the guy for whom sam patten was illegally lobbying, it wasn't victor yankovic's chief of staff. paul manafort is being charged with being an unregistered foreign agent, sam patent, an unregister unregistered agent. all indications are that part of opposition block. the unnamed foreign official described throughout the documents, all indication is that he was this guy, sergei. part of opposition bloc chief of staff yankovic if he is in fact unnamed official described in the documents. it should be noted that in the evidence that was introduced in the last paul manafort trial, that same guy, sergei lovochkin is the same pay master for paul manafort for all the work did he in ukraine. more than $40 million of the overseas payments that prosecutors funneled to paul manafort came from this guy, sergei lovochkin. so lots of linked to manafort. you may have heard when they charged this guy sam patten today and they got his guilty plea, you may have mattered prosecutors claimed in his case that patten illegally funneled foreign money into the trump inauguration. that's a $50,000 illegal

the defendant, sam patten, yes rns. do you understand the government has agreed to bring the nature and extent of your cooperation to my attention at the time of your sentencing? the defendant, that is my understanding, your honor. and then here's sort of the moment everybody is waiting for in the courtroom. the judge says, quote, are you entering this plea of guilty voluntarily? and of your own free will because you are guilty and for no other reason? the defendant, i am, your honor. the judge, is there anything you don't understand about this proceeding or about your plea in this case? the defendant, no, your honor. is there anything you want to ask me or your lawyer before i ask you for your final decision in this case? the defendant, no, your honor. the judge, are you ready now to make a decision about whether you want to enter a plea of guilty or whether you want to have a trial? yes, your honor. the judge. and what's your decision in the defendant, i would -- i plead guilty to the charge. and the judge says, i am

then sam patten and his company got reimbursed by the ukrainian oligarch guy. yanukovych's chief of staff. he wired sam $50,000 to cover the expense out of an offshore bank account that he controlled in cyprus. so that's the mechanism is interesting, right? money coming from abroad that sam patten is passing through his money in washington through to some other american citizen who donates the money to trump. it's foreign money but it has to go through that little route to get to the trump inaugural campaign. now, i'm interested in every part of that including who was the unnamed american who wrote the check? did that person do this wittingly? how did prosecutors find out about all of this? do prosecutors believe it might have happened in other circumstances when it comes to the trump inauguration? part of the reason this was such an interesting part of the charge from prosecutors, from the beginning, the trump inaugural committee has looked like a giant slush fund. we've been reporting on this for more than a year. something is rot in denmark when it comes to t

if this paper has been working closely, this sam patten fellow has been working that closely with kill knick and manafort, was patten aware kilimnick had ties back to the kremlin and was manafort aware? again, it gets back to the question of manafort. was he a witting agent of the russian government or unwitting. i think it does matter. although, of course in his actions maybe it doesn't make a difference in the eye of the law. i do think it's important for us to understand eventually. we don't know whether robert mueller will tell the american people. but i do think this points to the question of the kremlin culpability. and then there's the other piece of it, which bloomberg mentioned in their article about cambridge analytica. >> yeah. >> that this guy, sam, was also involved at one point with cambridge analytic. do those relationships endure throughout the campaign? i think his involvement was earlier. >> yeah. it's very interesting to see the threads overlapping here with all these various aspects. guy, i want your reaction. rudy giuliani talked about this plea deal today. take a

he opened a company jointly with sam patten, the man who pled guilty today, in 2015 and they used that company to do lobbying work for ukraine, which is the charges that sam patten pled guilty to today working as a lobbyist for a foreign party without properly registering with the u.s. government. >> there's also this straw donor issue, right? what exactly was the scheme? >> foreign citizens can't make political contributions in the united states, not to campaigns and not to inaugural committees. so patten was working for this ukrainian politician oligarch who apparently wanted to come to the inauguration. to go to the inauguration, you have to give money to the inauguration. so basically what patten did was working with kilimnick, he found an american willing to give or act as the straw donor and that american officially was on the paperwork for $50,000 but in fact the money came from this ukrainian businessman. they got four tickets and the ukrainian businessman and patten attended the inauguration. >> you know, whatever -- if taking aside the question of what the trump campaign did

sam patten plieding guilty, what can you tell us? >> is that somebody that was associated with the trump campaign? this is somebody who has connections to people inside the trump orbit. this is somebody who's done them. we have illegal donations coming into the trump campaign. this was something that the trump campaign knew. the paperwork shows this person is a russian and the other one is a ukrainian e iaian oligarch. they asked somebody to buy the tickets for them because you can't put foreign money into an inug gurl commission. i think that's a pretty astounding headline? >> and we say, yes, this is not the u.s. >> do buy know anything? >> we know from our own reporter that in fact andrew weissman who's one involved in the man na for with the u.s. attorney's office in washington, d.c. -- i'm sorry, cooperate the second part. yeah, they're definitely a part of this. >> let me bring you in. i know you've written extensively on this topic. i think these names may not be new two and the inug gurl committee? >> we do know federal prose

that's another element from the outside according to sam patten influencing that as well as what's happening >> look, obviously, mueller is building a indicates here there was a lot of activity going on, people close to the trumporb tr orbit, associated with paul manafort and a russian ambassador or agent, the beat knows more about. that liten, mueller is building up a story here. what i think is really interesting. we haven't heard a lot object what mike flynn has been saying. mike flynn has been talking to the prosecutors for a long time, i think interesting stories from that conversation right now. >> to finish this off, this is all about the way one government is trying to influence another and the reasons they are trying to build. we were leading a segment youof with bruce ohr trying to flip oem gas, russia heret this united states for instance you had recent conversations about how to if you will launder money in the united states to deep infrastructure. >> when you have a conversation where almost everything is for sale and russia has money to spend you have a perfect marriage. allowi

news for paul manafort, yet another shoe dropping because we learned in the court filings that sam patten's former business partner is who m nener charged co-defendant with paul manafort in the upcoming sort of manafort 2 trial in d.c. later this month. so it didn't surprise me that the fbi and mueller's investigative team casts a wide net. they are trying to see what kind of inroads they can make to witnesses not just cooperating witnesses who are americans or american citizens, but perhaps even more broadly than that, potential witnesses who are russians who are ukranians and this didn't surprise me at all. >> and part of this, bruce ohr one of the lawyers here involved in this potential outreach to russian oligarchs, again we understand that president trump has really come at tfter this department of justice lawyer bruce ohr. >> yeah, he has. bruce is a career guy at the department before bruce met with one of the fellows the source of information who was involved in this whole steele dossier business. probably shouldn't have pretty with him by himself as a process kite tore, i didn't me

of course, paul manafort, rick gates, his deputy, sam patten was another one who was funneling money to trump from essentially russian interests and who was also close to constantine kilimnik who was the russian intelligence agent who was also very close to paul manafort and to rick gates. we hear this constant refrain from rudy giuliani, no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. well, actually we see a lot of evidence of collusion. we have not seen the absolute proof presented yet because robert mueller is building his case methodically and he is not going to show his cards before he has to, but the building blocks of collusion are there along with, of course, obstruction of justice, which, you know, the president continues to commit in plain sight with his attempts to intimidate session and mueller and perhaps to get rid of them, along with other crimes, including the fact that last week trump's lawyer pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign laws at the direction of president trump. so the case against donald trump, i mean, these are very small building blocks that we've seen

. >> this big headline that we led with around sam patten, the dooed.c. lobbyist pleading guilty to funneling money from a russian oligarch into the trump committee, giuliani says that has nothing to do with mr. trump, but with patten now cooperating with investigator, should it worry team trump? >> i think that everything right now is worrying team trump, anything that certainly regardless of what this leads to in terms of a direct connection, the optics again of anything that connects the president to the idea that he may have colluded with the russians or governments friendly to the russians is something that they are tremendously worried about because so much of this is political and it is about how the american public will read the claims that trump was linked up with russia as they approach those november elections. that is the primary concern right now. >> so we dug into the micro there. so many new lines that constantly cross each day. but let's look at the big picture of how people view this investigation, how they view the president of the united

according to court documents, american lobbyist sam patten admitted he made a $50,000 donation through a straw donor from a russian and a ukrainian. patten has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in washington, d.c. and special counsel robert mueller. patten, who has ties to paul manafort, pleaded guilty today to failing to register as a foreign agent. meanwhile the associated press reports today that doj lawyer bruce ohr was told by british former spy christopher steele that russian intelligence believed it had, quote, donald trump over a barrel. here to talk about all of this, ken dilanian and eric tucker, who broke today's news on that meeting between bruce ohr and christopher steele. ken, let me start with you on this question of patten, straw donations, the trump inaugural committee, i think i said campaign in the tease but let me be clear, it's the inaugural committee we're talking about here. take us through what we need to know about this, because this was a name that i think was not on folks' radar. >> not a household name. it's a former state department official, old

opened up a company in washington with sam paten and what did this company do, and why was colinick able to ingratiate himself in culture and politics. it turns out pattenh him in this capacity he would not elaborate. all he said was his clients were outside of the u.s., they had a friendship that went back ages and that's where this came from. when i asked him whether that company had done domestic messaging to require them to file a -- notify the justice department he donald the and said all our clients are outside of the united states. he did not want to reveal the fact that he and kilimnik were doing this in the u.s. >> kilimnik is from where? >> russian. he was essentially served as paul manafort's fixer in ukraine and they've worked together a number of years. >> you have this mr. kilimnik, and the two russian nationals involved in shady dealings, the attempt to get foreign money into the american inauguration to the american president also from ukraine and russia and that sphere, fbi agents attempting to flip a russian oligarch to get to trump and manafort, and then george papadopoulos saying i shouldn't get much jail time because all i was doing