campaign? i talked to a former national security official with the trump campaign earlier who said he was unaware that george papadopoulos was doing all of this and going to great lengths to go around certain people in the trump campaign. that's not to say this was not appreciated. if they have e-mails, e-mails have been swept up in all of this. if they have e-mails saying wow, this is great. great stuff, george. there is more to be told in terms of what this is laying out for the fbi. >> major developments indeed. over at the white house, we will stand by for the press briefings beginning fairly soon. paul manafort and rick gates appear before a federal judge less than 30 minutes from now. evan perez is over at the federal court here in washington and the district. tell us what will happen at

or george papadopoulos? but, you know, this idea that there was no contact, that there was no cooperation, that we had nothing to do with russia is long gone despite the fact that the president continues to tweet it. despite the fact that sarah sanders continues to be paid by the american people to lie to them. we now have clear evidence in the form of this guilty plea that people inside the campaign were seeking russian assistance, and that is a big deal. >> papadopoulos was told that the russians had what they called dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousand of e-mails, and this was back in april 2016, long before the american american public learned of the hacked e-mails so what does that suggest to you? >> well, again, sometimes we get so caught up in the -- in the details here, but also in the chaff that sanders and the white house is trying to throw out thereto about uranium one and hillary clinton, let's step back here and realize that this member of the trump campaign, while communicating with

all of the lies that george papadopoulos told the fbi. the judge said, did you read the document carefully? papadopoulos said, yes, i did, your honor. the judge said, is everything in that document true? yes, it is, your honor. the bad news for president trump is that george papadopoulos secretly pled guilty three weeks ago and the even worse news for donald trump is that george papadopoulos is cooperating with the special prosecutor, telling the special prosecutor everything he knows and george papadopoulos knows that his future depends on him telling the truth. his sentence depends on him telling the truth. he pled guilty three weeks ago to a federal felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. and at his special arrangement the judge told george papadopoulos that if he continued to fully cooperate with the special prosecutor his prison sentence could be, quote, between zero to six months. and that his fine could be, quote, between $500 and $9,500. the judge then told george papadopoulos

there's nothing in the manafort and gates indictment that directly mentions george papadopoulos. there's nothing about russia at all in the manafort/gates indictment. there's plenty about russia in the papadopoulos documents, but there's no direct mention of manafort or gates. now, it's possible to sort of triangulate from some early reporting and some e-mails obtained by the washington post in august that basically show you that some of the people who were involved in e-mail communications around papadopoulos's russia proposals so those people may have been manafort or gates. but their names don't turn up in any of his paperwork. why is that? is there a connection between this kid pleading guilty and these guys getting indicted? why are they both getting unsealed the same day? why was papadopoulos arrested a day after paul manafort's house was raided by the fbi? does the fact they were unsealed the same day tell us about one of them being used against the other or is it a quince against? >>> here's one last point about papadopoulos. when the washington post obtained those e-mails

george papadopoulos seen meeting here last year pleaded guilty on october 5th to making false statements to the fbi about his contacts with russia. according to records unsealed today it said papadopoulos falsely lied about conversations. one of the documents describes an e-mail sent to a high ranking official. the e-mail had the if subject line, request from russia to meet with mr. trump. it went on to say russia was eager to meet with the candidate and had been reaching out. the campaign official forwarded the e-mail to another official, who the source says is rick gates, that e-mail said we need someone to communicate that dt is not doing these trips it should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal. in another e-mail, a supervisor tells papadopoulos alleged that i encourage you to, quote, make the trip if it is feasible. that trip to russia never happened according to officials. also today surrendering at the fbi in washington, former campaign manager paul manafort and campaign official rick gates. the two were business societies prior associates prior to th

then, of course, there's the george papadopoulos guilty plea. that is packing the most punch here in washington. papadopoulos is called a pro active cooperator with prosecutors meaning he has been assisting them with the wide-ranging russia investigation. papadopoulos has admitted to russian contact after he became a foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign, and the fact that he tried to set up meetings with russian officials and members of the campaign team. we saw this morning the president calling papadopoulos a liar. sarah sanders referred to him yesterday as a volunteer in the campaign, but we seen the e-mails released in the paperwork and it makes clear papadopoulos did communicate with paul manafort and sam clovis, who encouraged papadopoulos at one time to travel to russia to get that alleged dirt on hillary clinton. now clovis since told the "washington post" he was being paw lig polite and opposed the trip, and it's likely to come out from papadopoulos, and prosecutors said his guilty plea is just a small part of what is to come. jo

line that papadopoulos has cooperated now with authorities and notes here that he met with the government on numerous occasions to provide information and answer questions. a final point, george, on papadopoulos. there are a lot of legal papers here, but some of them catch your eye more than others. this is contained on page eight of the statement of offense. it refers to papadopoulos e-mailing another high ranking campaign official and there is a footnote to that. in that e-mail, he stated let's discuss. we need someone to communicate that dt should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal, seeming to indicate that papadopoulos and perhaps others in the campaign knew that these trips to discuss this information with russians with foreigners was not 100% kosher. perhaps illegal. therefore we are sending people other than the president to do so. again, a lot contained here, but you have a direct connection between someone who worked for the campaign as a foreign policy adviser who now plead guilt tow a crime and as part of the continuing investigation as to whether there was coordination between the trump campaign and russia. truly a momentous and surp

quite a day for george papadopoulos... no, quite a day for george papadopoulos. ..oliday in greece today, but he spent the whole day batting away a simple case of mistaken identity. m essa g es mistaken identity. messages like this one. as the day wore on and the messages piled up, he seemed to see the lighter side. will the real george papadopoulos please stand up! i followed will the real george papadopoulos please stand up! ifollowed him today. during the course of the last couple of hours i have done a tally. he started out with about 7000 followers, he now has about 8500. why don't you call yourself paul ma nafort why don't you call yourself paul manafort on twitter! great way to get more followers. chuckles would you like to be with him in greece eating his mum ‘s food? it sounds great. chuckles coming up: in the coming up: 0utside source. in the latest headlines, no doubt about that paul manafort story. we will be here the same time tomorrow. goodbye for now. 0ur our first 0urfirst proper our first proper autumn chill the only really lasts one day. mild air c

on march 31, george papadopoulos attending a foreign —— march 31, george papadopoulos attendi policyt. what did the president think when he said he wanted to arrange a meeting? and how did other people in the campaign react to that? i'm not sure the president recalls specific details of the meeting. again, it was a brief meeting. again, it was a brief meeting that took place quite some time ago. it‘s the one time that group ever met. beyond that i don‘t have anything to add. thank you. as you mentioned paul manafort and mr gates were named as people not having anything to do with the campaign. but with alleged money—laundering regarding other business. under those circumstances, would the president consider or allow pardoning for either of them? i‘ve not had any conversations about that. we should let the process play through before we start looking at that. george papadopoulos was referring to jeff sessions at the time, what does this mean forjeff somebody somebody on a sessions? again, somebody on a volunteer committee, i‘m not sure how that would impact the attorney general direct

not that in that respect with respected george papadopoulos it doesn't really matter. because i'm'm collusion bee russian government and thehe and the trumpmp campaign wht whwh he knonows about relationships arm betetween senior trump officials. in the campaign and the russian government i'm that so that's what matters and and have of course at this point that's all speculation we don't know if he really knows anything we don't know how far this went. with respecect to mamana for and. brigades what's important areas that the conduct really had nothing to do with the collusion allegations a separate conduct but. if f they if they havave nw been charged with serious crimes and perhaps. they will in time decide to cooperate with the governrnment to reduce t thr criminal exposure. and maybe they would have more information about potential collusion between the campaign and rushing government. alex waiting thank you very much for joining us from washington. now you know the nuclear its use of article one fifty five the constitution on catalonia has taken hold smoothly. this

> ty cobb said trump has not responded to the news because he doesn't know papadopoulos. >> george papadopoulos is an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy. >> this shows papadopoulos sitting at the same table with the president. >> it was extremely limited. it was a volunteer position. again, no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign. >> sanders falsely claiming mueller's charges are unrelated to mr. trump. >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president or nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. >> a source familiar with former chief strategist steve bannon says he is urging the president to fight back against mueller by getting republicans to engage and going to court over documents being requested, and aides insisting mr. trump has no plans to take action against the special counsel. >> he's not firing the special counsel. he said that before. >> and it is definitely premature to start talking about this, but white house press secretary sanders was asked if the president would consider pardoning rick gates or manafo

i agree with ari the more significant case today we learned about are the charges against george papadopoulos. and i think the timing of unsealing both of these on the same day is no coincidence. >> why? >> mueller and his team are doing this very strategically. i think the papadopoulos document, if you look at it closely, identifies three trump campaign officials. they call them a senior campaign adviser, a high-level campaign official and the senior policy adviser. they don't name them because they're not prepared to identify them or charge them. but everybody in the campaign, i guarantee you, knows exactly who they are, including paul manafort. this is a dog whistle to paul manafort, you better play ball or else we're ready to go forward on these three as well. >> you're nodding. >> yes, barbara is a prosecutor who understands intimately deeply how these cases are built. this is the beginning, not the end. when you have other people named who may have knowledge of activities, be they directly criminal or be they a cover-up and they become criminal not from the first instance, if there was

if anyone should be afraid, it's donald trump jr. >> george papadopoulos has been cooperating. he references e-mails with russians and he talks about higher ups within the trump campaign, you would think as part of his deal to stay out of prison, he is naming other people. >> he is naming people. there is a real direct connection, president donald trump and sarah huckabee sanders have been trying to distance the administration from these individuals because they are offenses were knot connected to president donald trump but if you look at the indictments, they go through 2016, that covers the campaign. >> but when we talk about money laundering and illegal lobbying, that does not have anything this do with russia. >> these are for incidental, i was surprised he was not charged with rico charges. but through the ongoing surveillance, they picked up his conversations. it's like the soaf i can't mafia. sneptly americans are detected in the surveillance of russian spice. >> there have been fears among the democrats that president donald trump would try to fire rob robert muller. >>

we circled george papadopoulos there. according to the indictment, after that opportunity, papadopoulos had multiple meetings with russians by skype and e-mail while in contact with campaign officials. papadopoulos offered to set up a meeting between trump and putin. it didn't happen. in august of last year, a campaign official encouraged papadopoulos to make a trip to russia to meet with officials if feasible. he never did. again, according to the indictment, on january 27 of this year, the fbi interviewed him. during that interview, he lied about the timing of his meetings with the russians. he told the fbi was not on the campaign team when those meetings happened. that was also a lie to which he now admits. on july 27, the fbi arrested him. 38 days later, he pleaded guilty. during all or part of those 38 days, he was, as it was described in the indictment, a proactive cooperator in the fbi investigation. and he's still cooperating. we have team fox coverage. kevin corke at the white house. first, james rosen live in was

george papadopoulos had mueller investigation.ad pleaded guilty and was now cooperating with the fbi. russia is it clear did attempt to make contact with the trump campaign and offered so—called dirt on hillary clinton in the form of e—mail. it is also not clear from detailed disclosures that fake news was disseminated on facebook, twitter and google for years. in the weeks after the election mark zuckerberg said the idea that fake news on facebook had influenced the vote was crazy. but two months ago the social media site announced a $100,000 had been spent on us political advertisements by an operation likely based in russia. in september mark zuckerberg retracted his earlier statement, he said it was the longer crazy that fake news could have influenced the election. facebook handed in information on 3000 advertisements linked to russia to congress. and of course today we learned that they could have been spread to 126 million people. our north america technology correspondent is here and watching all of the hearing. we heard t

yet of possible collusion, with this details of how this trump campaign adviser, 30-year-old george papadopoulos, worked with suspected russian agents and then denied it to the fbi, as he did when he talked with abc news earlier this year. the special council revealed today that papadopoulos pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the fbi on october 5th and has been secretly cooperating. >> it's very significant to have an official with any major presidential campaign admitting that they're working with the russian government to hurt their opponent. and admitting that they lied about that fact to cover it up. >> reporter: papadopoulos joined the trump campaign's national security team in march of 2016. >> george papadopoulos -- kw. >> reporter: donald trump's now well-known words of praise. >> excellent guy. >> reporter: but three days later, papadopoulos was in london, meeting with his russian connections, including a woman he thought was vladimir putin's niece, but wasn't. according to the fbi, the russians told him on april 26th they had "dirt" on hillary clinton and "thousands of e-mails," lon

his name is george papadopoulos. he was a foreign policy adviser tore candidate trump. there in this picture that mr. trump himself tweeted in march 2016 as one of his foreign policy team. papadopoulos has admitted to lying about contacts he had with russians during the campaign. cnn's manu raju has been diving into this. despite a campaign official saying he was a zero, this is someone that president trump, then candidate trump, mentioned by name as one of his top foreign policy advisers back in 2016. called him an excellent guy and after that march 2016 comment, prosecutors really reveal the extent to which mr. papadopoulos went to try to set up meetings between trump campaign officials and officials in the kremlin. even pushing on multiple occasions for meetings with president putin of russia with then candidate trump. now, today, sarah huckabee sanders says he was just a volunteer and there was really nothing to it, but also the question today, jake, is why did papadopoulos lie about this to authorities? soon after joining the trump campaign in march 2016 george papa

george papadopoulos writing to the individual known as fc 2, foreign contact 2. papadopoulos proposing a, quote, meeting for august or september in the u.k., london, with me and my national chairman and one other policy adviser and the ffa to hold a day of consultations and to meet one another. it has been approved from our side. eight days later, the first last week later dumped, five days later, this from candidate trump. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> the campaign said that was just humor. everyone from the president on down has denied anyone in the campaign colluded with russia. today, the white house press secretary of not only denied that george papadopoulos acted in any official capacity during the campaign. she kind of denied his existence. >> this individual was the member of a volunteered adviser counc council. he was a volunteer. he was not paid by the campaign. he was a volunteer on a a council that met once. >> he was a volunteer on the campaign and a volunteer member of an advisory c

president, you called george papadopoulos an excellent guy. what is your reaction? >> thank you. >> manafort and gates have pleaded not guilty. the white house has argued that the indictments against them and the papadopoulos plea deal have nothing to do with the president. >> from what i recall george was a low level volunteer. he was not a person who was involved with the day to day operations of the campaign or a person who i recall interacting with on a regular basis at all. >> i never heard of papadopoulos. he never showed up at trump tower. never had interaction with campaign leaders. >> collusion in and of itself, what is a violation of law here? >> and as mueller's investigation enters its next phase reports surface that there is a secret plan to knee cap the special prosecutor. is steve bannon behind the -- it's worse than you thought. the scope of russia's efforts to use social media to manipulate the election. top lawyers will be grilled on the hill in a half hour are expected to detail jaw dropping numbers about just how many americans were impacted. firs

>>> and second, what about george papadopoulos? this guy, the one-time adviser cooperating with the investigation for months. so what has he been telling the special counsel and about whom? we know what team trump is saying about him, he's just a coffee boy, right? no, that's not right and we'll tell you why you should know papadopoulos' name. >>> and we have more news on what is happening on the hill, as the biggest names on sites you use every day, google, facebook, twitter, talk to lawmakers about how russia used their platforms to meddle in the election. >>> and why are we showing this to you? this is where the head of fema is walking in to get tough questions about what the government is doing to help puerto rico get the lights back on. we have a lot to cover over the next 60 minutes. i want to start over at the white house with kristen welker. because this is where the story is getting driven from today, kristen. the reaction this morning from not just president trump online but some of his top advisers seems to be, hey, wasn

. >>> george papadopoulos, contacts with russia. >> it was a volunteer position. no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign. >> let people know that this guy represents just the tip of the iceberg. >> they're going to get you for whatever they can find. >> there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> it's a wake-up call for my congressional republican colleagues to get serious about this investigation. >> we are at the beginning of this investigation, not at the end of it. >> this is "new day" with chris cuomo and allin camerota. >> welcome to your "new day." we begin with the russian investigation, new documents unsealed in federal court lay out the clearest evidence yet that president trump's campaign was eager to work with russia, to hurt hillary clinton. these are facts, not allegations. george papadopoulos, former campaign foreign policy adviser has pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his meetings with russian intermediaries. the bombshell, he has been cooperating with

digging deeper into the guilty plea of george papadopoulos who admitted to lying to the fbi. oulos making numerous contacts with senior trump campaign officials about facilitating meetings with you russians and getting encouraging feed back. it said in april the overseas professor introduced papadopoulos to an individual in moscow with connections to the russian ministry of foreign affairs. mfa for short. filing lists multiple communications by papadopoulos in attempts to arrange a meeting between the campaign with the russian government. and alleges that after several weeks of further communications regarding off the record meeting with officials on or about august 15, 2016 an unnamed official described as campaign supervisor told papadopoulos i would encourage you and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign encourage you to make the trip to russia, if it is feasible. interesting. present ed in the trump campaig with the opportunity to get dirt from a political opponent. they downton't run from it. they get thrilled from it. another company might say i don't want to go

do you ever remember receiving that message from george papadopoulos? n't remember that, and the reason would be that george was such a low-level volunteer, i don't recall having much interaction with him throughout the campaign. >> a low-level volunteer. that's the phrase that president trump's allies inside and outside of the white house are using to label former trump campaign policy adviser george papadopoulos. the special counsel's office has another label, proactive cooperater. that could be a major source of concern among the white house team and the staff. national security and justice reporter and ruth marcus is the deputy editorial columnist for the "washington post." welcome, all. bob, first to you. your white house counsel. what are you telling your staff if you're the white house counsel in the trump white house and you see that a former campaign aide who sat near the president and was involved with a lot of these unnamed people according to the filings, was a proactive cooperater? >> i'm not sure what is meant by that term. i heard pete wil

among them, a political unknown in his late 20s. >> george papadopoulos is an energy consultant, excellent guy. >> reporter: papadopoulos admits he went to work right away, setting up meetings with russian operatives who said they had dirt on then candidate, hillary clinton, including thousands of e-mails. two months passed before the democratic national committee blamed russians for hacking their computers and stealing data. according to papers, papadopoulos had been e-mailing and meeting with russian contacts regularly. a former assistant director of the fbi. what does it suggest the russians were trying to do by reaching through him to the trump campaign? >> they were dangling bait to someone who appeared to be willing to grab that bait and pull the two orbits closer. >> reporter: he met his main contact in london. he also met with a female russian national he initially believed was a relative of vladimir putin. they allege pop papadopoulos cultivated the relationships. the russians composed a high level meeting. the trump campaign rebuffed requests. on july 14th, papadopoulos told the

. >> george papadopoulos. he is an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy. >> tonight the massive fallout from robert mueller's twin bombshells. >>> plus, what did the president know and when did he know it? >>> and how does carter page fit into all of this? >> has the special counsel reached out to you? >> my exclusive interview, when "all in" starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. tonight the former chairman of the donald trump presidential campaign paul manafort has been placed under house arrest, ordered to home confinement while out on $10 million bail. same goes for second trump adviser richard gates, indicted along with manafort and free on $5 million bail. but it was a guilty plea by a third adviser that was truly an astonishing move today by special counsel robert mueller. first came the indictments of the two senior campaigns to the president on 12 charges, including conspiracy against the united states. according to the unsealed indictment, former trump campaign chairman

president, you called george papadopoulos an excellent guy. what is your reaction? tes have pleaded not guilty. the white house has argued that the indictments against them and the papadopoulos plea deal have nothing to do with the

the article also notes george papadopoulos a former foreign policy advisor, was reveal to have had pleaded guilty earlier this month lying to f.b.i. investigators over his contacts last year with two people with apparently close ties to the russian government. one was an unnamed professor identified by "the washington post" as joseph bisout who offered, quote, dirt, on hillary clinton. another was a woman who portrayed herself as putin's niece. at monday's white house brief, press secretary sarah sanders spoke about the president's timeline for tax legislation and took questions on the federal indictment of paul manafort and two others. this is just over 20 minutes. sarah: i would like to start the briefing today by addressing a topic i know all of you are preparing to ask me about, and that is tax reform. [laughter] couple of you got it. it will be introduced by the house ways and means committee, this is the product of months of open process in the house. the committee plans to mark the bill next week starting on monday. the house is likely to consider the bill the week of november 13. i

client, george papadopoulos, that we refrain from commenting on george's case. the opportunity to comment on george's involvement when called upon by the court at a later date. we look forward to presenting all the facts that led to the events that resulted in this charge. joining me for the inside scoop, charlie sykes, conservative commentator and msnbc contributor and carol lee, nbc's national political reporter. charlie, the political fallout from this, the president pushing back saying it really should be hillary clinton we're looking at. we'll have more to say about that in a moment. the fact is, they have a cooperating witness. clearly, his lawyer will be speaking once other indictments or other results, let's say, come out of whatever he has been telling the special prosecutor, robert mueller. >> remember, this is just the beginning. these are just the first indictments of what is obviously a rolling investigation. and the papadopoulos indictment has got to be the one that has trump world really sweating because it's a guilty plea. it directly deals with

and briefly about the separate case of george papadopoulos.e news about him, how serious is that case for the president? ma nafort that case for the president? manafort —— to was not known to be someone manafort —— to was not known to be someone who was particularly close to the president —— george papadopoulos. he is on the periphery of the campaign. he was apparently on the foreign policy advisory committee the trump campaign setup, so committee the trump campaign setup, so this is closer and more direct to the campaign it sounds like the charges, they are more closely linked with russian collusion. from that sense, it is important. it also seems he is cooperating with mueller. so there is a good chance that you might see testimony from him implicating other people within the trump campaign. i think that is what mueller was looking for with this early indictment with papadopoulos and this early indictment with pa padopoulos and maybe this early indictment with papadopoulos and maybe also with manafort, we don't know. we have papadopoulos and

supporters of the president continue to stand it aside, there you see if photo of george papadopoulos there. jeff sessions on the far right. trump loyalists zeroed in on reports that manafort has been under investigation since 2014, he may have been wiretapped. corey lewandowski, who was his campaign manager at the time, papadopoulos was one of the foreign policy advisors. listen here. >> if the public reports are true and there was a time where paul manafort was under a warrant before coming to the trump campaign, why is it the fbi never reached out to donald trump and said look, you may want to pause for a second day and take a look before you bring this guy on board, they never did that. he was under a warrant supposedly, both before and after his tenure with the campaign and the fbi never notified the leading presidential candidate for a major republican party race? never notified them about the potential problem? this is a problem with the fbi if you ask me. >> democrats also in weighing in, chuck schumer saying "the president must not under any circumstances interfere with the s

and then went to lunch with jeff sessions, his attorney general so talk about george papadopoulos, jeff sessions, and the significance of what papadopoulos knows. >> so papadopoulos was living in london. -- it is quitey clear from the plea, he was being courted by russian handlers, by three different russian handlers, to set up a meeting. they wanted to set up a meeting between putin and trump. as the summer went on, papadopoulos and manafort were going to be the one to wait for the meeting. as i said, there is a footnote in the plea that shows manafort talking to gates and saying, "we need to avoid making it clear that we are of cozying up to the russians here." so the other really important thing, which really isn't in the plea agreement but we know is part of the discussions that papadopoulos has been having since july with mueller's people, and that is that he was accused of lying about whether -- about what he took this reference from the russians to mean. that they had dirt on hillary clinton in the form of thousands of emails. it is clear that they have accused him of lying about

before today, george papadopoulos was a largely unknown, unpaid trump campaign adviser. though the president did talk about him when he discussed his campaign foreign policy team with the "washington post" last year. >> george papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant. excellent guy. >> it turns out papadopoulos was arrested in july when getting off a plane at washington dulles airport and he's been cooperating with mueller's team. all of it kept quiet for months until today. and today the white house tried to distance the president from him. >> sarah, can you just explain what george papadopoulos' role with the campaign was? >> it was extremely limited. it was a volunteer position, and, again, no activity was ever done in an official capacity on behalf of the campaign in that regard. >> what about the outreach that he was making to campaign officials to try to put together this -- >> you mean the outreach that was repeatedly denied and pushed away and said we're not going to take any action on that? >> can you explain what happened with his outreach? >> he reached

george papadopoulos. broadest charges for paul manafort and richard gates, ten counts for work in the ukraine. centers on three lies. foreign lobbying, money they made doing it and taxes they evaded. joining me barbara mcquade -- ken vogel and price, ned, i begin with you. here's why. this is documentation and a guilty plea for what looks like a real high level, sophisticated type of espionage, earlier than many realized or had been proven. your view of that part of the guilty plea today. >> what we read about in charging document for george papadopoulos, recalled aftermath of the june 9th meeting at trump tower. another intelligence operation. russians like any other sophisticated intelligence service don't go through the front door but back door with cutouts and maintain plausible deniability. this is exactly what this looks like nieks. we're to believe while traveling to italy from base in london, george papadopoulos bumped into a professor, learns that he's a trump campaign adviser and from there off

this photo was taken on march 31st, 2016, showing george papadopoulos at a meeting with trump and then senator jeff sessions, the head of the candidate's national security advisory council. and there's more. listen to what papadopoulos says in the legal document that lays out the offense to which he pled guilty. it says on or about march 31, 2016, defendant papadopoulos attended a national security meeting in washington, d.c. with then candidate trump and other foreign policy advisers for the campaign. when defendant papadopoulos introduced himself to the group, he stated in sum and substance that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then candidate trump and president putin. this is stunning. an offer to help arrange a meeting between donald trump himself and vladimir putin. and that's not all. there's also former trump campaign chairman paul manafort, a former campaign official and former campaign official rick gates under house arrest. manafort a $10 million bond. gates $5 million. they're charged with conspiracy against the u.s. and conspiracy to launder mone

trump stopped tweeting yesterday after his former campaign adviser george papadopoulos, it was announced he pled guilty to lying to the fbi. we'll speak with marcy wheeler, who sasays "george papadopopou's indictment is very, very bad news for attorney general jeff sessions." then democracy now! goes to puerto rico o where the app is investigating the $300 million contract between puerto rico's electrical power company in the tiny montana-based company whitefish named for the hometown of interior secretary ryan zinke. >> it truly is unnerving that anple can just swindle entire population when they are at its most vulnerable. amy: as puerto rico moves to cancel its contract with whitefish, wheels big with san juan mayor carmen yulin cruz about the reresponse to trump's attack and her v vision for the island's recovery. >> power is in just about the power grid. it is also about the ability that the puerto rican people may have in the years to come e to ensure there is appropriate economic developing an equally divided amongst all this 78 municipalities. amy: all that and more, coming up. w

enough for you, here's trump himself speaking to the washington post about that volunteer. >> george papadopoulos is an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy. excellent guy, part of the foreign policy team. >> and by the way, papadopoulos was a volunteer, just like paul man in a minority, in a sense. and kind of like the president himself who isn't taking a salary at all as president of the united states. this breaking news is crucial, it comes as mueller charges paul manafort and rick gates with 12 counts of criminal misconduct. $75 million of improper funds, including money laundering, both under house arrest tonight. their bond set at $10 million for paul manafort, 5 million for rick gates. the charges could result in 15 years in jail for manafort, 13 for gates. these are very serious charges tonight. earlier, sarah sanders dismissed all of it saying, it's not about manafort, gates or papadopoulos. no, guess what, it's about hillary clinton. >> today's nounsment has nothing to do with the president, the president's campaign or campaign activity. there's clear evidence of the clinton campaig

so on george papadopoulos here.you have this campaign adviser or the white house put it earlier today, this volunteer, pleading guilty to making a false statement to the fbi. after he lied with the interaction with foreign officials close to the russian government. your reaction, congresswoman? >> let's remember that when then-candidate trump was being interviewed by the editorial board by a newspaper and was asked who are the experts advising you on foreign affairs and it was one of the areas where he was seen to be vulnerable, the first name that pops into his head was george papadopoulos. you can label him a volunteer, the fact that he didn't get paid and a lot of people didn't get paid in the trump campaign did not mean that they weren't integral to their work in terms of working with the russians. >> sarah sanders was made aware of that by our own jim acosta in the briefing and she saturday, his name was just multiple names that were rattled off by the president and trying to diminish his role and volunteer, ex

manafort and his business partner rick gates and a guilty plea from former trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos. >> in his past manafort had worked for former head of the ukrainian government who was a russian sponsored candidate. and in fact when that candidate lost, he went back to putin's russia. and according to the allegations in this indictment that were unealed, millioned of dollars were fun eled secretly from that campaign to paul manafort. >> the manafort-gates indictments are minor compared to papadopoulos. >> rose: because. >> because papadopoulos as was just mentioned goes to the heart of the campaign. you read through the indictment, the facts as they are laid out, he is pleading guilty to lying now, right. but when you read exactly what they are saying happened, it is not just what he did, it is not just his contacts with the russians. st what the other people in the campaign said. >> rose: and we conclude with zubin mehta musical director for life at the israel philharmonic orchestra. >> conducting is communication. not only my so called interpretation of that symphony of beethov

this comes from george papadopoulos, the campaign's former foreign policy adviser. he admitted he lied to the fbi about his communications with russians and now we are hearing that he is indeed cooperating with authorities, could even more charges be filed against these two men? paul manafort who led the trump campaign for four months and his business associate rick gates who also worked on the campaign. the two just pleaded not guilty in court. right around the same time that that white house held its press briefing. >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. the real collusion scandal as we've said several times before has everything to do with the clinton campaign, fusion gps and russia. there's clear evidence of the clinton campaign colluding with russian intelligence to spread disinformation and smear the president to influence the election. we've been saying from day one there's been no evidence of trump-russia collusion and nothing in the indictment today changes that at