nbc's ken delaney is outside the courthouse in washington. through one more time. >> reporter: paul manafort officially pled guilty to those two charges you just outlined. that was expected. the mystery of the day was is he cooperating with robert mueller, and lead prosecutor andrew weissmann called this plea arrangement a cooperation agreement, so most people are interpreting that as yes, he's cooperating. we don't know against whom. we don't know what evidence he's offering the mueller team, but this is a bombshell development. the idea that donald trump's campaign chairman, who was in very sensitive meetings during the time he was running that campaign, who came to the campaign with many connections to russian-backed figureses to russian oligarchs that paul manafort is cooperating with the mueller team, and he's now pled guilty to two counts. he's also got an information filed that he's not contesting that accuses him on a vast array of illegal conduct. he's only pleading guilty to these two counts today in washington, d.c. >> okay just be

. >> joining me is ken delaney along with guy lewis. ken, let me start with you. this into context for us here. two weeks' time, not a whole lot of time, what does this tell you about the course of the investigation? this sentencing yesterday? >> well, look, george papadopoulos as it turns out was not quite as big a fish as some people thought he might be when the arrest was announced. there was a lot of talk of, did he wear a wire or was he cooperating? it turns out he did not cooperate with the mueller team, so he didn't get a downward departure from the sentence for that, but the reason he got 14 days or not 30 or 60 days is because he had no prior criminal record and the judge seemed to take to heart and believe his expressions of remorse in the courtroom yesterday. and his apologies for his conduct and to his family. but look, that question that he seems to have no memory of the answer to about who did he share within the trump campaign, the idea that he was offered dirt and e-mails that the russians had on hillary clinton. that's the key question. and while

ken delaney, the fbi is going to reopen this and look into it again. where do they start and what are they going to be doing? >> that's the million dollar question. and we haven't been able to get a straight answer. an fbi spokeswoman, i asked her that question and she referred to it the white house who isn't saying what is the scope of this investigation going to be. is it simply going to look into the allegations of dr. ford or will the fbi also examine the other allegations made by other women. how extensive will the interviews be? how many agents will be sent out? will it be dr. ford and brett kavanaugh or seek to interview everyone in that july calendar entry that appears to be a party in a house or go and interview every one of brett kavanaugh's classmates. these bgtd checks are normally designed to examine a candidate's fitness for office and don't delve into behavior in high school and college. now we have disputes where brett kavanaugh characterized his drinking and behavior in college that's at odds with what other witnesses are say iing in t

so now we want to bring in nbc news niftive reporter ken delaney and former u.s.nd senior fbi official chuck rosenbe rosenberg. >> chuck, i want to go to you first. a background check of brett kavanaugh already happened. now we're talking about should it be reopened. the kind of stuff we're reading in his yearbook, the statements he made, why wouldn't that have been a red flag? would that just be -- would na not be considered much or it only seems strange because now we have an accuser? >> you know, stephanie it might have been in the background investigation that the fbi gave to the white house. we don't know that, but given all of the other things we now know, all the things that ali outlined at the beginning of this segment, it makes perfect sense to me for the white house to ask the fbi to reopen it, and if they ask or direct them to do it, the fbi will. that's their job. they do investigations, and that's also why this is not a he said/she said situation. i think that formulation is nonsensical. >> it's not? >> no, it's not. >> explain that. >> i'd be glad to

joining us now investigative reporter ken delaney and bill gar gairc gaven. lets get some clarity on this. the fbi is responsible for the background check into a supreme court nominee. obviously had this come up in that process, the fbi would have had some ability to look into it. tell me why the fbi's hands are or aren't tied here? >> well, i think we have to distinguish, ali, between two different kinds of inquiries by the fbi. one as you've said, is the background investigation. i guess probably six different times this has been done, and every single time they've presented the facts to the requesting agency, in this case it's to the white house and probably to the congress as well. what has to happen in this particular case is all of the background of judge kavanaugh is looked at in terms of former employers, employees, subordinates, bosses, neighbors, credits, criminal, all that is done and presented to the white house. the fbi in these cases makes no recommendation as to suitability or worthiness of the individual for the position for which they're bein

take a listen to this from ken delaney of nbc news, in response to the justice department announced mondayuld begin a declassification review of the material. that struck some intelligence officials as a stalling tactic, given that the president is the ultimate declassification authority and he's already directed the documents must be declassified. interesting. >> because they have already been reviewed and redacted and the president is wanting above and beyond what the fbi has already said would be inappropriate to release because of sources and methods and that it will put our country in danger. but again, donald trump, number one priority. >> what happens if they put the brakes on it and they go through the review process, does the president wise up to it or is it one of those scenarios where he doesn't remember it in a couple of days and then a month from now, he'll be saying what about my documents? >> if we believe this is being slow walked which seems to be the patd tetern of this administration. >> shadow presidency. >> there's almost reason to think that wouldn't happen in this ca

. >> congressman, the reporterire that you made at the top in association with ken delaney here, it would seem julie swetnick will not be interviewed or off the list, former classmates who contradicted his college accounts describing him as a frequent heavy drinker will not be allowed to speak. how thorough of an investigation can this be? >> the american people want a thorough investigation and want these witnesses interviewed. at this point they haven't been interviewed yet, but my hope is they will be. if you are not, they will have the same problem as they had before. why are you not interviewing relevant witness. why are you hiding from the american people? it makes no sense to me. they will have this fbi intervi interview, they need to do it right. >> you were quite critical of kavanaugh's testimony. his lies under oath were not little lies. he lied about devil's triangle because it was about sex and raffling because it was about inebriati inebriation. he is accused of drunken sexual assault. how much credibility does brett kavanaugh have? >> less than dr. ford and that's all it tak

he spent decades in the navy and nbc intelligence and national security ken delaney. listening to the fbi director talking about the shift in threat, what do you make of that? >> it's absolutely what i've seen over my career covering intelligence. i used to spend almost all my time focused on al qaeda and drone strikes in pakistan and the latest developments, and it's really faded as an issue because al qaeda does not have the capability to mount an attack. when the master bomb maker was reported killed by the cia a few weeks ago it wasn't even the top story of the day. it would have been several years ago, and i think that's good news. now, the disturbing news as christopher wray just told us is that there's this home grown threat. there are 5,000 open fbi investigations and we've seen those attack asks they've killed a lot of people, but they are not an -- home grown attacks are sort of organized attacks, and in most cases they don't rise as ken says to the level of existential. does that mean we should feel safer today than we did 17 years ago? >> only to a certain

. >> joining us now ken delaney. to ask you about whether or not this deal gets robert mueller any closer to his investigation of president trump. >> well, obviously we don't know the answer to that, ali, 100%. look, paul manafort came to the campaign with more russian connections than anybody else who worked around trump. if there was a conspiracy between the trump campaign and the russian election interference effort, you got to believe manafort had knowledge, and donald trump was known not to have used e-mail. while mueller has documents from the campaign, it's unlikely there's a smoking gun document written by donald trump ant collusi -- about collusion. but manafort will be asked about meetings and the trump tower meeting and anything else related to russian connections. >>. >> he was in the trump tower meeting. he has close ties to roger stone who was aware of wikileaks and they were part of the e-mail hack and dump. walk us through this. robert mueller is no chump. if president trump chooses to pardon paul man

attorney for the eastern district of michigan, barbara mcquade and nbc news investigative reporter ken delaney. i want to share what kellyanne conway said this morning, and we want to pay particular attention to the specific time that she said it. >> there's no reason to attack her. the president is defending his nominee to the united states supreme court as a man of character, integrity, impeccable academic and judicial qualifications and judicial temperament that he knows him to be. >> one minute after kellyanne said that, president trump did exactly that. how does the white house hope to get kavanaugh through when they can't even coordinate their own message. that's what i do not understand now. i can tell you sources inside the white house told me on monday when kellyanne went outside and said this woman should not be attacked, dr. ford should have her voice heard, she did that rogue. she did not coordinate with sarah sanders or the president. maybe that's still the case, and others in the white house have told "axios" that they are trying to keep the president restrained during this given

for more on all of this i'm joined by ken delaney and at the federal courthouse where he has been all day, along with our new nbc legal analyst, glen kirshner in washington, d.c. is it accurate, what both sanders and guilliani are saying, this has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with his campaign? do we even know what he has to offer robert mueller? >> we don't know, chris, but it is not accurate to say it has nothing to do with the president. the president is the subject of robert mueller's investigation into whether the trump campaign coordinated, conspired with the russian election interference. today it could be the most moment us day yet in the course of that investigation. it began when paul manafort walked into a courtroom in that courthouse behind me and uttered the words "i plead guilty." before he did that, the lead prosecutor, andrew wiseman, walked the court through about 40 minutes of all of the illegal conduct that the mueller team has alleged against paul manafort, both in virginia and d.c. in the first two rows of the courtroom were filled with inve

i'm joined by nbc's ken delaney. >> russia was always a leading suspect because russia operates in forcehe cubans were suspect as well, but now it looks like there's some evidence pointing to russia including these communications, interce intercept, and the u.s. has determined that some type of microwave weapon may have been used in a way that made people think they were hearing sounds. that's why initially this was described as a sonic event but there's science that shows that micro waves that can mimic sounds that can cause brain damage. they suffered serious brain damage. the u.s. is not ready to name and shame russia, but they're moving towards that point. >> russia's not messing around. what are the potential counter measures? >> well, a lot of people think the u.s. has their own technologies. i don't think they would go that far in the spy versus spy game because there's supposed to be a set of rules. you don't attack the other person's intelligence officers because they can do the same to you. this crosses the line. you could see sanctions, you could see prosecutions, you could se

. >> i want to point out to you ali, our colleague ken delaney just flagged this, a piece that anotherleague of ours wrote, that devin nunes predicted this in a speech he gave september 13th when he said trump's declassification move was about the november election. he said, quote, we're on the verge of, i believe, having full transparency in this process. we need the president to do some more declassification. so this is something that has been in the works for a while really as part of a plan by that faction of republicans who are trying to change the narrative and as it closes in on the president and bob mueller saying, no, bob mueller's part of the bad team, and we're going to give you more information about that bad team as we head into the election. so remember, even from republicans, it's about politics. >>> i want to talk about the trade war coming up. the u.s. is now taxing nearly half of all chinese imports. 're going to talk about what that means for you, the consumer, and why the fate of the united states economy might be at stake. >>> we are watching the markets for you th