months later the intelligence community, of course, would confirm that publicly on the record. >> shane harris senior writer on national security for "the wall street journal." shane, thank you very much. >> thanks, rachel. thanks for having me. >> that last point, i don't want that -- it's not in the headline but it may end up being the most important thing about this story, reports in the spring of 2016 european intelligence agencies were warning u.s. intelligence agencies about russian money making its way into the u.s. presidential election. spring of 2016, the sort of wrapping up of the primary process. we know who the general election candidates are going to be. i don't know what we'll fimpb fimpbld -- find out about that. that detail reported for the first time tonight in "the wall street journal" by shane harris, that, if nothing else, probably explains why there have been so many people signed up as lawyers on the bob mueller probe, whose background is in international money laundering. all right. much more to come here tonight, including another excellent investigative reporter joini

he talked about it to "wall street journal" reporter shane harris in an interview that took place in may. and one of the striking details in that personal story when it was published two weeks ago is that peter smith had died not long after sitting down and doing that interview with shane harris. quell now tonight the chicago tribune reports that peter smith's death was a suicide. now, again this is something that would normally be considered an entirely private matter, only of concern to his family. because of peter smith's interesting and unique involvement in the presidential campaign though and the subsequent focus after the story came out as to who in the trump campaign might have been working with him on this project with the russians. because of a all of that, the news of his apparent suicide at age 81, it's not just his family's information, it is now national news. and we actually have one new piece of information to contribute to what is known about that story coming up later on in the show tonight as well. so as i said, there's a lot going on right now. we've got our eyes

what shane harris at the "wall street journal" was able to report was that republican operative, peter harris, at the end of last summer, he assembled a team to try to get in contact with, to try to get in cahoots with russian hackers. before peter smith died earlier this year at the age of 81 he freely admitted to "the wall street journal" that he had surmised that these russian hackers he was trying to get in touch with were probably linked to the russian government. that didn't bother him. he thought the russian government hackers attacking our election system might have been able to hack hillary clinton's e-mails. and so he formed this team late last summer to try to find the appropriate group of hackers, to try to make contact with them, to try to get hillary clinton's stolen e-mails off of them so those e-mails could be deployed against her in the campaign on behalf of trump supporters. so it's really interesting bombshell reporting from shane harris, again, about a week and a half ago. it was a big advance in terms of what we understand about this story and what we as americans

shane harris has the sole buy line on that, the provocative question in that report from the "wall street" was about his connection to the trump campaign, mr. smith many people he was trying to bring into this project and his communication with people about this effort, he was making to contact hackers repeat repeatedly reference mike flynn on this effort. that's not been confirm. it was said by smith apparently. flynn is not commenting in reaction to these, in reaction to these new reports. just right now, the "wall street journal" has posted this, and they say that in addition to saying that he was in contact with mike flynn in this effort to get information on hillary clinton, mr. smith also circulated a document that listed not just flynn but also steve ban upon the, kelly anne conway and sam colvis, a low profile go the trump indiana i company now a senior adviser at thing a culture accident. they were all mentioned by peter smith as people he was in communication with, in contact with are related to this effort to contact the russian hackers. this is a second beat on the first story

shane harris was the sole byline on that.he very provocative question in that report from "the wall street journal" was about his connection to the trump campaign. mr. smith in his communication with people he was trying to bring into this project and his communication with people about this effort he was making to contact russian hackers repeatedly referenced mike flynn who was then a senior adviser to the trump campaign as somebody he was working with and in communication with on this effort. now that's not been confirmed. it was said by smith apparently. flynn is not commenting in reaction to these -- in reaction to these new reports. but just right now "the wall street journal" has just posted this. and they say that in addition to saying that he was in contact with mike flynn in this effort, again, to work with russian hackers to get information on hillary clinton, mr. smith also circulated a document that listed not just flynn, but also steve bannon, kellyanne conway, and sam clovis, who was low profile but important po

joining us now, shane harris, senior writer for "the wall street journal," he broke the story.operative trying to get hillary clinton's e-mails. thanks for being here tonight, i appreciate it. >> hi, rachel, thanks for having me. . >> we've talked about this since you first broke this story on thursday night, let me ask if i've summarized what's happened since then accurately and if you have anything to add to that report thus far. >> no, you summarized it perfectly accurately. the only thing i'll say in addition is matt tate, who has now come out publicly as a source on this story, is a highly credible individual, and has never been someone who i have known to exaggerate or say more than he knows and believes. so i think that essay that he wrote for law fare is worth reading. >> in terms of his involvement here, he is not a u.s. citizen, nor does he appear at least from what we know about him to have had partisan leanings in our election. is it your sense that he might have been involved in this, to the extent he was, because he was trying to hurt hillary clinton's chances, tr

shane harris of the general told me that smith showed no signs of illness.t was ten days before he died. harris said smith, to the contrary, still showed a lot of energy regarding his project. he was still pushing to get those clinton e-mails made public. >> okay, brian todd, very disturbing story. thank you very much. >>> coming up, breaking news, we are learning there were more people in that trump team meeting with the russian attorney than donald trump, jr. ever acknowledged and a russian american lobbyist with alleged ties to russia. a former trump campaign aide tells the house intelligence committee, there he is, michael ka putin owe, he denies any contact with the russians during the campaign. ♪ there's nothing more important than your health. so if you're on medicare or will be soon, you may want more than parts a and b here's why. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. you might want to consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like any medicare

hue hewitt, shane harris, and daniela. the big juan job 45% o. on that panel, here we are, under 45. >> and 45 mass mussing has -- that's about where people thought he would be. his base is with him. that base is still holding, but not shocking he would be right about where we thought he was. it didn't seem like he was going to move from much from that number. >> cabinet picks would make it, would he lose any of them? the assumption is he would lose one somehow someway. we talked sessions, tiller soon and mnuchin, and ended up being pez ner. >>> reince priebus, over/under, would he still be chief of staff. we were correct this would be a constant theme of the trump white house, but he's still will. >> he's still there for for you now. i think it remains to be -- trump gives mixed messages about how he feels about him. i wouldn't be surprised if he's not there much longer. >> how much is health care's fight and his fate tied? >> i think the president constantly brings up the fact it was reince priebus, paul ryan, mitch mcconnell and mike pence tha

what shane harris at the "wall street journal" was able to report was that republican operative, petere end of last summer, he assembled a team to try to get in contact with, to try to get in cahoots with russian hackers.

shane harris, ruth mark us, robert train or, and of course msnbc political analysts. welcome all. going to start with you. you are doing as much digging on this. let's start with cory. there's still some confusion about where donald trump was on june 9th. >> right. >> he said we were down in florida on june 9th. he still believes they were. he's checking his records. our records indicate they were in new york on june 9th. there was a june 7th florida speech, and he was in florida, we believe w two days later. look, we can give cory the benefit of the doubt a little bit. he's traveling. he's the one traveling all the time. he was not in that meeting. that's for sure. that is something that everybody agrees to. so we're trying to clear up that date, confusion there. what did you learn here? what do you think is going on? >> what i was struck by is his saying that he might have taken the meeting. he holds out the possibility maybe i would do that. you get opposition research all the time. we weren't trying to do opposition research on hillary clinton, so i don't know how you scare tho

joining me, tara moler, msnbc contributor malcolm nans, and senior writer "the wall street journal" shane harristart with you. have you seen fake documents come across your mailbox, your inbox? >> not that i'm aware that are fake. i don't think we received the same document that rachel and buzz feed received, but certainly information has come across in my career that's difficult to corroborate on its face, very difficult to look at and know whether or not it is accurate without significant more reporting. in this case rachel show did the right thing, be skeptical of this information and tried to find experts who could help them assess whether or not it was legitimate. for reasons she laid out, there were red flags in that document. they were wise not to trust it and to alert other journalists about it. >> one thing, shane, that rachel pointed out in the piece that was a huge red flag for her because it was such a bombshell thing is that there was someone who was named, outright named in this document. why was that such a huge red flag? >> because an intelligence report of the kind she's describ

thank you for extensively quoting the wall street article by shane harris on page five.he frontusa today," page, i wanted to refer to following the russian money into mr. trump's campaign. unraveling just like watergate. for the newporters york times and washington post, the truth is certainly going to be revealed. unlike president obama, carter and ford, who have a moral compass, it appears mr. trump's moral compass is certainly bankrupt. his defense lawyer may resign in the next couple of days. following mr. mueller's special investigations, if there are indictment's, the most outlandish thing and most outrageous comment mr. trump has made is that he has never asked for forgiveness for anything. i know you and all of your colleagues who are married know that in order to make a marriage strong and last, you have to ask for forgiveness. the greatest hypocrisy with a capital h assigned to mr. trump is that when he said he's never asked for forgiveness, if page andls like carter jared kushner and don jr. are indicted and convicted him of the greatest operas he will convict

this strange and fascinating report in "the wall street journal" from national security reporter shane harriseporting was the first time we ever had any documentation, any confirmed reporting about any american citizen making an effort to get involved in the

in the end, shane harris said, peter smith believes he had gathered those private hillary clinton e-mailsetely verify their accuracy. so he never put them out. some on capitol hill thinks smith's efforts are one more avenue that should be investigated in the russia probe. >> it is something that should be probed further. i hope it now gets folded into what we are doing. >> aside from michael flynn's attorney never getting back to us about peter smith, the white house also didn't return our calls or e-mails. a senior official from the trump presidential campaign told me he had never heard of peter smith or his reported attempts to gather hillary clinton's e-mails during the campaign. brian today, cnn. >>> we now know there were eight people in the room when donald trump jr. took that campaign meeting with a russian lawyer back in 2016. new details about the russian lobbyist and former soviet intelligence officer who were there. ♪ more kinds of crab than ever, new dishes, and all your favorites. only while crabfest lasts. red lobster. now this is seafood. will you be ready when the moment t

. >> and what the wall street journal and shane harris broke yesterday are two very important stories. one of them you just read a piece of there, that's brand new and a huge deal. >> and in some cases, buried the lead. >> the source is dead 10 days after the interview, and all this intriguing stuff here. according to the wall street journal, investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that have described russian hackers discussing how to obtain clinton e-mails from her server and transmit them to flynn. that is the first time we've had any reporting like that. >> that's right. >> that says that investigators are looking not just at the contacts between russians or even russian officials in the trump campaign, this is contacts for the purpose of helping them in the campaign. >> and what -- i agree completely, what's so significant about that, it's been hard to separate out the wheat from the contacts. there are contacts that could be entirely innocent. people have contact, right? there are some contacts that look strange. we the other thing about this, that i though

that odd suicide note combined with what he told "wall street journal" reporter shane harris ten dayse he died is putting the death into the spotlight. >> so smith told he put together a group of lawyers and technology experts to get in contact with hackers in europe which he believed would be in russia what they suspected may have obtained hillary clinton's private e-mails from her server. >> reporter: smith told "the wall street journal" he had done this during the late stages of the presidential campaign. >> he wanted to get the e-mails, acquire them and then publish them so it would be damaging to secretary clinton. >> reporter: matt tate said he was told about being contacted by someone from the dark web claiming to have clinton's personal e-mails. and said he might need help authenticating them. tate wrote that smith had a reckless lack of interest in whether they came from the russian cutout. peter smith told the journal that general flynn then serving as national security adviser to the trump campaign was aware of smith's operations. >> was there any legitimacy to that? did fl

. >> on those news updates that i will share, we can digest, you reported, shane harris saying he spoke with the dhs spokesperson who says the department has no guidance on who is now the acting secretary of homeland security. it seems at this hour, had five minutes before 7:00 p.m., that's an unknowable if, god for bid, something of a national security level disaster are occurred and you didn't that have acting person. number two a reporter quoting an anonymous white house official, and i'll not sure why, what i'll about to read should necessitate anonymity. but anthony scaramucci still reports directly to potus, not new chief of staff kelly. because there's so much white house talk about leaks, richard, maybe you can tell us how that works. that would seem to be an anonymous leak west don't know if it is anthony scaramucci saying that. >> that's probably him making it very clear that he has a direct report to the president he which is unusual. usually the chief of staff, people report to the chief of staff. and this sets us up for a situation. we're going to have warring caps in the w

. >> malcolm, i want to play for you shane harris who broke the story in the journal, and he's the one rachel was citing in her discussion of this story. but i want to push back a little bit on this idea that because donald trump said something, it should be treated as true when so much of what donald trump says shouldn't be treated as deferentially, automatically true. he cites that statement we've played now and people have seen it repeatedly where he said, oh, russia, help me get those e-mails. here's harris talking about that in the wider context. >> so around this same time frame, after donald trump made that statement at the rally in florida that we just heard earlier, u.s. intelligence is picking up these russian hackers discussing ways to try and get hillary clinton's e-mails from her server and then to transmit that information somehow via an intermediary back to mike flynn. it is striking how the activities match up, the description of the mission if you will lines up, and the time frame is similar. so it is at least possible that what we're seeing in those reports is the oth

republican opposition researcher and his circle in a thursday "wall street journal" scoop by reporter shane harrisorging, quote, an independent campaign to obtain e-mails he believed were stolen from hillary clinton's private server likely by russian hackers. smith tells "the wall street journal" he worked with mike flynn when flynn was the trump campaign senior adviser. smith believed that flynn was an ally to find these haxers and these e-mails. now if true, these are the first details, as i mentioned, entailing collusion during the election. smith saying, i'm talking to michael flynn about this if you find anything, can you let me know? that's according to eric york a computer security expert. smith saying the hackers were probably around the russian government. as for flynn himself, smith felt the trump campaign senior adviser was a close confident it seems. example one from the report from the "wall street journal" says -- smith in one of his associates said they had a line of communication with flynn. number two, that smith supported mr. flynn's efforts during the presidential transition to

for him, and he was proud of his contribution to the effort and went out of his way to talk to shane harris and establish his role in this rogue operation. >> that is often called an admission against interests. it adds to some of the evidence. david, elise, appreciate your insights. >>> up next, a totally different story. a young woman's tragic murder is now part of the immigration debate in washington. and the house's action this week on kate's law. controversial to many, others say an important part of securing the border. >>> also, president trump does make stride on the travel ban with that big supreme court yuling. will it help him in the long run? that's next. last year, he said he was going to dig a hole to china. at&t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. remote moisture sensors use a reliable network to tell them when and where to water. so that farmers like ray can compete in big ways. china. oh ... he got there. that's the power of and. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i would

from "the wall street journal," shane harris, kasie hunt and sam stein. >> sam, it's so good to see you. how you doing? >> it's great to see you, too, guys. >> i don't think he means that. >> he doesn't. he's a dartmouth man. >> let's move on. >> we love dartmouth. my eyes were caught by this "usa today" headline that talks about russia doesn't rate in trump company. that's something that you are hearing from a lot of members that people aren't really focused on that yet. that makes a lot of sense. people have to be worried about whether they're losing their health care, whether they're going to have to take a second or third job. obviously a lot of different concerns there but obviously that's how it was and during watergate, people shouldn't be sitting here worrying about what mueller's doing right now. they're worried about their own family, whether they can make nds me ends meet. but that said, the pace on the russian probe is quickening in such a way that i think people will be focused on it for some time. >> we want to get to shane's new reporting in "the wall street journal" that