joel zam p.el's lawyer says his client never pitched such a proposal at all. he told us "mr. zamel offered o'nothing to the trump campaign, received nothing from the trump campaign, delivered nothing to the trump campaign and was not solicited by or asked to do anything for the trump campaign." okay. what we do know from previous "new york times" reporting is that mr. zamel was stopped at a wshd wshd airport in february and had his electronics seized by federal agents working for the special counsel. mr. zamel also reportedly later appeared before the grand jury that's been impaneled by the special counsel. his lawyer says he's just a witness in the probe. but this reporting about a supposedly offered social media manipulation proposal possibly related to this offer of help from the emirates and saudi arabia, this is all new. it's also super weird, right? because this trump tower meeting was in august 2016. we know by then a social media manipulation project that sounds an awful lot like that was already happening in the presidential campaign. it was what we've come to know as the

at the meeting said knotter joel zamel or his related entities had any involvement whatsoever in the u.s. election campaign. that would seem to directly fly in the face of the reporting and that which you have just said to me. >> no, you just quoted from a comment we published in our reporting. we have -- >> but the lawyer is denying any involvement whatsoever. >> no, what we have said is that the question of whether was any execution, everybody acknowledging the fact, whether this was executed or not is still to be determined. this was the meeting donald trump junior acknowledged the fact that these three individuals would work to support campaign and said nothing came out of that and robert mueller has been investigating a lot of people regarding the work of these companies and the main suspicion that he is trying to check is whether another country besides russia has offered or was involved in any kind of support to the trump campaign. >> and how long or precisely when do you know when robert mueller began this avenue of his investigation? >> yes, in january. what we believe happe

also there was joel zamel who attended meetings as well.with us, ranking congress member adam schiff. so is there anything wrong with trump campaign advisers, including the president's son, meeting with these guys? >> certainly if it's for the purpose of obtaining help from a former power, friendly or unfriendly, during the election is a big problem. i have to imagine the special counsel counsel has interest in this not only of its own right, this may be a separate violation of u.s. law, but it also sheds light on the president's son and campaign manager son-in-law in their attempt with a trump tower meeting with russians. you also have to be concerned with, why are so many foreign powers interested in the campaign that the trump family is willing to play ball? basically, if we give you help in the presidential election or we support you thereafter, what are you willing to do in terms of u.s. policy and sanctions in ukrai ukraine, wraith respect to zte d china, is it for sale? committees in congress need to be looking at these issues and ma

"the new york times" reports the israeli specialist, joel zamel, had already written a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation campaign aimed at helping trump win ahead of the august 3 meeting, which was organized by erik prince, the head of the now defunct mercenary firm blackwater. "the new york times" also reports george nader told donald trump, jr. that both the saudi and emirati princes wanted to help trump win the election. while it is not known whether the multimillion-dollar media manipulation proposal was ever put into effect, "the new york times" reports that after trump won the election, george nader paid joel zamel, the israeli specialist, up to $2 million. in response to "the new york times" expose, president trump launched a tweet storm sunday, in which he lashed out at both "the new york times" and special counsel robert mueller's investigation. in one of the tweets he wrote -- "the failing and crooked @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the world's most expensive witch hunt has found nothing on russia & me so now they are looking at

and they brought with them also joel zamel. he's an israeli citizen.eresting social media company that's kind of an intelligence company really. it employs several people who used to work in israeli intelligence, and it offers to kind of, well, control reality is its motto. and they make various presentations. nader says that my friend the crown prince who runs the uae very much wants to help you get elected. mr. zamel lays out the things the company could do to try to help. it's not clear whether he made an explicit pitch. but when we contacted donald trump jr., he recalls it as a pitch. they came in and they were pitching services to try to help the campaign. >> so what came of the meeting? >> well, that's a good question. it's not entirely clear what happened in terms of active contributions to the campaign, but funnily enough, given that it's illegal for foreign governments or foreigners to try to help a campaign, george nader was not -- and mr. george zamel were not kicked out then and there. they appear to have been embraced. that was the beginni

yet there is this large payment from george nader to another affiliated company, joel zamel, aft $2 million. we are still trying to figure out what the money was for and exactly what work was done and whether zamel's company was the only one of these companies that does this kind of work that was involved. there's still questions we need answered. >> there's also questions about cambridge analytica which was offering the same sort of thing, not to get this all confused. but according to reporting, what do robert mueller and his team know about this? >> mueller's been on this line of inquiry for some months. george nader got taken off a plane in january when he landed at dulles airport and brought before the grand jury. and since then, there have been numerous interviews with people affiliated with this whole line of inquiry involving the gulf, saudi arabia and the uae. mueller's investigators have been to tel aviv. they've been all around pulling people off planes when they land in the united states, getting -- seizes electronics, laptops, trying to understand where this all goes. so we alw

there along with george nader, who has been cooperating with robert mueller's investigation and joel zamel heads up a social media consulting firm. what's your sense given all of this? what does it tell but what this campaign of willing to entertain back in 2016? >> david, it just really surprising. there's always countries unhappy with the status quo and unhappy with parties and their policies. what brought this disparate group together, israeli, saudis, and the uae is this real unhappiness with the iran deal. none of them liked the deal obama had done in iran. they all thought it hillary would be re-elected that she would continue and strengthen that deal so they wanted to work against it. but what's striking here is that there's always, again, unhappiness from our foreign either allies in this case or adversaries, if you look with russia at what's going on with the way america decide things internally. but this absolute comfort in approaching campaigns is really unique this time around. it's almost unheard of to have presidential campaigns meet with these kinds of folks. they usually me

the social media specialist, joel zamel, extolled his company's ability to give an edge to a political campaign. by that time the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect mr. trump. is it legal, in your view? >> it seems pretty straightforward, don. it plays as one more little thing for trump jr. i don't understand the casualness. it's a federal crime to solicit anything of value from a foreign national, even from trump jr.'s act where he rebuffed the offer. it seems he was straightforward soliciting something of value, but if $2 million payments were made after, it seems to me of par with the russian meeting overall and a serious charge for trump jr. >> is it illegal in your view, michael? >> it could be. it depends on the circumstances. if this was a solicitation as was just said of something of value that's willful, then it's a potential violation of campaign finance laws. at this point i don't think we know enough to absolutely conclude that, but we do know that this meeting, along with the june 9th meeting, combi

prince, brother of betsy devos, education secretary, george nader and another individual who may be joel zamelched mr. trump on a social media platfor or marketing strategy. he was not interested and that was the end of it. you don't take the seat. >> 100%. i love it. that was the prospect of him getting dirt from a russian on hillary clinton. we don't have to speculate about the law. i certainly don't since i'm not a lawyer. having followed the presidency and elections, i can tell you this is so dangerous. and this is why, whether you support trump or don't or you like the idea that he was an outsider, when you have people that don't have the experience in foreign affairs or elections, this is the kind of stuff that can happen. you have the president's son as a senior adviser who want to curry favor or somehow influence an incoming administration, you stay away from those meetings. and when you have the candidate out there as he was in the summer of 2016 encouraging the russians to hack find dnc e-mails and hillary clinton e-mails. it's beyond responsible. people who actually know foreign aff

to the 2016 he called a meeting with eric prince, george nader and another individual who may be joel zamel. he was not interested and that was the end of it. a lot of reports on this. there are some public events on the president's schedule today. eric: devin nunes addressed the president's accusations about this informant. >> if any of that is true. if they ran a spy ring or informant ring and were paying people within the trump campaign. if any of that is true, that's an absolute red line. eric: joining us is steven elroy. so basically is it proper for the fbi to use an informant of an investigation of individuals and the russian contacts or do you think this was a politically motivated spy operation. >> i think it's appropriate. it's a routine thing the fbi does is use a confidential informant. president trump says they did this before they found out about russian interference in the election and it was a general motivation to get the trump campaign. but what you heard from the report, actually that's not the case. the decision to reach out to the confidential informant was prompted by

also in and it attendance was joel zamel. the meeting was arranged by erik prince, the brother of betsy devos and the founder of the security firm blackwater. according to the times zamel had drawn up a proposal to use thousands of social media accounts to promote trump on facebook. the "times" source said trump responded approvingly. joining me now clint watts. jennifer reuben of the "the washington post," malcolm nance, and matthew miller, and i'm going to start with you on this clint, we have two meetings. the trump tower meeting with russians that involved donald trump jr., jared kushner, paul manafort, who is then the campaign chair, natalia veselnitskaya, and a rob goldstone. that's meeting number one, june. two months later, another meeting, same venue, time you have donald trump jr., different cast of characters, erik prince, george nader and joel zamel. you want to focus on the social media manipulation. the first meeting was about having dirt straight out provided by the russians on hillary clinton. this, was about

joel zamel, israeli social media expert, also was in the meeting. a source tells the "times" that the president's son approved and became a close campaign ally. donald trump jr.'s lawyer tells cnn that the president's son was not interested, and that was the end of it. president trump responding to the report by sending a flurry of tweets, criticizing mueller's probe and insisting the witch-hunt finds no collusion with russia, so now they are looking at the rest of the world. so we are now seeing the president and his lawyer rudy guiliani trying to set essentially a deadline for mueller of the midterms, communicating that it would be political if it is going on past that. the president today is going to langley, cia headquarters to swear in gina haspel. so far no tweets about the special counsel investigation yet. >> the irony alert that donald trump doesn't want this type of investigation to get involved after all the drum beating he did about the clinton probe. kaitlan collins, thank you so much. let's bring in cnn analyst david gregg skpreu cnn l

erik prince and joel zamel. nader reportedly told trump jr. that the crown princes were eager to help trump win and they had drawn up a multi million dollar proposal. times notes that the details behind who commissioned the proposal or whether it was executed z remain unclear but that a person with knowledge of the meeting said trump jr. quote responded approvingly. let's bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor, barbara mcquaid and john cipher. what do you make of this meeting? could don jr. be in trouble? >> yeah. you know, the facts always matter in these kinds of situations. it remineses me of the june 2016 meeting where we've got forei foreigners offering to assist in the election. there are campaign finance laws that make it illegal to slolici things of value from foreign nationals. it could include cash or also services and in-kind contributio contributions. there could be criminal activity. if there was some sort of quid pro quo, if you help me with the election we will benefit you later when he's president, there could be p

nader, an emissary for saudi arabia and the united arab emirates and a israeli social media expert joel zamel. it certainly got the president's attention yesterday when he quoted the time's piece was a, quote, long and boring story. ryan goodman, general counsel from the department of defendant and co-editor of the chief of the just security blog which is a great read you should be checking out. and jonathan chafe. >> there are a couple of implications to it. the first one would be this is another indication of a campaign violation. you're not supposed to take any support from a foreign national. and "the new york times" report says that don jr. responded approvingly. so everybody at that meeting's got a serious legal issue if the reporting is correct. the second item is that erik prince actually testified to congress and seemed to omit this particular meeting. we could call that a concealment of a material fact. in other words, it's a federal violation. it's a perjury if in fact the meeting took place and he decided to not tell congress than an instead to tell congress another story about a

metta long with erik prince, the private security contractor and black water founder, joel zamel an israelier who told don junior that the princes who led saudi arabia and the u.a.e. were eager to help his father win election as president. it is a known known that bob mueller is looking into contacts between foreign governments and the trump campaign. one of the reporters who broke that story said on msnbc earlier, what's been striking is this appears to be a pretty active line of inquiry. joining us on set now, michael steele, former chair of the rnc. what do you make of this crush of reporting over the weekend about bob mueller's clear lines of investigation? he's following the money wherever it leads. it's not just ties to russia that are under scrutiny. it's ties to mid east governments and all the consultants that brought them into trump tower. we have another meeting with don junior as the common denominator. he obviously saw himself as, i don't know, some sort of c consigliary for his father, people come in want to bring posters, he brought in foreign governments. >> couple things. o

joel zamel i believe is also fielding questions from robert mueller and his team. you wonder what the heck was going on. >> right. i think this was hugely important in that it shows a coordinated pattern or practice on the part of the trump campaign. who's the one person that was in both of those meetings? don jr. i'm talking about the june 2016 meeting as well as now this additional august 2016 meeting. and it shows this willingness on the part of sort of high-level campaign officials within the trump campaign of soliciting and accepting help in their campaign efforts. and it is illegal. i don't need to remind everybody that it is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to campaigns. and the question -- the wording of that statute is, it is illegal to accept anything sort of "of value." so in the august meeting, the question is whether or not there was sort of value presented there. and the wording is also direct versus indirect. if you're talking about sort of indirectly helping a social media campaign, does that violate the law. we're in really uncharted sor

best san antonio as founder of blackwater that worked in iraq, and with him were george nader and joel zamel. mr. nader has been in the news recently because he was presenting himself as an emmiss taker from the united arab emirates and saudi arabia. he is certainly a close adviser to the crown prince who runs united arab emirates. and he was in this meeting saying we want to help you, we the crown princes of saudi arabia and united arab emirates want to help president trump get elected. and he brought along mr. zamel who is an israeli citizen and he owns a business that does social media campaigning, that promises to sort of shape reality or shape opinion on the part of its clients. and according to the statement that we got from donald trump jr., what was presented to him that day was a proposal for a social media campaign or platform to help with the election. help from a foreign fwoechltsgo or even foreign citizens to a political campaign as you know is illegal. and we don't know what happened next. but the apparent answer from the trump campaign was not we should call the fbi. it was no

and erik prince and george nader and joel zamel. >> i have not but what i am hoping to see is congressill actually start looking into this because the link that natasha mentioned may be difficult to get unless there is some form of investigation. >> thank you both very much for your time. >> coming up the woman who could be the next governor of the lone star state, that's next. for all the noses that stuff up around pets. there's flonase sensimist. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. i had a very minor fender bender tonight! in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part. like fact that they'll just... forgive you... four weeks without the car. okay, yup. good night. with accident forgiveness your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is