joining me now, julie, the president and his team clearly trying to diminish the importance of george papadopoulosen attended, papadopoulos proposed a campaign meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin, and donald trump doesn't respond. now, he may not respond because he didn't want to say no or embarrass the kid, but it's the type of thing you would think president trump might remember? >> two things the white house has been saying about george papadopoulos this week is that he was a low-level volunteer, and two, all of his overtures to campaign officials and people in the higher up campaign infrastructure were rebuffed, when he made the offers of reaching out to vladimir putin when he heard that there was somebody connected with russia who had incriminating e-mails with clinton, he was told, no, no, we are not interested in that. now we are learning he was not rebuffed, and part of his plea agreement did note he was encouraged to pursue a meeting with putin. we do know from what candidate trump was saying at the time and what he continued to say late in the campaign and after he was electe

the american jewish committee used trump foreign policy advisor george papadopoulos as a panelist in its republican national convention program, sitting alongside, get this, senator bob corker, delivering remarks. there's papadopoulos on the far left with republican congressman from the house foreign affairs committee, who were also on the the american jewish committee used trump foreign policy advisor george papadopoulos as a panelist in its republican national convention program, sitting alongside, get this, senator bob corker, delivering remarks. there's papadopoulos on the far left with republican congressman from the house foreign affairs committee, who were also on the panel. >> apart from personal experience, especially on iran, before i started working for the trump campaign i was based in london for the last seven or eight months. during my time in london i had an opportunity to meet with european energy companies and other commercial enterprises there in france,italy and the uk. >> you can almost see the thought bubbles of who is this dude. a british publication wrote george

if you're looking at this picture on screen there's george papadopoulos in the middle, donald trump onhe ends. right in between jeff sessions and papadopoulos is j.d. gordon. he now says to us on the record that then candidate trump heard him out, referring to george papadopoulos, then candidate trump heard out papadopoulos's pitch about meeting with vladimir putin. we've been reporting that senator sessions and now attorney general sessions knocked down the idea. and, of course, all of this is a very big interest to the special council's office, they want to know what the president's reaction was in the room that day. and according to j.d. gordon, at the very least, he heard him out. >> we're learning more before how president trump himself is reacting. the president was fuming, agonizing over the news of special council mueller's indictments. then the president spoke to the new york times and said he's not personally under investigation, and he was not angry at anybody. >> joining me now is tony is warts, contributor to the dangerous case of donald trump, a new book. >> i want to pla

because in those court papers that were unsealed earlier this week george papadopoulos had actually proposed a meeting in march of 2016, a meeting between president vladimir putin and then candidate donald trump. now, at that meeting where papadopoulos made this suggestion, jeff sessions was in attendance. we are told by a source who was in the room that sessions actually rejected this call for a meeting between putin and trump, saying we should not go there. now, again, anderson, that raised a number of lawmakers who i talked to today said well, why didn't segtsz disclose this during his testimony when he was asked over and over again about russian contacts. and even a republican, two senior republicans, chuck grassley of iowa, john cornyn, who is the number two republican in the overall senate, both said they want to learn more about this and grassley said he was looking into it and cornyn said it was a worthy area to explore. but democrats are going much more aggressively after this saying session may have to amend his testimony if he does not clarify exactly what happened soon. >> apprec

and you have this guy george papadopoulos who pled guilty in secret.is speaking directly to the heart of the campaign. i am surprised that robert mueller came out of the gate so aggressively with charges that are both broad and to the point. charlie: you said as he sat down what is key is papadopoulos. >> i think the manafort-gates indictments are minor compared to this. papadopoulos goes potentially to the heart of the campaign. if you read through the facts as they are laid out, he is pleading guilty to lying now, but when you read what they are saying happened, it is not just what he did, it is not just his contact with the russians, it is what the other people in the campaign said. for example, at one point there is a senior campaign aide who suggests that he go to russia in connection with him sending this information, talking about setting up meetings for trump with the russians. charlie: just to interrupt you, this is a staff member for the trump campaign suggesting he go to russia and meet with an official of the russian government? >> you shou

the american jewish committee used trump foreign policy advisor george papadopoulos as a panelist in its republican national convention program, sitting alongside, get this, senator bob corker, delivering remarks. there's papadopoulos on the far left with republican congressman from the house foreign affairs committee, who were also on the panel. >> apart from personal experience, especially on iran, before i started working for the trump campaign i was based in london for the last seven or eight months. during my time in london i had an opportunity to meet with european energy companies and other commercial enterprises there in france, it isitaly and uk. >> you can almost see the thought bubbles of who is this dude. a british publication wrote george papadopoulos, one of the business tycoon's foreign advisers shall said he had very productive talks with representatives of the foreign office in britain. two days after the inauguration of donald trump, the jerusalem post described a meeting between papadopoulos and regional leaders that occurred in washington, clearly referring to papa

and george papadopoulos was one of them. and it's a reminder, by the way, just to kind of step back from the russia stuff specifically. first of all, of just how unprepared donald trump was to become president. there's a lot of evidence he didn't expect to win when he did, had no transition plan really in place. we still have huge numbers of unfilled jobs. and you do see in places throughout the goth people who appear to be very unqualified, at least by historical standards forethe jobs they are getting. so i just want to point out this is an ongoing problem, not just a weird thing that was happening in the middle of the campaign. it's very endemic or emblematic of donald trump as a president. the guy wasn't ready to assume office and have the best people. but one consequence of this is that he's been poisoned by some of these frankly kind of weird character who came in. carter page is another one. a pretty unusual, mist earous guy and we're still trying to figure out who are these character who he opened the door to and wha

president, do you remember george papadopoulos during that march meeting? >> i don't remember much about that meeting. it was very unimportant meeting. don't remember much about it. >> do you stand by your claim that you never -- the campaign never talked to anybody from russia? do you stand by that claim? >> all i can tell you is this, there was no collusion. >> for days the white house insisted that papadopoulos was a low level adviser with little to no contact with the president. in the past they denied there was talk of russia or collusion during the campaign but court documents unsealed on monday, contradict that narrative. in those documents he reveals during the meeting he told trump he had russian connections and offered to set up a meeting between the then republican nominee and president putin. sessions dismissed the idea of a putin meeting. also in attendance was jeff sessions whose sworn testimony in october 18th is at odds with what we know now. >> you don't believe that surrogates from the trump campaign hr communications with the russians, is

and that wasn't just george papadopoulos. it was others as well. and it's entirely consistent with the previous stories of don junior and the meeting he held at trump tower. whether you use the word collusion or not, what you have here is the russian government serving up assist toons the trump campaign and the trump campaign chasing that assistance. and that is common cause with a hostile power to interfere in an election. got this person who says they're representing the russian government and they've got clinton e-mails, they don't know what to do with it, and then you've got the e-mail from don junior and then the hacks become public. take a listen. >> i don't think anyone knows it's russia that broke into the dnc. she's saying russia, russia, russia maybe it was. it could be russia but it could be china. it could be lots of people. it could be sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. you don't know who broke into dnc. >> is it plausible to you that the president, that then candidate trump did not know? >> it's completely implausible. it wa

said there, heidi the renewed scrutiny of jeff sessions over what he told congress, now what george papadopoulos revealed, sessions apparently shot down a papadopoulos pitch to set up a meeting with trump and putin, but sessions never mentioned this when asked in testimony whether any trump company folks had contacts with russians. so how big a problem is this? >> reporter: of course, alex the big news in the past 24 hours is sessions was also apparently told by carter page in another exchange about his meeting going to russia. and here's the problem for jeff sessions. in isolation, any one of these incidents could be very plausible that he just didn't recall having been told about the campaign's official or unofficial contacts with russians. but taken together, they do present a troubling pick for some members of congress like al franken, who say that jeff sessions potentially even perjured himself before congress, because you take papadopoulos meeting, you take the carter page meeting, then you take session' own meeting with sergei kislyak and that raises suspicions by members of congress who

attorney general, jeff sessions was part of a discussion involving then candidate trump and george papadopoulos with vladimir putin. sources say papadopoulos discussed his conversations with russians in a meeting of trump's foreign policy team. sessions was there. trump was there. this is important far lot of reasons. not least of which, last month sessions testified to your committee and here is part of your exchange with him. >> you don't believe that surrogates from the trump campaign had communications with the russians? is that what you are saying? >> i did not and i am not aware of anyone else and i don't believe it happened. >> you don't believe -- >> i don't think it happened. >> so -- >> we know he did hear about at least one of those conversations in a meeting with trump himself. is sessions being honest to you? >> well, again, he seems to have problems telling the truth on this subject. during the confirmation hearings, in response to a question of mine, he said he had not met with russians during the campaign. turns out he met with the ambassador from russia three times during the c

>> not that i'm aware of. >> well, we also have a new report from nbc news about george papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi and is cooperating with robert mueller's campaign. nbc news reports that papadopoulos repeatedly represented the trump campaign, like here in july during the republican national convention where he spoke on a foreign policy panel hosted by the american jewish committee. he's sitting on the left of your screen, along with two members of congress, senator bob corker, who is making the statement at the podium, or here, for instance, in a september interview with the russian enter fax news agency. we'll show you that in a second where he's described -- here it is, where he's described as one of u.s. presidential candidate donald trump's foreign political advisers since march of 2016. or even after the election, as nbc reports, he met with israeli leaders during the inauguration in january as a foreign policy adviser for the newly sworn in president. today as the president was leaving for hawaii, reporters asked him about this march 2016 meeting,

you can see george papadopoulos there. now, the person who is seated in between george papadopoulos and jeff sessions at the end of that table, you can see it on screen now, j.d. gored. he's a former national security official with the trump campaign. he now tells us, don, on the record that then candidate trump listened to george papadopoulos's pitch for a meeting between then candidate trump and russian president vladimir putin in the words of j.d. gordon, quote, "he heard him out." now, from what we understand from our reporting, and my colleague manu raju has been on this as well, at the time senator jeff sessions shut down that idea at the meeting, and it's believed according to our sources that at that point george papadopoulos decided to go on his own and try to set up some of these meetings, contacts between the campaign and the russians. i can tell you, don, from talking to j.d. gordon earlier this evening, he also wanted to put out something of a brief statement because there have been some questions about what s

the president telling report erhe doesn't remember much about a meeting where george papadopoulos proposed a meeting with putin. all this as the special counsel's probe moves into overdrive with the first indictments against top inciders. paul manafort is tentatively scheduled to face trial on may 7th along with rick gates. i'll talk with leon pa debt ta a member of the house foreign affai affairs, ted lieu. first let's go to cnn's ryan nobles with more on the president and his message. ryan, the president is beginning a hi high stakes trip to asia, but we haven't seen much talking or tweeting about that. >> that's right. he's only talked and tweeted about the trip in general terms but still weighing in and giving his opinion on a wide variety of topics even as he makes his way to hawaii aboard air force one. president trump took off from washington today for the longest trip of his presidency and quickly got right back to tweeting writing bern knee sanders reporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the democrat primary. i always felt i would be running and winnin

>> not that i'm aware of. >> we have new report from nbc about george papadopoulos who has pleaded gilt to lying to the fbi and is cooperating with mueller's campaign. nbc news report that papadopoulos repeatedly represented the trump campaign where he spoke on a foreign policy panel hosted by the american jewish committee. he's sitting on the left of your screen along with two members of congress. senator bob corker whose making the statement at the podium. or here at the interview. where he's described add one of u.s. presidential candidate donald trump's foreign political advisers since march of 2016. or even after the election has nbc reports. he met with the inaugural leader in vjanuary for the foreign policy of the president sworn in in the election. before the president left the country he was asked about this meeting. a source tells nbc it was at this meeting that papadopoulos offered to use his russian contacts to try and set up a meet lg between trump and vladimir putin. here's what the president said today about that meeting. >> mr. president do you remember george papadopoul

that persisted. >> it comes on the heels of the questions regarding sessions meetings with george papadopoulos, of course. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. and as jim mentioned, jeff sessions was at the meeting when papadopoulos floated the idea of a putin/trump meeting and we're told by a person in the room that sessions rejected that meeting from actually taking place. so the question is, again from democrats and republicans that i spoke to today, why didn't jeff sessions disclose this? democrats calling on him to testify again before congress and explain what happened, to amend his testimony. but even some top republicans today telling me today perhaps they'd want to look into this further. senator chuck grassley, the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, said, quote, he's looking into it. and john cornyn, the number two republican in the senate who sits on two of the key committees, also told me this is something that's a legitimate question to explore and they want to get more information about that. so the question is not going away, anderson. >> manu, appreciate that. >>> now the

what do we know about george papadopoulos? we know he got arrested in august, and he was cooperating with mueller since then, but we didn't find out about that until monday. so i think it's safe to assume that these other little fish, like carter page, might be cooperating. certainly mueller will try to turn ryan, mr. ryan, who was arrested along with mr. manafort, ryan is, kind of manafort's boy. he's his associate. he'll be relatively easy, i think, to get to cooperate with the government. he might give up the goods on people like his boss, manafort. that's how these cases are made. it's like "law & order" that tv show, investigators go from office to office asking questions, building clues that ultimately leads them to the big kahuna. >> that of course is the president of the united states. getting us back to donald trump's consistent seeming desire to rid himself of mueller. he obviously fired james comey, jared kushner and others rooting him on to do that. he can't outright fire mueller. he can't get the attorney general

but under a legal strategy, do you think calling george papadopoulos low level george will do him anygood? >> based on conversations he's advised to layoff on conversations with special consul mueller, to let it proceed carefully. but there are many conservative allies on capitol hill who are telling the president privately to engage with mueller in a more combative way. this is the tension we're detecting at the post. the president yoz you said is protect projecting calm in a "the new york times" interview. but tensions are running high because they know these indictments may not be the end of the story. in fact, they may just be the beginning. >> jen iffnifer, let me pick upt point with you. i can't think of anyone more impervious than bob mueller. can you talk about the investigation and the political climate and the chaos created by donald trump and his political associates and surrogates. >> well, i think they're certainly trying to stay insulated from that. at some level they can't avoid some of what's going on, and as you know they're not completely insulated because they could

going to have to find ways to deconflict and i think we will do that. >> have you interviewed george papadopoulosten, i'm not going to talk about which witnesses that we've seen or not seen, but the chairman and i did indicate that mr. papadopoulos had been on our screen for a long time. >> okay. so you're not confirming or denying whether you've interviewed him? >> again, what the chairman and i have said is we don't comment on specific witnesses, but we put out a joint statement that mr. papadopoulos had been on our screen for a long time. >> let me ask you about former national security adviser michael flynn and his son michael g. flynn. i know there were reports that your committee was meeting resistance from them when it comes to cooperating with your investigation. are you still meeting that same resistance with the two of them? >> chuck, again, the way we get the kind of cooperation with the witnesses is frankly to not share the kind of weekly box score of who we've seen and who we've not seen. we've got a lot of folks that we have seen. we've got more folks that we need to. at the end of

. >> el presidente trump le quitÓ importancia al palmdale asesor george papadopoulos en su campaÑa electoraldependiente de cual haya sido el papel que jugÓ en la campaÑa de donald trump lo cierto es que george papadopoulos estÁ surgiendo como una pieza clave para aclarar la trama rusa. >> casi no ve les con sobre quÉ rol ha jugado * los Últimos 75 dÍas para tomar evidencia para acumular evidencia, para traer evidencia al magistrado especial. >> george papadopoulos fue arrestado en julio despuÉs de negociar su declarÓ culpable de mentirle al fbi sobre su contactos con rusos ahora es repudiado por la casa blanca, en twitter el presidente trump dijo que pocas personas conocÍan al joven voluntario llamado george quien ha demostrado ser un mentiroso. pero durante la campaÑa el presidente dijo lo opuesto (informaciÓn en pantalla). >> la acusaciÓn detalla como george papadopoulos se ofreciÓ para coordinar una reuniÓn con putin y trump, ese supervisor se distinto fui ko como... quien hoy negÓ haber promovido se contactara a las rusos, en canto el mandatario estuvo pendientes y al menos un diario rep

george papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant. excellent guy. >> that same month. as photographed at a foreign policy meeting with candidate trump and future attorney general jeff sessions. the white house said mr. trump barely remembers papadopoulos. this was the president last week. >> one of the great memories of all time. >> today press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said the campaign turned over papadopoulos's e-mails to special counsel. communication between papadopoulos and sam clovis, trump campaign national co-chairman. the plea agreement citing eflt-mails said the campaign superviser told papadopoulos i would encourage you and foreign policy adviser to the campaign to make the trip to russia if it is feasible. but sanders tried to contradict that account today. my understanding is there wasn't encouragement. >> clovis nominated to top scientific post at department of agriculture, despite questions raised by top senate democrat on the agriculture committee, the white house see no reason to withdraw his nomination. >> major gar aet agarett again white hous

now, though, in the plea agreement just unsealed involving trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos, the government asserts and papadopoulos affirms that it's true that not only did he as part of the trump campaign have contacts with the russian government while he was working with the campaign, those conversations really were about the russians interfering in the campaign. by collecting dirt on hillary clinton and obtaining thousands of e-mail. papadopoulos asserts in a meeting during the campaign, which is pictured on the president's instagram account, papadopoulos told that national security meeting at which trump was present, and it was a group being chaired by jeff sessions, papadopoulos says he told that meeting that day that he was in contact with the russian government and was in a position to link the trump campaign up with the putin government, including for high-level meeting. the attorney general was there for that meeting, clearly. you see him on the left side of your screen. he said papadopoulos did raise that issue that that meeting with jeff sessions there but nevert

gordon, carter page, george papadopoulos, they all seemed like they were, you know, in the inner circlehe truth was that they were low level periphery figures and their reemergence into the debate is now sort of calling into question all of these important issues, and the bottom line is that, you know, we're going to have to wait and see if mueller can connect these issues, which at the time were sort of well known but not seen as important, to what actually happened, what actually was the russian interference, whether or not there was collusion. so far those connections have not been made or at least not made public. let's wait and see. >> got it. all fascinating, nonetheless. josh rogin, david swardlick, thanks so much, appreciate it. >>> all right, president trump embarking on the most ambitious trip of his presidency so far. the diplomatic stakes at play and what allies need to hear from him next. - [narrator] you hope nobody knows it's you. (toots) but you know it's you. so know this. the activated charcoal in charco caps adsorbs gas for fast gas relief without passing the gas. cha

with george papadopoulos, that's what got him in trouble. he lied to federal officials in lying about his conversations with russian officials. that's the problem with sessions. papadopoulos said it in front of sessions. sessions shot that down and later said there was never a discussion like that. >> so big picture here relative to papadopoulos, what you just said, that he offers to put a meeting together between the president and vladimir putin, is that the most egregious? is that the most interesting aspect to his level of involvement here? >> there's a couple things that are interesting about him. what we see from the very beginning, the moment he becomes a foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign in march 2016 is he sees his role as creating a close relationship between the campaign and russia. he then reaches out to or he is reached out to by russian agents. we know that he sat down with people acting on behalf of the russian government, people who had very close relationships with moscow and who then offered him e-mails, offered hi

anyone connected to the trump campaign. >> but sessions was present at a march 2016 meeting with george papadopouloso we now know pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about efforts to cooperate with kremlin proxies. and at that meeting, according to the court filings, papadopoulos stated to that group in sum and substance he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate trump and president putin. jennifer rubin, a columnist for "the washington post." jennifer, we should note that what's described in that plea document is not papadopoulos saying, you know, we can collude with the russians on something untoward. so it doesn't, you know, in and of itself show sessions to be lying or not realizicalling. but it puts sessions in some peril, don't you think? >> it does. people associated with the campaign making contact with the russians, that would surely encompass somebody trying to set up a secret meeting between putin and the president. then when you combine that with the fact that clovis, who was the senior policy person, is encouraging him to go down this route, you certainly

was part of the trump foreign policy team, the table for this meeting. >> george papadopoulos, excellent guy. >> reporter: but once papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with russia, it was a different story from the president. >> i don't remember much about that meeting, it was a very unimportant meeting. took place a long time. don't remember much about it. >> reporter: a presidential tweet called papadopoulos a low level volunteer. >> what papadopoulos did was lie, and that's on him, not on the campaign. >> reporter: now, a person with direct knowledge of the russia investigation, says the president's words have upset george papadopoulos. that he was only trying to be loyal to donald trump when he lied to the fbi, not wanting to contradict what the president had already said about campaign contacts with russia. >> it's all fake news. it's phony stuff. it didn't happen. >> reporter: papadopoulos tried to stick to the official line, telling fbi agents, that his contacts with russia "occurred before" he joined the trump campaign. that was not true. it was onl

with a welcome to you, barbara, i want to start with the new reporting from nbc news on george papadopoulos. now, although the president has been calling him a low-level employee and a liar, public records are revealing that papadopoulos repeatedly represented the trump campaign, including on the panel you're about to see for the american jewish committee. it happened during last year's republican national convention in cleveland. could the president's attempts to diminish papadopoulos' role, could that amount to obstruction of justice? >> well, the things he says in the public domain are statements that could be used against him later. i don't know that any of these statements in isolation could be used to build an obstruction of justice case, but i think at some point the collective totality of all of his statements do begin to look like a pattern of obstruction of justice, especially when you couple it with some of the more overt things that he's alleged to have said to jim comey. >> okay. what about papadopoulos, for his part, because we have learned that he has pled guilty to lie to th

sentÓ junto a otro asesor, gordon qquien declarÓ a univisiÓn: me sorprendió saber lo que es george papadopouloscÓ que fuentes rusas querÍan reunirse con donald trump. le respondieron que eso no sucederÍa. en la corte federal en washington. marÍa elena: gracias. vamos a una pausa comercial y regresamos en unos momentos. ♪ gracias, ikea. juan no viene. pero mis primas acaban de confirmar, parece que conocerÉ a todos. la blogger de comida y la experta en vinos. sÍ y si. copas nivel experto. mi tÍo jorge confirmÓ. ¿el que siempre llega con una invitada? sÍ, nunca falla... pero estamos preparados. ¿cuÁl es tu sueÑo? en ikea te ayudamos a vivirlo. haz tuyo el sueÑo. ♪ marÍa elena: la violencia en mÉxico no da tregua. la actividad criminal de los cÁrteles de la droga, se han expandido. en oaxaca, grupos de hombres encapuchados sembraron el terror en los Últimos dÍas. la alarma por el aumento de los delitos es a nivel nacional. jessica: el terrorÍfico cortejo apareciÓ la semana pasada en las calles de loma bonita, en oaxaca. hombres encapuchados y fuertemente armados aparecieron montados en una decena

then the bombshell lands with george papadopoulos, here's a guy pleading guilty to admitting to lyingacts he had with the russians for purpose of helping donald trump. so that of course raises all kinds of questions about what happened there, what the follow up was, but certainly gives new energy to all of the investigations in terms of finding out what happened. >> in terms of the investigation though, we're really only seeing a tiny, little tip of the iceberg here. >> well, that's right. i mean, and give bob mueller his due. he's kept that very much under wraps. we didn't know until paul manafort walked into the courthouse and until the fbi released george papadopoulos plea what was happening. >> was papadopoulos someone on your radar? >> interesting, he was on our radar, and we wanted to interview him and we ended up not interviewing him. that may have been on the part of department of justice. >> because he may have been cooperating. >> he certainly was cooperating at that point, because he's been cooperating for months. chapter 2, that and along there are sealed indictments still

and just based on that plea agreement that's just been unsealed regarding george papadopoulos, i mean, clovis as papadopoulos's campaign supervisor, he has obvious exposure to matters that the special counsel is investigating. in the plea agreement, papadopoulos said he was advised by his russian contacts that they had dirt on hillary clinton and that they had thousands of e-mails. it doesn't say anywhere in the plea agreement whether or not papadopoulos tried to obtain that dirt from the russians or those thousands of e-mails. it also doesn't say in the plea agreement if he told his superiors on the trump campaign that the russians told him they had dirt on clinton and thousands of e-mails. it doesn't say whether he ever tried to arrange any exchange or delivery of information from his russian sources up the chain of command on the trump campaign. but we do know that sam clovis was his campaign supervisor and we dou know from the plea agreement and papadopoulos's guilty plea that he did have those conversations with the russians and he was in frequent contact with the trump campaign,

the mueller indictment revealed that a trump adviser, george papadopoulos was doing all sorts of thingsolving russians. on march 6, we know papadopoulos made arrangements to meet the foreign adviser. he was joining an unusual campaign with an unusual posture for a republican within a week, trump told a rally this. >> putin said good things about me. he said he is the leader and there's no question about it. he's a genius. so them to the media, you saw it in the debate. they said you admire putin. emi don't admire him. i am he was a strong leader which he is. he might be bad. he might be good but he's a strong leader. >> within two days, papadopoulos was then abroad meeting with a man claiming putin connections and one week later, trump announces him as a campaign adviser. >> we heard you might be announcing your foreign policy advisory team soon. >> if you want i can give you some of the names. george papadopoulos. he's an oil and energy consultant. excellent guy. >> then trump said this the same day. >> putin says very nice things about me. i think that's very nice. it has no effect on

court document that is public that we know about this pivotal march 31st meeting, 2016 where george papadopoulos apparently made the pitch to set up a meeting between candidate trump and vladimir putin. let me read this from court documents. 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. he stated in sum and substance he had connections that could arrange a meeting between then president trump and president putin. he worked with the female russian national to arrange a meeting and took steps to advise the campaign of his progress. there's the meeting. and this is the crux of the matter as to whether or not people in the campaign knew that there were efforts to arrange a meeting with russians. >> i don't know what it gets you in the end legally. when people said it wasn't said or people weren't there, it has legal relevance. for the president to have sat in and heard this guy out doesn't amount to much of anything. >> not even if they lied about it? >> not what was heard out but what w

george papadopoulos was sitting in the room. we've seen the picture where he said he'd been meet ing with russians who want to meet with the candidate then running for the president of the united states right now. there seems to be an issue of either a memory or truth telling here. >> that is correct. he's testified now three times. and every time there's been more questions for him to clarify something from before. he's been very hinky. we need to look at this in the big picture. there's a statistically improbable number of russian contacts with this campaign. apart from sessions, we have russian lawyers, russian billionaires, russian professors, i mean, this is like, gilligan's island with russian spies and the trump campaign was in the middle of it. and as the primary law enforcement officer of the united states, the attorney general, he should not only be concerned about this, but he should be proactively scouring his memory to give the information to congress on his own and not be waiting for them to ask questions. i will s

he also said he did not recall george papadopoulos suggesting a meeting between president putin of russia and candidate donald trump. only until recently did he learn about this. the 88-year-old top democrat on the committee john conyers told me perhaps jeff sessions has a memory issue because he's getting, quote, old. this is a criticism, however, that republicans are saying is just simply unfair. >> do you solemnly swear -- >> reporter: attorney general jeff sessions testifying that he now remembers a march 2016 meeting with george papadopoulos, a campaign adviser who wanted to set up a meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. >> i do now recall that the march 2016 meeting at the trump hotel that mr. papadopoulos attended, but i have no clear recollection of the details of what he said at that meeting. >> reporter: sessions in previous testimony said he was not aware of any communications between campaign surrogates and the russians. papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to the fbi about his russian contacts. sessions went on to say rejected papadopoulos' reques

and then george papadopoulos, a guy admitting to lying about contacts he had with the russians for the purpose of helping donald trump. so that, of course, raises all kinds of questions what happened there, what the follow-up was, but it certainly gives new energy to all the investigations in terms of finding out what happened. >> in terms of the investigation, though, we're only seeing a tiny -- the tip of the iceberg here? >> that's right. give bob mueller his due. he kept that under wraps. we didn't know until paul manafort walked into the courthouse and the fbi released the george papadopoulos plea what was happening. >> was papadopoulos somebody who was on youon your radar? >> he was and we wanted to interview him and he end up not interviewing him. that may have been deliberate on the department of justice. >> he was cooperating at that point? >> he was because he had been cooperating for months, which points to us chapter 2, that along with the fact that are sealed indictments still at doddoj. now part of now paul manafort has incentive to come totally clean about his contact wi

it's been there for a while now that george papadopoulos, the former adviser to the campaign made this pitch to then candidate trump at the meeting he could set up this meeting between trump and vladimir putin. also in the room was then senator and now attorney general jeff sessions. we told you a couple days ago, this was brought up in the meeting and sessions shut it down. the man in between sessions and papadopoulos there, he is now confirming to cnn at that meeting, then candidate trump heard out george papadopoulos. that's very important. because that is not what the white house is telling us, i asked the white house press secretary about this yesterday, whether the president recalls that kind of conversation going on at that meeting. here's what happened. >> does the president recall at that march 31st, 2016 meeting, mr. papadopoulos suggesting a meeting between then candidate trump and vladimir putin. does he recall that? >> no, i don't believe he does. >> you have sarah sanders saying she doesn't believe the president remembers having that conversation, hearing out george papad

george papadopoulos told sessions. he met with kislyak. >> you take the conversation between page, sessions and papadopoul papadopoulos. in a vacuum, i'm with phil. you talk to a lot of people. i understand that. the problem is context matters. we know under oath jeff sessions said he had not had any contact with any russian officials during 2016 campaign. we know he met with sergey kislyak. and to me even more damning in september 2016, he and kislyak met in his senate office. the way that sessions gets around that right now is to say that was in my capacity as a senator not as a surrogate for trump. i don't know how you draw that line. i have little kids so i compare it to my kid not bringing the homework hard. first time, honest mistake. you have a lot of stuff going on. >> you're playing with your friends, fine. the second time, well, you know, got to get on that. . the kid forgets his homework a third time and you may not want to be doing your homework. so context and what's come before matters. and i think that's

become real to them this week with the indictments against paul manafort and rick gates and george papadopoulos popping up. the question is who is next. they are talking about that. i was on the phone with someone who is under scrutiny who said why are you calling me. do you know something i don't know? so they are a little panicked this week. >> is that because they don't know who is cooperating with the f.b.i., who they can trust or can't trust? >> i think there's some of that at play here. this person told me that everyone in the inner circle is possibly a target. and they are wondering who is cooperating or who is not cooperating. so there's a lot of uncertainty but they are definitely feeling the heat. >> at least we got more proof this week that people in the trump orbit knew about the stolen clinton e-mails well before rest of us and maybe before they were given to wickileaks. but knowing about the e-mails is not the same as colluding. >> that is true. but if you look at the time l e line, and that is what has been so revealing this week, some of this information that george papadopoulos

george papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his relationship with the russians. with me is a reporter with the new york times. let's do the timeline. paul manafort joins the campaign to wrangle delegates and he is out in august. all of this has to do with the campaign and this indictment has to do with his work in the ukraine. why is this relevant? >> before he joined the campaign, paul manafort was working abroad at the intersection of business and politics and would export american-style campaign consulting to the ukraine and do business with oligarchs in the ukraine and russia and he had these business ties. where this connects is, he was coming to the trump campaign and he was in contact with some of the oligarchs and the russian contact. it appears that he owed a lot of debt and had outstanding financial relationships with people in eastern europe and russia and that is the crux of why there might be more here for the council and the reason he is in trouble is, as he was working for the ukraine, he was lying about working for the ukraine. if you are working