was in communication with rick gates in october of 2016. and that was revealed in last week's court filing. and then today the special counsel also filed something, the court files, basically asking to protect the privacy, some of the information they have in the case. they're concerned that once van der swann who could perhaps face jail time tomorrow corks ask for some of the information to be made public. he knows information about this case that no one else knows. >> in exchange for his guilty pl plea. >> he has not made a recommendation about what the court should do and they're leaving it up to the court. did he come into the special counsel. did he meet with them in a session over two days and during that time is when he lied to them about e-mails and about rick gates. we never really understood what his role was until last week will that court filing came tuesday, late at night. and it revealed that he was he aware that rick gates was communicating with a russian intelligence official, right around the time of the election. >> and he

and that rick gates knew he was -- this person was working for the russians, at the time that he was communicating with him in september and october of 2016. again, that's in the middle of the presidential campaign. and this is key, because, again, it goes to the central mission here, of the mueller investigation, which is, proving or showing whether or not there was any illegal or improper contacts between russians and the trump campaign. paul manafort, of course, was the campaign manager. and so this ties together all of those strands. >> yeah. and rick gates was the deputy campaign chairman and he would stay down in the campaign after paul manafort -- >> into the inauguration. >> that's correct. ev evan, thank you for that report. >>> as the mueller probe continues to look into possible collusion between the trump camp and russia, the white house is now confirming a new overture by the president to the russian leader, vladimir putin. the two leaders discussing a potential meeting here in washington at the white house. let's bring in our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta.

we're assuming rick gates is cooperating because of his guilty plea, but it seems we're getting morehy mueller is continuing to go after manafort and why he's continuing to generate these headlines, and a lot of this came this week when we heard about this person "a," this person who rick gates communicated with, who was a known russian intelligence officer, and who rick gates knew was a russian intelligence officer in 2016. so there are more dots that are being connected as this case goes on and it's more clear why manafort is so important to this case and why the argument from the white house that manafort was someone who just came in and out of this campaign and is not close to the president and really didn't have his hands in this, that argument is not standing up, as we're seeing how closely tied manafort was with the campaign and also the connections that go to russia and the lobbying efforts they did on behalf of pro-russian interests in ukraine. >> i find it interesting we hear about paul manafort a lot, rick gates a lot, we could describe as semiperipheral characters. we're

this particular attorney is the one who can connect what rick gates knew, when he was corresponding tod russian ties, connections to the intelligence community and russia, what he knew, and potentially the mental state of rick gets and other people. it's very important to find that out. what's not known at this point in time is what other information he knew and who that person a, the russian intel figure on your screen is. the reason for that is there's a lot of information that van der zwaan knows that no one else has been privy to in the sense that he's been a cooperator with the mueller investigation. he had these ties to russian intelligence. what we're going to learn today is the extent that van der zwaan played a key role and also learn, however, erica, how a judge will view the muzizling o people like van der zwaan and ricks gates. there's a lot of information that mueller wants to keep closed close to the vest. >> as you're looking at all of this, in many ways to putting it out there, there's so much that robert mueller would want to keep close to the vest. also with some of t

he worked with trump campaign officials paul manafort and rick gates in ukraine.the meantime, a late night court filing reveals the scope of robert mueller's investigation of manafort. the classified memo, which was dated last august, shows the justice department explicitly authorized the special counsel to investigate claims that manafort colluded with the kremlin to meddle in the election. shimon prokupecz with us here now to break all of this down. i want to begin with evan perez, outside of the u.s. district court. tell us what's happening there in court right now. >> reporter: the court hearing is still ongoing in the third floor here at the federal courthouse behind me. but alexander van der zwaan's attorneys have been begging for him to serve no jail time in -- no jail time as a result of lying to prosecutors. he has pleaded guilty to lying and conspiracy charges. in court, just a little while ago, the federal prosecutors said that alexander van der zwaan should serve as an example for what the consequences are for lying to investigators. now, a few moments

foreign policy adviser, from rick gates, from van der zwaan and a rich man named vernado. you have three people, especially flynn and gates, and does it say there was a meeting on the table at the time? you have here, if it continues, a very detailed document laying out. is this usual? is this normal? or is this rod rosenstein knowing the president just fired james comey and is politically looking to take this organization down in his view, purview. >> this is an 18th summer vacation. then you started march. what do you want me to do? what are grand juries looking at? give me specific parameters about what i should be looking at, and as i proceed and i look at my man and he says, cases that maya rise out of, i'll come back and ask you about that. that seems to be what he's done, and on august 2nd, rosenstein d detailed for him more information on the scope of his mandate. this is important because he has challenged him in court saying you are acting without authority and this case should be dismissed. rosenstein, along with the mueller filing yesterday, said to the court, a

between vanderzwan and rick gates and this person a -- we know that person a is a russian intelligence officer. gates worked closely with paul manafort on the trump campaign and they all worked closely together on a report from ukrainian government. joining us from new york is tom winter. here in d.c. george. plus our panel for the next 56 minutes. katherine lucy, white house reporter. and amber. senior correspondent for politico. walk with us what you foe about this new filing coming out of the special council as it relates to paul manafort? >> what we learned in a motion filed after 11:00 p.m. and this is a government responding to manafort saying the indictment should be thrown out. the government said the appointment of mueller was completely lawful, so no issue with that. the government said the direction in the scope of his investigation is completely lawful and he's on track with that. to point to evidence on that, manafort has said, hey, what you're charging me with has nothing to do with russia and outside of the scope of the political interference and all occurred before 2014

investigators about rick gates apparently having contact with a russian intelligence agent. this is something that we learned just last week as federal investigators were getting ready for this sentencing. he's facing zero to six months in prison. we expect that he's probably going to end up getting closer to no time in prison. he's expected to -- his wife is expecting to have a baby in august. so that's one reason why we expect that perhaps he won't serve any jail time, despite the fact he's admitted to lying to the fbi. he's also facing a $250,000 fine as a result of this case. we know that obviously this is part of the special counsel investigation and this is a really big connection here between van der zwaan and paul manafort and rick gates in the fact that robert mueller is investigating collusion between the russians and the trump campaign. this is part of what the special counsel has been trying to put together in this case. and van der zwaan is a key connection as mueller makes that investigation go forward. erica? >> evan perez with the latest for us from outside t

and rick gates knew was a russian intelligence officer in 2016. more dots that be being connected as this case goes on. it's becoming clear why manafort is so important to this case. and why manafort was someone who came in and out of this campaign really didn't have his hands in this that argument is not standing up, as we're seeing how closely tied manafort was with the campaign. and also the connections that go to russia and the lobbying efforts they did on behalf of prorussian interests in the ukraine. >> we hear a lot about paul manafort, rick gates. we could describe this as semiperipheral characters, we're not hearing the big names a lot, we're not ever hearing about jared kushner in relation to the special council. we're not hearing about close advisers that are currently alongside donald trump, we're not hearing about mike flynn any longer. we're not hearing a lot about roger stone. we are hearing about him, but we're not hearing about robert mueller interview. could that be bad news for stone? >> it could be and it couldn't be. the thing

this person who rick gates communicated with who is a known russian intelligence officer and who rick gates knew what has a russian intelligence officer in 2016. there's more dots being connected as this case goes on and it's becoming more clear why manafort is so important to this case and why the white house said he just came in and out of this campaign and not close to the president and didn't have his hands in this, that argument is not standing up as we're seeing how closely tied manafort was with the campaign and also the connections that go to russia and the lobbying efforts they did on behalf of prorussian interest in ukraine. >> we hear about paul manafort a lot and rick begates a lot. we're not hearing the big flana. we're not hearing about jared kushner or other close advisors along side donald trump. we're not hearing about mike flynn any longer. we're also not hearing a lot about roger stone. we are hearing about it but not robert mueller interview roger stone. so far he has not been interviewed. why could that be or could that be bad news for stone? >> it could be and it

he pled guilty in february to lying about his contacts with former trump campaign aide rick gates and a person believed to be a former russian military intelligence officer. nbc news intelligence and national security reporter joins us with more. ken, this is not a name everybody was following closely, but it is significant in that it is the first sentencing of someone in the mueller probe. tell us what it's about. >> that's right. look, van der zwaan is not central to the mueller investigation. he doesn't appear to have been linked in any way to the trump campaign, but he lied to investigators while they were investigating paul manafort and rick gates who were running the trump campaign. what this mainly is, is a message to hundreds, that you lie to them, objestruct at your peril. only got 30 days in jail, but he is a lawyer, with felony conviction, his legal career is over, likely to be disbarred. the most important thing learned from the case, ali, is that the government has evidence that person a, russian intelligence officer he lied about talking to had on-going ties to russian i

need rick gate's testimony to convict manafort. they have a very serious, very strong case against mannaed for. so manafort doesn't have a lot of legal options. his legal options are basically to at some point cooperate and meet guilty and turn against the president or others in the president's orbit. or hope for a pardon or hope the president somehow closes down this entire investigation. >> flip, pardon, go to jail. those are not great options. all right, thanks so much. coming up, markets set to open in just a few moments. after monday's massive dive. and right now, u.s. stocks are on track to have their worst second quarter start since the great depression. what can we expect today? maybe a comeback. we know we're going to get one thing, volatility. you may be at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia, that can take you out of the game for weeks, even if you're healthy. pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that in severe cases can lead to hospitalization. it may hit quickly, without warning,

alex van der zwaan was aware of conversations between rick gates, who also pleaded guilty, and a person with ties to the russian intelligence service. joining us is rick booth, evelyn farcus, and harry litman. and harry lit man, i want to start with you on the last point, which is roger stone's e-mail saying i dined with julian assange last night. that obviously gets the interest of the special prosecutor, sam nunberg is brought in to testify about that, he has revealed, possibly among other things. and the roger stone defense it was a joke. >> no kidding. that's his defense to this one, lawrence. and there's some reason to think that it would have been very hard for him to make it all the way to assange to dine the next day. but remember, that's not all we have. he called assange my hero, he previewed that john podesta and tony podesta were going to get in trouble with the wikileaks, there's many different arrows pointing him to assange. we're like traveler huddled over a radio, getting transmissions as they come out of mueller's office but they're all saying russia, russia, wikileaks.

and remember rick gates and george papadopoulos have already pled guilty on the moeller side of the investigation yeah i mean it sounds a little bit like the o.j. simpson case right he had a criminal investigation a criminal trial and then you had the civil lawsuit so i mean you know who knew that american politics could be a lot like the simpson case but what does this tell us about the state of u.s. politics you said that we saw something similar to this right after watergate is this as bad or is it worse. well in this case it's it would be conceived if everything bears to be true it's worse because we're talking about foreign entities that are involved in an attempt to interfere in a us election it's bad enough when political parties within the united states are attempting to interfere in a proper election cycle it's a whole nother thing one and a foreign state and foreign players like wiki leaks are alleged to be involved if these bear to be true at all then this is in effect much worse because now we have global players participating and one thing that is odd about this case an

he plead the guilty to a single count of lying to investigators about his contacts with rick gates a former trump campaign official and business partner to paul manafort and a ukrainian associate identified only as person a who the fbi believes to be a russian investigation operative. van der zwaan is one of the characters who looks more important as time goes by. barbara mcquaid, a former federal prosecutor and justice analyst, frank figliuzzi, an msnbc national security analyst and benjamin wittes editor-in-chief of the law fair blog and an msnbc analyst. frank, on the vander zune sentencing and i want to move to the manafort file. what do you interpret as the reason to hammer this guy? in the way that mueller did? >> so an even bigger story than the 30-day prison sentence which to most people would seem like small potatoes for lying to mueller's team is what van der zwaan lied about. that's the message that mueller is sending. if you're lying about pertinent information and what's the information here? van der zwaan lied about conversations between rick gates, the deputy campaign

he pleaded guilty to lying to his contacts with rick gates and of course we all know rick gates is theto paul manafort. he also lied about his contacts with this mysterious person a. and we know that person a is a person with ties to russian intelligence operatives or russian intelligence operative himself. so, the intersection between manafort and gates' ties to lobbying efforts on the part of pro-russian ukrainian government is rife for the possibility of an interaction with collusion in the 2016 campaign. the memo, look, we have all been talking about whether or not there has been, you know, what the mandate for the special counsel is here. now we have it laid out in plain english written by rod rosenstein himself, who, of course, is overseeing the entirety of the russia investigation. it's trump's own justice department or justice department as he calls it is now giving mueller the authority to look into potential crimes committed by manafort in connection with receiving money from the ukrainian government. also, another one of those big bullet points in that memo it says that the

donald trump jr., paul manafort, roger stone, jared kushner, george papadopolos and rick gates and then ten john does, blanks to be filled in later. this is a toehold, a first step. obviously, what this would normally allow a party to do when you file a lawsuit like this is get discovery. depose witnesses. seems extremely unlikely we'd get that from the russian defendants or julian assange and may have trouble getting to the people questioned by the mueller investigation, because basically you have on a parallel track now. the general rule in courts is, if you've got a criminal investigation going on, that takes priority. they're going to have to wait until the mueller, most likely until the mueller investigation is over to get any kind of discovery, if, in fact, this moves forward. so it's a start, and they say -- >> why do this now, then, pete? if they have to wait likely until after the mueller investigation comes in? >> you've got to start sometime, i guess is the idea. there would be no tactical advantage to wait until the mueller investigation is over, because you can always add t

this morning the london based attorney who worked with rick gates and paul manafort became the firsteading guilty to a count of making false statements. alexander van der zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison for specifically lying about his contacts with gates and a business associate whereas ties to russian intelligence agencies. i'm joined by ken dilanian and jill wine-banks, former watergate prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst. when somebody gets 30 days in jail, maybe they were picked up for getting drunk somewhere or getting off easy for something much worse. what is it here? >> you're right, chris, he could have gotten up to six months. but really he's the first offender and there's some argument that in many cases somebody like this might not have been prosecuted at all that the mueller team played "hardball." did he tell the truth before these charges were filed. they charged him anyway. he's getting the 30 days in jail and he's a lawyer. he's going to lose his law license, presumably disbarred. this underscores these people can take your freedom away. they're not playing.

but you can see how they overlap and rick gates is cooperating with the investigation, and as part of that cooperation has to talk about everything. he was also a deputy chairman of the trump inauguration committee. another individual on the list is victor vexleburg, an energy oligarch and he attended two events of interest. he was at a dinner that michael flynn attended in december 2015 with vladimir putin. that we know caused a lot of controversy. he also attended the trump inauguration with -- at the invite of a friend of his, according to his spokesman who told that to the washington post. another name on the list, designated as a government official, is alexander torshin, a banker in russia, also very closely associated with the nra, he is -- puts himself out as building the russian equivalent of the nra, attended a number of the conventions. and we understand that congress is looking at him, mcclatchy reported that the fbi is looking into whether he illegally funneled money into the nra and to the trump campaign. so while none of the individuals have been accused of any wrongdoi

agents he lied to fbi regarding conversations with rick gates, paul manafort's, and that is what gotim into trouble. he had a light sentence, just 30 days. it is an indication of assistance he has been providing mueller's investigation. it is still a landmark moment. >> thank you very much. >> key talks with parties on forming government after last month's's election had a hung parliament. the latest on that next. this is bloomberg. ♪ shery ahn: french rail workers kicked off 36 days of striking today, protesting government plans to reform rail services. shery ahn reports from paris. including travel chaos in france across the country today. as 77% of many drivers went on strike, causing major disruptions with only one in eight high-speed trains running and one in five regional trains. was likely better for international trains with recorders through london and 90% to brussels. reason is it is planning to .nd special stages currently, they have a drug for life. for theirore benefits job. the opening of the competition by 2020. on one side, unions hoping with a rolling series, until t

he pleaded guilty for lying in his dealings with paul manafort and rick gates. punishment and you see him their center screen. 30 days in prison, $20,000 in fines, a two month supervised release to remember, he lied about his last communication with richard gates who was indicted in october along with former drum campaign manager paul manafort. so when he talked with

a dutch lawyer tied to former trump campaign deputy chairman rick gates sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine. alex vanderzwan pleaded guilty to lying and failing to turn over emails to the special counsel. his wife, daughter of a russian oligarch, in a voluntary interview with investigators said he thid his ties with intelligence ties. >>> after days of escalating rhetoric on immigration backed one rehashed policy ideas, president trump offered a brand-new proposal tuesday -- sending u.s. troops to guard the u.s. border. at a luncheon and joint news conference with baltic leaders, the president surprised nearly everyone including the pentagon with his call to use the military to patrol the border. until his long-promised border wall is built. more now from boris sanchez at the white house. >> reporter: president trump hitting a broad array of topics on tuesday, dave and rene, talking about everything from syria in which he said that he wanted to bring american troops home from that country in part, in his words, so they could help rebuild the united states. the president a

i think rick gates learned that. pamela and i have been doing a lot of reporting on this. time after time, if you lie to the special counsel, you're going to get in trouble for it. this is somebody who was an attorney with scab and arms, a major firm, and he's very remorseful, clearly, about what he did. . >> after they got caught. >> yes, but you cannot lie to them. >> the president is paying attention to this. the number of people who have been charged and pleading guilty to lying to the fbi, to the special counsel, and that is part of, you know, in the calculus when they're trying to decide whether or not to let the the president speak to robert mueller's team. there is a lot of concern, as we know, it could be a perjury tap for the president. >> and rod rosenstein, then acting attorney general, wrote an article now released by robert mueller. it's a memo from rosenstein to mueller, the special counsel. the scope of investigation, the definition of authority. it clearly states that they w t want. even though the house intelligence committee, the. >> but uf to remember t

he's tied to deputy campaign chairman rick gates. manafort, as you know, has been indicted by the special counsel robert mueller. rick gates was indicted. he pleaded guilty. he's reached an agreement with the special counsel. i want to bring our justice correspondent evan perez who has been closely following the endeavor. they were the only ones sanctioned today with some sort of connection to the president of the united states. >> right, wolf. the thing we have to keep in mind as far as it relates to the mueller investigation is that what mueller is now homing in on is the question of whether or not anybody might have legally provided money, donated money to the trump campaign, whether through shell corporations, whether through americans that were essentially straw donors. that's the big question for the mueller investigation, whether anybody was part of this influence operation by the russian government, and whether these people who are very close to vladimir putin, were part of that. so the three names you just put up there, oleg

rick gates had connections with russian oligarchs, potentially. this person was the son-in-law of russians. we've seen robert mueller look into these investigations, and we don't want foreigners making decisions on our political aspects. people coming in, protecting our borders. we have had a situation where a foreign country has come in and mucked with our election, and i think it's an important development that the mueller team is getting as deeply as possible into it. >> adam, you're doing a lot of reporting on this as well. give us your big picture. >> i think it's complicated because you don't know if the oligarchs are taking orders from putin. are they do it independently? are they trying to impress putin by having connections with the administration? just for the sake of your own business interests, you might curry favor with the administration. i'm sure we could find israeli businessmen who might be doing the same thing. it's not always clear if russian oligarchy is doing things because president putin is encouraging them. or go to him aft

it is due, and cnn says that the sources prove this, but it seems that bob mueller did not need rick gates to get to paul man fomana for manafort and what you believe it is gates flipping on somebody other than paul mab na for-- manafort? >> it suggested that there was more there that we didn't know, and couldn't know, and this may well be what that thing is, which is that you try to, and you always, the whole kind of the argument about well, we still need to figure out whether there is a connection directly to donald trump, and the crimes that are alleged against paul ma manaare fort are not crimes connect ned to the election, bu we know that paul manafort headed the campaign and ensuring that donald trump came out of the republican convention the victor, because remember, there was an insurrection that the republicans said "never trump" and at the same time meetings happening with the russian, and now the question at the convention, including the ambassador kizly yak, and now the question of whether there was some information, and that some platform item that russia did not like coming o

with me cnn analyst and former lawyer for the trump campaign deputy rick gates and associate independent counsel in the whitewater investigation. great to have both of you on. kim, let me start with you from what we just heard from pam regarding andy mccabe. you heard pam point out he could face -- could face criminal charges and that this is not entirely unusual. what are considerations here moving forward? >> at this point it looks like it's being sent over to the justice department to actually do a more careful factual investigation as to whether there is potentially a crime here. it's not dissimilar to what's happening in the mueller investigation with respect to other individuals and they'll make a determination as to whether there's something to move forward to from a criminal standpoint. i think hopefully what we're seeing is equal opportunity justice here that these decisions are being made based on the facts and the law and not based on political affiliations. it's important for the public to hear that the justice department needs to function independent of the political process

when we hear about rick gates, rick gates and paul manafort, we hear about him having contacts with somebodyties to russian intelligence services during the campaign. it ties to russian intelligence services. you know this world pretty well. can you give us a more tangible idea what that means. >> i was shocked last week people weren't more excited or interested in this because this is what it's about, links between the russian government and the trump campaign or trump campaign members. gates essentially admitted to it. the fbi assessed person a, whoever that might be, there's lots of desbat speculation about it, still had the ties. whether it's current or former. one thing to remember about russia or other countries, is once a spy, always a spy. so we're talking about oligarchs, contractors. this is how the intelligence works. the whole idea of the russian intelligence was to go around the fringes of the trump campaign to influence them. that's what active measures is, go through diplomatic, military, information and intelligence channels, engage with your content, your message to push it

who has connectioning allegedly to trump's former campaign chair paum man fort and his partner rick gates both of whom were indicted in robert mueller's russia probe. a number of others here, too. this will raise several questions. first of all, the original list back in january that the treasury department was required to come up with by law, more than 200 people, officials, oligarchs who could be subject to sanctions. today they're targeting 38. it would be 24 individuals. it's a fair question why so late, why so few of those original 200 names. although the time has passed, would these people have time to move around their investments and help protect them from those sanctions? thirdly, in all this talk, nowhere do they mention meddling in the u.s. election. they mentioned russia's continued attempts to subvert western democracy, but again nothing about meddling in the u.s. election. here is a quote from treasury secretary steve mnuchin, that this is basically a start here. he says russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the con

the same thing other folks like michael flynn and george papadopoulos and rick gates are currently beingu would expect that andrew mccabe would be treated the same under the law. >> shannon: scott, do you think there will be a criminal referral for andrew mccabe? >> i don't think so. what's more dangerous here's the lawsuit, civil lawsuit against the president or doj for this unjust firing. that is, they pretexts, the attacks on his character, by donald trump. that's the thing to look for. he was fired 26 hours before his pension vested. this investigation report was released then. that's a whole lot of problems for her and her mccabe. i will be honest with you. the constant attacks by donald trump certainly drove the investigation. if he didn't lie any just simply had a lack of memory or could not recall facts, it's not enough to criminally indict someone or even charge someone. it doesn't make any sense. i am a former prosecutor and i don't think the case is going nowhere. it's the civil case we need to pay attention to. >> shannon: is going to be a big one. professor jonathan turley,

rick gates has pled guilty and is now cooperating with this investigation. they have a lot of money. a lot of them come to the u.s. and have american friends and counterparts. one thing mueller is looking at is how money flowed from russia, potentially into the campaign. there's where a lot of these individuals come into play. >> what do you think this tells us about how deep the trump administration thinks that the mueller investigation is going into the ties that the campaign might have had? >> well, our reporting is that, you know, we know that there are a lot of questions being asked about relationships and money flows. and we know that mueller's investigations have stopped several oligarchs. at least two at the airport, in wanting to ask them questions about campaign financing. so, you know, two other ones that we know that are on this list that interact and overlap with people is a guy that runs one of the largest energy companies and attended this dinner where michael flynn was at. where flynn sat next to vladimir putin. another one is alexander torsh

we also know rick gates was the vice chair of trump's inaugurati inauguration.e has pled guilty and is cooperating with the investigation, an avenue through which mueller can look at this. one thing we know mueller is looking at -- he stopped two oligarchs as they entered the u.s. recently. the money trail. did money enter the campaign directly or indirectly? victor vekselberg is of interest because he attended two events, at the trump inauguration, along with an american business partner of his. and he also attended that dinner that michael tlin went to in december 2015 when he sat next to vladimir putin. those are also -- michael flynn, of course, pled guilty. third individual is alexander torshin, a russian banker. he is very active with the nra. we know that the fbi is reportedly investigating whether he funneled money illegally through the nra into the trump campaign. all three people -- three of the people on the list have that one thing in common, that they have these overlapping ties with individuals who are of interest by the special counsel's investiga

rick gates, a former campaign aide and frequent white house visitor.e was a partner and protege to paul manafort. richard pinedo pleaded guilty to selling bank account numbers and stolen american identities to the russians during the 2016 campaign. these are the cooperating and guilty people. there are more cooperating witnesses. sam nunberg, former campaign aid, and roger stone associate who turned up drama with a slew of cable news appearances last month. you'll remember nose. nunberg initially said he wouldn't work with the special counsel but testified anyway. george nader, adviser to the united arab emirates leadership. he allegedly set up a meeting between erik prince and russian contacts. now, to those who were charged but not pleading guilty. paul manafort. he's opted to go to trial rather than plead guilty. manafort is charged with conspiracy against the united states and money laundering, among other things. he sued to get the charges thrown out, both in washington, d.c. and virginia courts. there are also 13 russian individuals and entities.

he's alleged to have ties with former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and rick gates, both who have been indicted in the robert mueller russia investigation. these are clearly senior level people, both in russian business, and russian political circles, as well as the russian government. but we're not looking at an enormous number of people. remember, it was months ago in january, congress passed this law, mainly to punish russia for meddling in the u.s. election. as a result of that law, the state department and treasury needed to draw up a list of people like this who they could sanction, so there were nearly 100 oligarchs in that list. 100 more people on the prominent russians list, including russian senior officials. and the administration chose not to sanction them right away. when this list came out. again, this was in january. so back then we were looking at a list of some 200 russian people who could be targeted. and now there are seven oligarchs and 17 senior government officials. so this is clearly a start. it is part of the administration's effort to get tougher on r

then when you link that with search warrants a couple weeks after his right-hand man, rick gates, pleads guilty to a cooperation agreement, you put that together and the natural assumption is that these search warrants probably relate in some capacity to another investigation into manafort, which we can assume is this collusion investigation. but remember, we don't know necessarily what these search warrants are about. they relate to five phones. my suspicion is that they relate to what's called historical cell site location information, which basically the cell tower that a phone bounces off of when a call is made. and this is very frequently used in, for instance, a bank robbery case if you want to know that the suspect was at the bank around the time of the bank robbery, you get their historical cell site information. it's less relevant in a white collar investigation usually, but it can often be very good corroboration for a cooperating witness such as rick gates or -- >> daniel, i didn't know we were going to get into cell tower business to that level of detail. i wonder if you coul

. >> the kind of crimes that rick gates and the people around donald trump have either been charged witheaded guilty to, or look like they are vulnerable of being charged with. so to create a narrative, the likes of which they've created on fox news, which you've just showed, which is sort of shocking. i've done that too, though, before. when people ask about what happens next, and i think that comment about eating your wheaties and fortifying yourself is a good one. i think what happens next could be nothing. i think fox news is conditioning the company to accept a pardon for someone like scooter libby so they can accept a pardon for everyone in donald trump's seemingly corrupt enterprise. >> the crimes for which libby were convicted was lying to the fbi and obstruction of justice. if this is part of a larger effort by the white house, the president himself, the republican party and their supporters in conservative media to define the fbi as bad, criminal -- >> biased. >> biased, something that needs to be opposed and denounced, then lying to a bad organization like that shouldn't be se

there are kinds of crimes, rick gates, people around donald trump have been charged with, pleadsed guiltyre vulnerable of being charged with. what happens next could be nothing because i think that fox news is conditioning the country to accept a pardon for someone like scooter libby to prepare them for the pardoning of everybody in donald trump's seemingly corrupt criminal enterprise. >> now to the former substitute teacher who is under arrest after allegedly running a fight club at a connecticut school, 23-year-old ryan fish was caught on cell phone video encouraging students to fight during class. he denies facilitating the fight saying he didn't know how to handle the situation. fish was fired in october after school officials first learned about the fight club. he faces multiple charges including reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor. >> being a cool teacher goes way too far. >> what happens in fight club stays in fight club. play is a good thing, too. we hope your friday is off to a great start. i'm frances rivera. >> and i'm phillip mena. we leave you images with this

robert mueller's investigation, one-time trump campaign chairman paul manafort and his deputy, rick gates. with that sentence of prison time, mueller is signaling that he is taking a tough line. >>> next, epa chief scott pruitt is still on the job tonight, despite a growing cloud of controversy. today, pruitt scrapped obama-era fuel standards for cars and trucks, a key piece of president trump's agenda. the president and chief of staff, john kelly, both called pruitt to tell him they have his back, at the same time that the white house has him under investigation. here's abc's mary bruce. >> reporter: with calls growing for him to fire his embattled epa chief, president trump today was pressed on where he stands. >> scott pruitt, sir? do you support scott pruitt, sir? >> i hope he's going to be great. >> reporter: overnight, the president called pruitt. his message, according to an administration official? keep fighting, we have your back. but privately, sources say the president is frustrated with all the controversy. white house lawyers are now investigating pruitt's living situation, a

presidential election the reason why he's going to jail he lied about the communications that he had with rick gates and another business partner awful manifolds in ukraine as part of the investigation so what this is being seen as is a warning by the special counsel do not lie to us do not withhold information we will catch you and you will go to jail. from washington she had to thank you. yemen's who the rebels have struck a saudi oil tanker in the red sea saudi state t.v. says the vessel was hit off the yemeni port city of one day that the who the say they targeted the tanker in response to a saudi air strike in on monday that killed at least fourteen civilians seven of them children. officials are warning that aid groups are in a race against time to stop or hinder refugees from facing what they're calling enormous threats in the coming season me and maurice panel of international advisors on the road says that refugee camps in bangladesh will be unable to withstand storms around seven hundred thousand have fled violence in myanmar since last august and many are still trying to escape malaysian

special counsel's investigation into forward trump campaign chairman paul metaphor and his deputy rick gates' lobbying for ukraine both have been charged with undeclared foreign lobbying and money laundering. sentencing is not connected to allegations that the russian government colluded with the trump campaign in order to sway the twenty sixteen presidential election than this one was being interviewed as a special counsel investigated poor man a foreign rich gates lobbying and alleged money laundering as they lobbied for the ukrainian government years before the election while they were working for former ukrainian president viktor yanukovych amount of foreign gates work with the band as one but as one failed to disclose several conversations you had in twenty sixteen with gates and a long time kiev big business associate of manifolds about that work the f.b.i. alleges that business associate has links with russian intelligence and that's caused excitement among those looking for a smoking gun in the russian investigation but the discussions are reported to have focused on payment for the

it furthers paul, manfort, rick gates and george pap doll lutz. >> the campaign said this last ditch effort by interrupt democratic party trike to count the will of the people. the civil mraut is without merit and will be dispeszs. the >> this is a fundraising ploy or an effort to get people in court to depose them. so they can learn what mueller is learning and use it. >> claims they needed to file this lawsuit now due to statute of limit agdzs on self charges. they are getting blow back from democrats including clare called it a silly distraction. they are very confident in their case going forward. >> i respect for people and a lot of the people are friends and especially someone like chair, we agree on a lot of things. they are pointing out with this a civil suit well say low are burden of proof than in a criminal case. civil cases can take years begin that special youns mueller's investigation will take precedence. >> thank you very much. >> you got it. more from the lawsuit against the trump cam 59 russians reached out to associates anxious to provide information about hill row

i believe they will squeeze him the way they did with rick gates in a crime like monfort. >> i hope hecorrect. >> and so after president trump's endorsement. there is a tepid endorsement of marshala black burn to elect his replacement. >> senator that is not a ringing endorsement. >> i have worked with the nominee and i don't know what to say. >> marsha black burn. >> and sidestepping her responsibility and he ran the ranch where larry naszar examined all of the girls. u.s. medallist jordan weaver is here to share her story. >> the camps were organized by u.s. gymnastic and not organized by marto. let's see why people everywhere are upgrading their water filter to zerowater. start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids. pour it through brita's two-stage filter. dissolved solids remain? what if we filter it over and over? (sighing) oh dear. thank goodness zerowater's five-stage filter gets to all zeroes the first time. so, maybe it's time to upgrade. get more out of your water. get zerowater. >> martha: just days after the funeral of form first lady barbara, but tonight president

guilty last february to lying to the feds about his contacts with senior trump campaign official rick gateshe is 33 years old. son-in-law of a russian. no known ties to the trump campaign. court documents say he and gates had discussions with a business association and former russian intelligence officer at the final months of the campaign in 2016. >> heather: to california. lawmakers in a frenzy after the white house sues the golden state over the transfer of federal lands. chief correspondent jonathan hunt is live in los angeles with more on this. jonathan, let's get to the field standards first. this fight could impact all of us, not just californians, right? >> the federal lands issues and fuel standard issues two fronts in the new battle between the trump administration and california and the fuel standards one is interesting. california has a legal waiver to set and stick to its own fuel emission standards so if it decides to stick to the current epa mandate or higher of 36 miles per gallon by 2025 it could make costs for manufacturers go up because they're doing one kind of car for c

the same thing like michael flynn, george papadopoulos and rick gates are being charged for.w mccabe would be treated the same under the law. >> bill: will that happen? that from texas republican john ratcliffe after a watchdog report finding mccabe repeatedly lied to cover up leaks to the media. he is with me now. welcome back to "america's newsroom." i know the treatment you want him to get. will he get it? >> i think he will. if i were going to make a prediction i would expect there to be a criminal referral in this matter and i would expect that andrew mccabe will be facing the same types of charges that michael flynn, rick gates and george papadopoulos are facing. i certainly am of the opinion that he should be based on the inspector general's report. again, this is the department of justice investigating itself and finding misconduct on not one, not two or three but four different occasions. some of those under oath. that i believe even though i'm not in the business of prosecuting people anymore, i believe in this case will be a prosecutable crime. >> bill: that was a

there may be problems involving rick gates and paul manafort, for example, the platform, the republican platform that changed from being a strong expression of support for ukraine to being mute on the question and some belief those two individuals played a role in getting that done quietly but i think the idea of collusion and conspiracy and cooperation between the russians and the donald trump campaign -- mueller will prove it is not the case and none of that happened and that will be what the president wants. >> sandra: if they let the investigation run its course and at the conclusion mueller says no collusion. imagine the world having to deal with that fact. susan collins is a republican from maine. she weighed in and it sounds like she would urge the president to do that based on what she said here. listen. >> i believe he is staying within the parameters and the proof of that is when he came across the allegations against mr. cohen, he did refer them back to the justice department. >> sandra: she went on to say that she doesn't believe that cohen is central to this investigation.