thank you ken delaney. what was discussed in the big first meeting in helsinki. is he, the secretary of state in the trump loop. making extreme campaign ad and

administtor while he's also narrowing his supreme court short list tonight joining us now is nbc's ken delaney look at the letter that pwitt gave the president, and he cites unrelenting attacks on him and his family, but that is guyd w re than a dozen ethics inquiries and investigations too. >> reporter: absolutely, jim. this has bn going oor months and he benefitted from the fact that there's so many other trumpwi scandals b in washington. he didn't always make the top of the news or the front page headline but he's been under fire over lavish spending and ethics concerns and asking staff elp family members looking for a chick-fil-a franchise for his wife. for example, he installed a $43,000 secure phone system. one of the stories that i really und most remarkable though was sticking his staff allegedly with hotelills that were booked on his behalf and his staff ended up having to payhe bills. just so many things with mr. prewitmr. mr. pruitt is when, how long, because donald trump liked his regulation policies and was happen enhe was cutting regulations but today it's a bridge too far and no

. >> so i'm joined now by nbc news intelligence and national security reporter, ken delaney. ken, can you explain this? details about a meeting before this meeting with the russians that everyone has talked about. >> reporter: as you can imagine, hallie, i've spent the last hour trying to get to the bottom of this. a source familiar with the congressional testimony of all these participants, paul manafort, donald trump jr., jared kushner and michael cohen said none of them brought up the idea there was a premeeting, a strategy session to talk about how to approach this infamous trump tower meeting with the russians. and as we parsed rudy guiliani's words there, what he seems to be saying or could be saying is that michael cohen is now saying that such a meeting took place with these other people. and that these other people deny that. so there seems to be a dispute about whether there was such a meeting. but even that is huge news. never before discussed or revealed to the public. if that's cohen's story now. because what it would suggest is that this meeting, far from the not

for more let's bring in nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney. n, thanks for joining us. there is -- everyone trying to figure out what abc news interview that michael cohen did part of a legal strategy or public relations strategy. now you've got him changing his on-line profile a bit. what do we make of that? >> well, one of the theories with that interview was that he was reaching out to donald trump almost asking in public for a pardon, saying look, i'm about to flip, mr. trupresident, take this into account. the move to dissociate from himself on twitter and linkedin suggest he's preparing to make a deal. he's got a lawyer, new lawyer, don't forget with close ties to the southern district of new york, the u.s. attorney's office investigating him for bank fraud, tax fraud, and wire fraud, and as you said, today was the deadline for the trump organization to go through these thousands and thousands of documents out of 4 million files the feds seized from cohen's office and home to see which ones of these were privileged. the real story is a ver

i want to bring in hans nichols at the white house and ken delaney following the in and ouo ins and outs. >> hahns, let me start with you there. what has been the response from the president and his son? >> well, craig, as you mentioned there is a denial from the president but really there is a tone of the denial and counter punching that we have from president trump taking aim at his old aid and former top adviser, and someone that knows a lot about the president's past. look at what he said in the tweet. it is not so much he is criticizing but the suggestion that he retain bill and crooked hillary clinton's lawyer. gee, i wonder if they helped him made -- that i can that choice. the president is openly questioning his motives and intentions. when you see what don jr.'s statement is, his lawyer claims that he did not do anything wrong. i am going to read that statement to you. "donald trump jr. has been professional and responsible throughout the mueller and congressional investigations." i will go to how quickly this story has moved. here we are at the end of july, these two sides are

thank you ken delaney. what was discussed in the big first meeting in helsinki. is he, the secretary of state in the trump loop. making extreme campaign ad and he won. does the democratic candidate have a chance. also, a late afternoon truce on one front. the president still wants to prop up u.s. farmers. one member of his party say that is what communist do. cnn is served up on melania's tv. he is trying to make sure the tv tvs are only on with his favorite network. it is not us. place to start, advanced oils for those hard-working parts. fuels that go further so drivers pump less. improving efficiency is what we do best. energy lives here. improving efficiency is what we do best. i needthat's whenvice foi remembered that my ex-ex- ex-boyfriend actually went to law school, so i called him. he didn't call me back! if your ex-ex- ex-boyfriend isn't a lawyer, call legalzoom and we'll connect you with an attorney. legalzoom. where life meets legal. >>> just moments ago, sarah sanders issued an order. sanders said at the conclusion of a press event in the oval office

meantime less bring in ken delaney. ken a gooded is saturday morning. let's go through the indictment. first of all what do we know about the 12 intelligence russian officers and how was the mueller team able to specifically name names. >> good morning, alex. that's an interesting question and it's not answered in the indictment. but what we know is the way the u.s. government attributes cyber-attacks is through cyber forensics but also through sophisticated intelligence gathering including national security intercepts. recording of phone conversations, interception of emails be potentially even cia human sources infiltrating organizations none of that is spelled out. the u.s. government doesn't want to reveal that. and this indictment doesn't show any evidence that lengths the named russians to the actions accused of. it states they did this stuff. and since we don't expect this to go into court that will never be tested. nonetheless is represents amazing detective work by the u.s. intelligence community, alex. >> how about the indictment overall? is t

ken delaney is joining us today. today notably is the deadline for the trump organization to finish its review of cohen documents sized in the police searches, those raids. what do we know and what should we be watching for happening next year? >> this is part of an ongoing process. the cohen leaders decided what they thought was privileged. the trump organ vags gets a crack at it. what people should really understand about this is of the 4 million files seized, up to 4 million now. eight boxes of documents, audio files, only a very small number of those, maybe a few thousand at this point have been claimed to have been privileged, so far only a few hundred have been ruled to have been privileged, so the vast majority of thinks documents are going to federal prosecutor. i think that's without precedence. the personal lawyer is until federal investigation, and the entire contents of his office essential are going to go to the prosecutors. who knows what those may include about his dealing with donald j. trump. >> matt

with me now, former federal prosecutor, john flannery, sasha and national security reporter, ken delaney. great to have all of you with us. john, let me begin with you. help us decipher this interview with michael cohen. decipher the substance and manner in which it was done. >> my view is it's less than meets the eye. people seem to be so excited he would say anything at all they're reading all sorts of things into it. what i got out of it, he still thinks he's innocent. this is a man talking about his family. we know what a worthless person he's been. he pays off women during the campaign. he makes a loan based on false pretenses, funnels the money through his firm. does pay for play when trump wins with at&t and others. he has a meeting with a ukrainian to have a plan to save russia from the sanctions and hands it to flynn, who is cooperating with the government. now, we're supposed to believe he cares at all about family. when he says country, which he never showed interest before, it strikes me what he's doing is sending a signal to trump. he doesn't have to go on tv to say he will

. >> joining me now, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delaney. of what you're learning north korea is doing here? >> well, steve, these latest u.s. intelligence assessments tell the american government that north korea is secretly enriching uranium and other nuclear fuel at multiple secret undeclared sites. one of which the u.s. may have only found out about recently. and even more importantly than that, steve, is that the u.s. intelligence community has picked up evidence that the north intends to deceive the trump administration and the united states about this. in other words, it's not prepared to come clean about its nuclear program. and not only the enrichment, about the number of missiles, number of warheads and other key factors it would have to declare as part of any denuclearization effort. this kind of cat and mouse game is not uncommon in nuclear negotiations. we saw it with the iran deal. the u.s. intelligence community tries to catch the adversary country. the adversary country tries to hide stuff. what's interesting here is donald t

. >> nbc's ken delaney. ken, thanks so much. >> you bet.head tonight on "nbc nightly news" with lester holt right after "news 4:00 at 6:00."av >> the a d.c. police officer flipping out on some kids in his community, and they just love it. who wouldn't? >> plus, one of england's biggest soccer stars now a member of does your business internet provider promise a lot? let's see who delivers more. comcast business gives you gig-speed in more places. the others don't. we offer up to 6 hours of 4g wireless network backup. everyone else, no way. we let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. them, not so much. we let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 me per month. call or go on line today. >>> our extreme heat and humiuety helping to a severe thunderstorm. this is a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of the panhandle of west virginia and frederick county inirnia. here's the impact time with tremendous amounts of lightning

attorney with the eastern and southern district of new york and ken delaney is back with us, nbc newsligence and national security reporter who will be inside the courtroom tomorrow covering the trial. ken, i would like to begin with a headline from the "new york times" tonight. and it reads russia is not on the docket at manafort's trial but it will be in the air. what would they mean? >> that is well put. one prosecutor said he did not expect the word russia to come up at all in the trial. it is not clear that the jury will be told explicitly that paul manafort worked for donald trump. this is a significant trial in no small part. paul manafort has been a fixture going back to the 1970s. he ran the campaign of gerald ford, ronald reagan, bob dole and was one of the first people to monetize the service with his old partner roger stone. that is getting us where we are today. he went to work and prosecutors allege he was paid some $60 million for this service over many years of public relations and lobbying. and for reasons that maybe only manafort can explain prosecutors say he tried

. >> ken delaney is joining me. giuliani's deliberately muddying the waters here, first of all, talking about collusion. saying he didn't collude, if he did, it wouldn't be a crime. denying donald trump was at a meeting. nobody alleges he was there. there is a method to what itd could be called madness. >> as confusing as this was, i think i understood what he's saying. two meetings. one of them is where trump jr. told his father about the meeting. we know cohen made that charge. there's a second thing giuliani is raising today for some bizarre reason, and it has not been reported but he said he heard it from reporters that have yet to public, which is michael cohen says there was a premeeting a strategy session for some of the participants to talk about their approach to the russians. obviously if that were true fwld significant because it showed this meeting loomed large in importance on these calendars of the members of trump campaign at the time. also, they mentioned none of this to congress. so they left it out

here to talk about that, ken delaney in alexandria, virginia. and chuck rosenberg, now an nbc contributor. here with us onset, white house reporter for the ap, jonathan lavere and matt miller. elise jordan also. ken, i understand you were there for the opening statements. detail how the pressure is bearing down on paul manafort to do what "the new york times" describes, maybe get squeezed and become someone who could be more useful to robert mueller. >> it really is. as i left the courtroom just now, the defense was deep into its opening statement. the prosecution had finished their opening statement. look, this is a dry case about tax evasion and bank fraud. but hanging over it is this enormous pressure that you can almost feel on paul manafort. he must be spending millions on this case. he has a team of defense lawyers. he's wearing a suit to court, but he's going sleep in jail in a green jump suit. he's facing 10 years in this case, another 15 in d.c. the government said that they had two dozen witnesses, and 100 documents, and they're -- they

and ken delaney. glen, i have to go to you first. the american people, the media might be very interested in this. political junkies love it. the american people want to be socially free, physically safe, financially secure. but they care a lot about a crime and if our president committed one. is there evidence of one? >> stephanie, i would say this tape is probably evidence of a crime minus one. >> what does that mean? >> well, it means if michael cohen comes on board, he's going to provide the plus one information that the prosecutors will need to decipher what was being said here. as a career prosecutor, we would never just introduce a tape into evidence and say, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it, conclusive proof. it is but one piece of the puzzle. it's a pretty important piece, a powerful piece. if we take a step back from debating who said cash, who said check, what it all means, and we kind of figure out what is the larger context, well, the larger context here is that michael cohen is plainly a political fixer because t

joining us now, national security reporter ken delaney. okay. let's go through this. president trump previously denied knowing anything about that trump tower meeting back in 2016. he wrote in this tweet, but if trump did know in what way would it implicate him and how does that matter for mueller? now for rudy giuliani to say trump wasn't in the meeting. we knew that. >> i want to remark collusion is not a crime. the crime is conspiracy to defraud the united states. a series of russian intelligence officers have already been charged with that. if any americans including members of the trump campaign are found to be a part of that conspiracy, they would be guilty of the crime of conspiracy. to answer your question, it depends on facts not in evidence. take that this russian trump tower meeting was a nothing burger but donald trump according to michael cohen has been lying about it all this time? that would mean he was lying around something under investigation. that could be obstruction of justice. if it was corruptly designed to impede the investigation to get other

. >> ken delaney, let's hone in on those two months then in the summer of 2016. we're looking at may, june, july, as well. so many pivotal things happened that summer. you've been following the investigations, bob mueller's doings, how much is this the focus now, this period of time, this meeting at trump tower? >> david, i'm a bit of an iconoclast on this. i'm not convinced this meeting in and of itself is a meaningful episode of collusion, as people like to use the term, because i've interviewed some of the participants and talked to people before the grand jury on this and have come to believe robert mueller sees this in a different way. he's more interested in this for the question of why the president was trying to cover it up apparently, why he issued that misleading statement, and now, if in fact he knew about it, it puts that question into sharper focus and really puts the pressure on in terms of the obstruction of justice case. if he, in fact, knew about it, he's been lying all this time while he knew that robert mueller was investigating the circumstanc