you too, ken dilanian. we never thought you'd come back from aspen. our thanks to kristen welker who had to run off and chase this story and for matt miller for getting on the phone with us. when we come back, more on this breaking news. your brain is an amazing thing. but as you get older, it naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. the secret is an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief. tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first a

. >> let's bring in ken dilanian. e, ken, i got all flustered because you shaped my thinking on this all week, you said ignore the sex, follow the money, but it seems we have branded this dossier since january in a way that almost discredits it more than that it deserved. when i -- i know our network is overly cautious for many, many reasons, but unsubstantiated didn't mean the contents in the dossier were untrue. it meant that they hadn't all been investigated. so explain to me the meaning of a ten hour testimony from the -- from one of the people behind the dossier and the potential stakes for this white house if 10, 20, 30% of the contents of the dossier turn out to be true. >> well, you're absolutely right, nicolle. first of all, like the main -- one of the main claims of the dossier was that the russians were involved in a plot to hack the election on behalf of donald trump and that was written before the intelligence community in the united states had made that public. that has been borne out, at least if you acc

intelligence and national security reporter for nbc news, ken dilanian. ken, i want to go first to you because this is your -- you're a great scoop with our colleague, carol lee. walk us through what's new and why it's important. >> two sources familiar with the matter tell us that paul manafort who is then donald trump's campaign chairman was typing out notes on a smartphone during this infamous meeting in june 2016 in trump tower between a group of top trump aides and a russian lawyer and russian lobbyist. these notes have been turned over to the committees and also to robert mueller and in the notes are a cryptic reference to donations next to rnc for republican national committee. now, of course nobody knows 100% what that means but it's really piqued the interest of investigators who are concerned about and want to know whether there was any discussion whatsoever about potential contributions from the russians at the meeting or from any russians at all to the republicans in the trump campaign. why? because that's illegal. it's illegal for foreigners t

let's bring in our putin whisperer, ken dilanian.gnificance of this development that special counsel bob mueller is looking more deeply into not just the meeting and how it came to pass and how all of the trump campaign senior leadership ended up in the meeting. but who was in the room with them? >> well, there's no doubt that this is significant that the special counsel is looking at this russian lobbyist rinat akhmetshin and he has to raise money to pay attorneys to deal with that inquiry. but what's interesting about this "new york times" story is what's not in it. which is no allegation that this man was actually an asset of the russian government or a russian spy. which some u.s. officials had suspected. i mean, there's a lot of interesting reporting about his ties to oligarchs and he's told people he knew paul manafort. that would be significant because paul manafort was in this trump tower meeting which the trump team has portrayed as a nothing burger with some russians they didn't know. in fact, if they knew paul manafort whe

along with nbc national security reporter ken dilanian and tamara keith. peter, you have been doing double and triple and quadruple duty and thank you for being there for us. if you take this performance from the president last night in west virginia where he threw out red meat by the bushel, it wasn't a coincidence in my estimation that that side of trump, that russia rage that's always sort of at a low boil came out on the die that it became -- on the day that it became public that two grand juries were now at work in the mueller probe. >> i think that's right. what was striking obviously is we have been reporting out all week how there's this sort of new discipline and order here at the white house given the arrival of general kelly. as the chief of staff. while he has done a good job as now being reported cutting off rambling advisers as they speak to the president, vetting the information that's being put before him and literally being a gatekeeper outside the oval office right now there's one thing he cannot control and that is what the president say

ken dilanian will be busy. thanks very much. >> good to be with you. >>> still ahead, president trump is reportedly stewing after members of his cabinet and top aides distance themselves from his recent remarks. but for a president prone to lashing out, why has he stayed so quiet? we're still monitoring his visit to texas. he is currently visiting the emergency operations center and getting briefed on the storm. we'll bring you any new comments from the president. that's coming up. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ >>> i don't believe anyone doubts the american people's values or the commitment of the american government or the government's agencies to advancing tho

let's talk to the author who broke this story and ken dilanian.irst to this remarkable report, carol, what struck me is that on the day that this happened, donald trump was tweeting a whole lot of angry stuff about his attorney general, his acting director of the fbi and his deputy attorney general. have you put together the two time lines and does anything make more sense now in light of your reporting? >> well, we can't know what's in the president's mind when he tweets each time, but it seems like more than a coincidence that there's a predawn raid at the home of his former campaign chairman and that same morning not many hours later he's tweeting about how angry he is with his attorney general for recusing himself which led to the probe in the first place. and also tweeting very specifically about the deputy fbi director and his alleged connections to democratic fund-raisers. you may remember the tweet talked a lot about andrew mccabe and his wife's democratic campaign and the money she had received. so while there's nothing wrong with the dep

and here to guide us through all of this is is our russia sherpa, nbc's ken dilanian.f explain this. i mean, look, we have been focused very understandably on hurricane harvey. there are a lot of reports, new details from "the washington post," "new york times," from nbc news and you and your team. can you walk us through what you think the top line frame on this, what do we know now about the investigations that we don't know at the beginning of the week? >> absolutely, kasie. a number of things. the thing you just mentioned about this potential trump tower moscow deal that was going on right up until january 2016 while donald trump was running for president. that to me is extraordinary. leaving aside the whole question of collusion, it is amazing that a major party presidential candidate was trying to do business in vladimir putin's russia, number one. number two, it's amazing that he was doing it with a guy named felix sater who's a convicted criminal who has a long history of ties to the trump organization. but this is man who donald trump said i wouldn't know if h

we bring in ken dilanian. >> glenn simpson was still talking to investigators behind closed doors.t's been going on for hours. i find it significant because there are few people who know more about the connections between donald trump and russia than mr. simpson. he is a former "wall street journal" reporter who has, for years, been investigating russian corruption and russian politicians. he formed a private investigative firm and was hired in september 2015 by a never-trump republican, we don't know who, to investigate donald trump. and in a form of opposition research. he quickly began focusing on ties between trump and russia. he ended up working with former intelligence officer christopher they turned some of this information over to the fbi, but nothing appeared to be happening until james comey got a coopy from john mccain after the election. that seemed to spark a further fbi investigation. the fbi talked to christopher steele about working for them. that never happened, but it's clear the fbi was taking the dossier very seriously. but it's only 35 pages. glen simpson knows

ken dilanian joins me from washington. what do we know about the raid? >> ali, a spokesman for paul manafort issued the following statement to nbc news, fbi agents executed a search warrant at one of mr. manaxfort's residents, he consistently cooperated and did so on this occasion as well. as you said this story was first broken by the "washington post" which says this raid was executed on july 26th, one day after paul manafort voluntarily appeared before the senate intelligence committee. this says the fbi and robert mueller was able to convince a judge there was probable cause to believe a crime had been committed and paul man na fort was not necessarily cooperating with the inquiry and they needed to execute a search warrant, raid his house and seize documents. this is a very significant development. very high hurdle to get a judge to grant this extraordinary authority. paul manafort was the chairman of the trump campaign from march 2016 to august 2016. nbc news has reported that he is a subject of this long running and far ranging russia investigatio

ken dilanian, thank you very much for weighing in, as always. >> thanks, alex. >> we'll get a bit more now on with the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee, saying bob mueller's use of grand juries is to get evidence and it's a critical step. >> the fact that he is now apparently, reportedly gone to a grand jury means he now needs the power of compulsion to get documents, to compel witnesses to testify. that is a necessary step to move forward, to a potential prosecution. it doesn't mean that he will prosecute. but this is part of the investigation, very much moving forward. >> and joining me now is cynthia oxny, former federal prosecutor. welcome back to the broadcast, cynthia. we'll get right to it. how does a grand jury help mueller's team get evidence? and does this zpes thsuggest th mueller is now closing in on indictments from a grand jury or does that not have anything to do with the timing here? >> it actually does not suggest he's moving in on indictments. i agree that it's the beginning of the investigation. it's a time to gather the documents and to begin to bring

nbc's intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian is joining us from washington and krisn