richard pinedo. he signs his name ricky. he's a united states citizen. he basically bought and sold bank account numbers online. so people could set up fraudulent payment accounts online under fake identities. his lawyer later in the day put out a statement admitting the crime that his client had pled guilty to but giving an apparently rushed explanation why his guilty plea isn't as bad as it sounds in this context. he said quote, mr. pinedo had absolutely no knowledge of the identity and motivation of the purchasers of the information he provided to the extent that mr. pinedo's actions assisted any individuals including foreign nationals from interfering the american presidential election, was done completely without his knowledge or understanding. you know what he means even though the statement is screwed up. lawyers basically saying hey, listen, my guy, he's pleading guilty. my guy just makes money online trafficking and identity theft but i swear, he didn't know he was helping the russians attack

. >> richard pinedo is an american. what is his involvement? >> so the real crimes as it were in this indictment have to do with these russian agents impersonating u.s. individuals, developing using fake social security numbers. and rich pinedo is one of the individuals who was involved in helping to make it happen, to sell talk identities to take the real identities and give them to russian agents as part of the sophisticated effort to, again, engage in our own politics here. >> all right. is there any expectation that russia will go against the grain of what it has traditionally done, not extradite to the u.s.? the point is what? >> the point is to make a real statement and spell out for the american people in stark terms just what happened here. i don't think we can expect the russian government -- now it is not is specified in this indictment that they were directly linked to it. we know that some of the names are close to the kremlin. it is unlikely or for us to expect that they will extradite them to the u.s. for prosecution. >> the grand

. >>> tonight there is a california connection to the election meddling case. 28-year-old richard pinedo plead guilty to identity fraud. >> can you tell us what your reactions are? >> reporter: no comments from mateo' father today, but he helped the russians open dummy bank accounts. >>> apparently he was basically stealing peoples identifications, then using them to open bank accounts, which he then provided to the russians who were interested in having a place which they could use the money without revealing who they really are. >> he had no idea what they were doing with those acts. he -- but in agreeing to cooperate with the mueller investigation, he'll be looking for 12-18 months. >>> funerals have begun for some of the 17 people killed in this week's shooting. president trump visited the grieving community. an overlooked tip might have prevented the bloodshed. reporter kenneth craig is in parkland tonight. >> reporter: allen, much of the visit here to south florida was kept under wraps until really the very last minute, which came on another extremely difficult day as this communit

security adviser lieutenant general michael flynn, then george papadopoulos, on friday, american richard pinedo we learned of, and now, today, a dutch lawyer, who is now linked to a former trump campaign aide. so, who is this man who has now pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi? here's abc's chief justice correspondent pierre thomas. >> reporter: the special counsel's latest target walking into the fbi's d.c. field office. and tonight, london-based attorney alex van der zwaan is accused of lying to investigators. mr. van der zwaan, why did you feel the need to lie to the special counsel, sir? van der zwaan, a dutch national who married the daughter of a russian oligarch in a lavish wedding that lit up social media. he pleaded guilty to making false statements about contact with rick gates, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort's deputy. van der zwaan admitted to destroying e-mails connected to his role in a pr war that manafort and gates were allegedly involved in to support ukrainian politicians backed by russia, years before they were involved in the trump presidential campaign. accordin

>> reporter: that's right, mueller announced the guilty plea of richard pinedo from southern california who admitted to committing fraud by helping the russians set up fake american identities, david. >> pierre, thank you. >>> next, the affair between a "playboy" play mate and donald trump before he was elected president. the report in "the new yorker" allegedly involving money spent just before the election for her story, which was then never published. why wasn't it? here's abc's senior white house correspondent, cecilia vega. >> reporter: at the white house today, an abrupt change of plans. president trump bound for florida, boarding marine one alone. the first lady was supposed to be with him, instead she left separately and met him at air force one. it comes as the president faces explosive new allegations about a nine-month affair with a "playboy" play mate, and new questions about whether she was paid to stay silent days before the presidential election. "the new yorker" reports trump met the woman, karen mcdougal, in 2006 at the playboy mansion, where he was taping an episode of

and more breaking news, mueller announced a guilty plea of american citizen richard pinedo from southern california who admitted to fraud by helping is russianss to set up fake identities abc news washington. >>> necessary the report of affair between a playboy playmate and donald trump before elected president. the report in the north americaer involves money spent before the election for her story which was never published process. here is abc's senior white house correspondent. >> reporter: at the white house today an abrupt change of plans. president trump bound for florida found for florida alone. the first lady was supposed to be with him i understand she left separately at met him at air force one. it comes as the president faces explosive new allegations about an nine-month affair with a playboy playmate and new questions about whether she was paid to stay silent days before the presidential election. the new yorker reports mr. trump met the woman karen mcdougal in 2016 at the playboy mansion where he was taping an he said of the apprentice. >> come on over. wow! >> the magazine

>> the man's named is richard pinedo and he pleaded guilty earlier this year. this was just unsealed after the other indictment against the 13 russians was in. it really goes to an operation he had to help people set up dummy tokts circumvent the features of pay pal, one of the services the russians were using according to the separate indictment. according to this, in court before the judge, the special counsel said, a lawyer for the special counsel office said that this is the first criminal conviction arising from a particular facet of the special counsel's investigation. namely a russian backed operation to use social media platforms. in other words, this is an operation that was aided and abetted by the system to circumvent the security features of pay pal and others. >> i want to bring in lisa, former chief of staff to robert mueller and knows how he does his investigations. remarkable news. >> it is. >> explain if you can the difference between this and the intel community's assessment which more than a year ago said russia interfered. this has a lot mor

the charges against richard pinedo indicated he sold bank account numbers using the stolen identities of u.s. cities to people outside the united states. as part of the plea deal, he agreed to cooperate with robert mueller. it's noted, his plea deal does not include all of the facts known to me regarding this offense. that indicates that he has told the special prosecutor much more information than is revealed in his plea deal today. the indictment of the 13 russians today says defendants also used the stolen identities of real u.s. persons. here's what the president had to say today when he was asked about all of this. >> do you feel vindicated in the mueller investigation? >> mr. president will you punish russia? will you punish russia? >> will you put sanctions on russia? nothing on russia, mr. president? >> join us for tea? >> joining our discussion jill wine-banks, ari melber, and ben wittes. >> ari, i know you have been studying this indictment and talking about it a great deal on the network today, including talking about it while studying it. as it stands tonight, now that you

robert mueller's team also made another announcement today, a california man, richard pinedo, pleaded guilty to selling stolen information to the russians. he is now cooperating with mueller's investigation. and the daily beast indicating that mueller has interviewed mark corral low, the spokesman for the trump team. he resigned after the meeting in trump tower with the russians. and just this week after confirming the united states is under active attack, the director of national intelligence predicted what we're likely to see. in other words, how they are likely to come at us in the future and despite what we're not hearing from our leadership, the following should be taken as a warning to all u.s. citizens. >> we expect russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen and other means to influence to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the united states. there should be no doubt that russia perceived that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a poten

. >> that one american name is richard pinedo of southern california. do you think the people in russia who undertook these efforts believed they had an impact on the 2016 election, so much so that their efforts could have changed the outcome? the president's camp says zero effect on the election. >> well, the intelligence community, robert mueller's investigative team, will also say that we don't know, we can't say conclusively whether or not this happened. >> hard to quantify it. >> it probably did have some impact on the election as well as what people have talked about with wisconsin, what people have said about, you know, the comey letter and the comey announcement earlier on about hillary clinton and the investigation into her e-mail server. so none of this is mutually exclusive. i'm sure it all played a role in the way that this election panned out. but i think for those people who are in russia, who may have had something to do with these operations, at the moment they're probably feeling like they did have some influence because at the moment t

adviser michael flynn, former trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos, and a california man, richard pinedo. now alex van der zwaan, the son-in-law of one of russia's wealthiest men, has pleaded guilty of lying to the fbi. we'll have an explanation of this prong of the story for you just ahead. >>> today, we also saw the white house answering questions for the first time since mueller's extraordinarily and extraordinarily detailed indictment of more than a dozen russians. in the wake of president trump's weekend twitter rampage, our colleague kristen welker today asked about trump's view of the indictments' conclusions. >> does the president now acknowledge what the special counsel indictments made clear, which is that russians not only tried to meddle but interfere and influence the 2016 election? >> absolutely. and the president has acknowledged that multiple times before. the president hasn't said that russia didn't meddle, what he is saying is it didn't have an impact and it certainly wasn't with help from the trump campaign. it's very clear that russia meddled in the election. it's als

>> well, we know that from the fact that there was a guilty plea of a man named richard pinedo, that there is every potential that robert mueller has other cooperators. and absolutely, he's continuing to investigating this question of whether anybody wittingly on the trump campaign or other americans colluded with this effort. i want to go back to the picture of donald trump. he was acting very presidential there, comforting the nation at a time of crisis. but it's such a great contrast to the way he is not acting presidential in responding to an attack on our country by a foreign government because that's what this is. and instead of explaining to the american public what we're going to do about it, how we'll respond, he's viewing it entirely through the lens of how it affects him as a potential defendant in this case. he's talking about the fact it shows there's no collusion and it vindicates him. it repudiates what he's been saying for months which is that it was a hoax and there was no med diding. >> it seems like he has been so sensitive to any mention of the russians, anybody i

we know other witnesses are cooperating, richard pinedo, charged with election fraud, there's also ricka former trump senior advisor, and there's rumors that he could be finalizing a plea deal. the indictment also highlights three americans who were contacted by three russian backed accounts. and bob mueller still grinding through all this, but steve bannon spent 20 hours with mueller's investigators just this week. i'm joined by our a reporter for the atlantic. what would it mean for mueller to get international cooperation? >> it would be extremely helpful. but the fact of the matter is there's so much signal intelligence here, that it may not be necessary for him to get the cooperation of the people who were inside the internet research agency. people i spoke to today who workwork worked for the cia, the national security folks said that the level of detail in these indictments is absolutely stunning and it just speaks to the amount of information that mueller was able to obtain, whether it be by warrants, or subpoena or just general signal intelligence to kind of investigate what we

nobody before today heard of richard pinedo, charged with identity fraud allegedly with helping the russiansthis operation. we have no idea. there are some hints in that indictment that mueller may have had other cooperation with -- among the coconspirators in this russian collusion conspiracy. so you're absolutely right. there is a huge iceberg below the surface of the sea here with this collusion case, and we just don't know what we don't know. but i was really interested to hear what you got out of former cia director john brennan. he pretty clearly said there, i think we'll see evidence that trump campaign officials knowingly colluded, tried to walk it back a little bit but -- >> i didn't miss it. i don't miss anything these days. i'm going to get a law degree at the end of this. betsy, i want to get you in for the last word, and i want to put one more question to you. i read this indictment and it was all about -- a lot about social media. it was about the high-tech campaign to hurt hillary clinton which had the effect of helping donald trump. i wonder if there is any reporting about ca

richard pinedo, pleading guilty and cooperating with the special counsel now. >>> the major indictment unsealed today, though, against a whole bunch of russians makes it pretty clear how ricky pinedo's online trade and stolen identities in fact really did help the russians attack us. whether or not mr. pinedo knew that was what was going to happen with the information he was selling. the russians, according to the big indictment today, they used stolen credit card numbers, stolen bank account numbers, stolen identities, including from real americans, to open online accounts, online payment accounts, to facilitate the financial part of their attack, the financial part of what mueller's team of prosecutors lay out today as a large, well-coordinated, expensive, thorough operation to try to swing the 2016 presidential election to donald trump. so why was this one american guy arrested and charged and flipped into a cooperating witness in conjunction with this case today? why did mueller bring these charges today against these 13 russian individuals and the internet research agency they wor

comment from richard's father as he walks back into the home listed on business records as the location of an online company operated by his son called auction assistance. here's the web page. pinedoitted to federal investigators he was selling bank account numbers created using stolen american identity. >> apparently, he was basely stealing people's identification and using them to open bank accounts he provided to the russians who were interested in having a place from which they could use the money without revealing who they were. >> reporter: former federal prosecutor lori levanston said he was facing up to 15 years in prison, but by agreeing to cooperate, he will look at more to 12 to 18 months. >> he is key because he made it possible for the russians to pose as american citizens and fund their activities here in america. >> will your attorneys speak to us? >> yes. stay off my property. >> reporter: his father referred us to his son's attorney saying he allowed bank individuals to fraudulently establish accounts. he went onto say mr. pinedo had no knowledge of the identities or the purchasers of any of the information he provided. to the extent they assisted internationals w