nbc's national security and justice, ken dilanian. ken, let's start with you, can you put a final point on the impact of not having these in person briefings? this goes back to the 1980s law. they are obligated to keep the congress continuing intelligence development. that's in the law. members of congress needs to ask officials in person that they put in front of them. a concern that they want to be on the same page. what it means is they don't want a career -- a career fbi agent going in and answering questions of his view of the intelligence. what happens as a result of that democrats were criticizing the way the intelligence was port y portrayed and down playing the impact of russians interference designed to help donald trump. those countries don't want trump to feget elected. what i find interesting today, joshua, is none of the key republicans or the chairman of the committee or leaders of congress have said to worry about this c. congressmen are heavily worried about this. >> president trump tweeted the following and i would li

for more i want to bring in nbc news intelligence and national security correspondent ken dilanian. n, dni director radcliffe told the house and intelligence panels that his office will still provide written briefings. so what exactly does that mean? what's the difference? >> if kidifference, alicia is lawmakers can't question a piece of paper about nuance and meaning in an intelligence report. there is a law called the intelligence oversight act of 1980 requires the executive branch to keep the congress fully informed about significant intelligence activities. and for decades that's been both written products and in-person briefings. and i can't think of any precedent, i've been covering intelligence for ten years where an administration has fully withheld in-person briefings on a certain suggest. they tell us they're doing it for two reasons. they're concerned about leaks, unauthorized disclosures by members of congress, and two, they want the administration to speak with one voice. well, look, the issue of leaks has been around for a long time. leaks have always been a problem wit

first i want to speak to intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian. to try to walk through a few more of these things. and i know one of your biggest takeaways was the extent of they ties between manafort and kilimnik. if you're not a sort of expert on the russia probe if you aren't like you and i who have been reading all these reports, we know who kilimnik is. we know manafort. we know this was a pretty tight relationship. but it's even more damning what's painted in this report. >> that's right, chuck, because this report, for the first time, states flatly that kilimnik was a russian intelligence officer. and it really doesn't matter who he was. this is what our viewers need to know. donald trump's campaign chairman was in regular contact with a russian intelligence officer. and was providing him secret information including polling information, according to this report. i would venture to say if you and i knew that, if the public knew that back in 2016, there's a good chance donald trump would not have been elected president. that's a breathtaking

nbc's national security and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian has been digging into this story r us. ken, good to see you. the loss of intelligence briefings, in-person briefings, means, obviously, that members of congress can't question officials about the reports they receive. but what's the implication here? what's the big danger? what's the big worry? >> great to see you, geoff. look, this is a norm-shattering moment in the trump administration because it attacks a kind of a 50-year bipartisan compact for intelligence oversight under which the executive branch provides secrets to these intelligence committees and they agree to keep those secrets and there's some bipartisan checking of the things that the intelligence agencies are doing and collecting in our names. by definition, it's secret and we can't see it. that's breaking down here because dni ratcliffe, a republican, former member of congress and trump supporter, has decided he doesn't want his people to brief the committees in person. and he cited two concerns. he cited leaks. members of congress have leaked classifie

and ken dilanian has been all over this and he is joining us.ally, right? >> reporter: no, that's right. and bannon and his co-defendants have been granted permission to appear by video at this initial appearance before the federal judge. and this is a pretty pro forma hearing. the prosecution will restate their case and the issue of bail may be revisited. as you recall, bannon is currently out on $5 million bond with an ankle bracelet, but politically it is just another reminder that here is donald trump's close adviser and campaign chairman accused of very serious charges, conspiracy to launder money and defraud a charity, this $25 million "we build the wall" charity. the organizers of which said that they wouldn't take a enabout any for administrative expenses but prosecutors say that they took about a third. and they hit doing that and they essentially lied to the donors. so those are the charges. bannon pleaded not guilty and he will appear this court today before the judge for the first time in what promises to be a lengthy and drawn out c

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let's bring in nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence, ken dilanian, and alyst and former republican strategist, steve schmidt. >> so, ken, a pretty shocking report, considering that it was a republican-led report. what were your takeaways? >> good morning, joe. yeah, i think, absolutely, the most remarkable thing about this report was the fact that republican senators who are trump allies signed off on it. i mean, a lot of what was in this report had already come out in the roger stone trial. there was some new information. but much of it we knew. but republicans had never called trump out for it, and he's never answered for this. the idea that he embraced the fruits of a foreign intelligence operation to help him get elected. and among the new revelations, the biggest one, of course, was that paul manafort's sidekick, konstantin kilimnik, was a russian intelligence officer. that was not in the mueller report. we knew he had ties to russian intelligence. the implications of that, joe, are breathtaking. the chairman of the trump campaign was regularly meeti

ken dilanian, thank you. megadonor turned postmaster general louis dejoy announced he would back down on changes. i am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded. dejoy is scheduled to testify before the senate homeland security committee on friday, the committee says at the focus on the finances and operations amid the pandemic, leading up to the 2020 elections, this as the president continues to sow doubt in the integrity of mail-in voting. >> we have to have honest voting. that's what this is all about here. you can't take millions of ballots, send them happen hazardly all over a country -- or a state and expect them to come out properly. absentee is great. universal will be a disaster the likes of which our country has never seen. it will end up being a rigged election or never come out with an outcome. they'd have to do it again nobody wants that. i don't want that. >>> calling for a do-over before an election even happens. shannon pettypiece, the changes at the postal service, th

the last few minutes or so, we're also getting a little bit of new information by way of nbc's ken dilanian who has learned from two sources that the fbi and the homeland security department, they are going to continue to hold in-person briefings for congress, despite the fact that the director of national intelligence is not going to do that. the fbi and the dhs, they'll be able to tell congress about things like cyber efforts to interfere, disinformation, but when it comes to foreign actors and intelligence about what country might be trying to threaten which candidate, that's something that's left up to the white house and national intelligence. those briefings no longer going to happen in person, lindsey. >> isn't that the meat, though? isn't that the crux? we hear all of these reports about russian interference and chinese and iranian interference. isn't that the crux of who is doing this and how that congressional leaders need to know? >> absolutely, and house democratic lawmakers say that's exactly the reason they need to have those briefings in person, so they can question officials

our ken dilanian says this is unprecedented. >> it wouldn't have happened during the first two and a half years of the trump administration because dan coats is a conservative republican but committed to the intendance and integrity of the intelligence committee. he was fired by the president in august of 2019, remaysed on a temporary basis by admiral mcguire who also tried to preserve the independence of the intelligence community. he was a big player in the ukraine scandal. he was removed in february of this year. replace by a highly political interim appointment, rick grinnell, who spoke at the republican convention. and then replaced finally with a new permanent director, john radcliffe, from texas. no background in the intelligence committee. a true trump loyalist. this is what happened. dan coats, might not have agreed with him. cases where i wish he would have spoken up more. but basically, like others in the senior positions in the administration they understood this was not trump's play thing. the u.s. government works for the u.s. people. reports to the president, of course