the lawyer, natalia veselnitskaya, said donald said look ag head, if we come to power, we can returnue and think about what to do about it. in other words, hey, you give us whatever dirt you have on hillary clinton now that we can use it in the election and then if we come to power, we can return to this sanctions issue for you. a lawyer for don jr. says they have no comment about this interview with bloomberg news. veselnitskaya made this comment in an interview with two blo bloomberg reporters and said she's ready, if asked, to tell the same story to robert mueller. joining us how is henry meyer from bloomberg news based in moscow. he joins us from paris now this evening. thank you so much for joining us. >> you're welcome, rachel. >> i don't know whether or not to believe miss veselnitskaya about her accounts of what happened at this meeting. i feel like she's told a lot of different stories about her interest in taking the meeting, her affiliations with the russian government. how credible do you find this claim about the president's son? >> actually, i don't have any reason to d

veselnitskaya made this comment in an interview with two bloomberg reporters and said she's ready, if, to tell the same story to robert mueller. joining us now is henry meyer a senior government reporter for bloomberg news based in moscow. he joins us from paris this evening. mr. meyer-i know you've stayed up till the dead of night to be with us this evening. thank you so much for joining us. >> you're welcome, rachel. >> i don't know whether or not to believe miss veselnitskaya about her accounts of what happened at this meeting. i feel like she's told a lot of different stories about her interest in taking the meeting, her affiliations with the russian government. how credible do you find this claim about the president's son? >> actually, i don't have any reason to disbelieve what you she was saying. i mean, ultimately, is it in the russians' interests to show mud at the trump administration? i think she came to us because she's under a lot of scrutiny right now. she's received a summons from the senate judicial committee. they want evidence from her and she felt this was an opportu

donald trump, jr., has acknowledged that the meeting was set up under the premise that veselnitskaya had potentially damaging information about democratic nominee hillary clinton. also in that room, ike kaveladze, a soviet-born businessman who has been living in the u.s. kaveladze, cbs news has learned that he spent two hours today inside the special counsel's office, and that is something that we learned today. anthony? >> jeff pegues with breaking details there. thanks, jeff. russian president vladimir putin thumbed his nose at the world when he took crimea from ukraine, and it looks like he plans to hold on to it forever. based on the bridge he's now building. elizabeth palmer went to the construction site in russia. >> reporter: 24 hours a day in three shifts workers are racing to build a colossal bridge 12 miles long and strong enough to resist ferocious winds, earthquake, and ice. there is no doubt that this bridge is an engineering feat, a really impressive technical achievement, but it's also a bold political statement. the bridge will connect southern russia to the crimean p

natalia veselnitskaya says trump jr.d for documents backing her claim that a don nor to hillary clinton's campaign evaded u.s. taxes. the number of trump associates with ties to russia now stans at 11. and tonight wilbur ross is under scrutiny for his ties to a shipping company with russian ties. in an interview, ross slammed the suggestion his business ties constitute anything improper. >> if our government decided to sanction them, that would be a different story. our government has not, thus far, made the determination to sanction them. so there's nothing wrong with it. the fact that it happens to be called a russian company does not mean that there's any evil in it. where there is evil is the misstatement that i did not disclose those holdings in my original form. >> while ross met his disclosure requirements some lawmakers feel they were misled. they're demanding an investigation and possible resignati resignation. >> he concealed these ownership interests, there ought to be hearings. >> donald trump jr.'s lawyer ha

agreed in this meeting in the first place with natalia veselnitskaya, the russian lawyer. he wrote an e-mail to donald trump jr. in effect stating what you stated before that there was dirt on hillary clinton. and then comes what is a decisive sentence. a quote, this is obviously high-level and sensitive information but is part of russia and its government support for mr. trump. and in response to all of this, donald trump jr. then wrote something to the effect of, if it is what you say it is, then i love it. and that's when this meeting took place. now, we know in retrospect that donald trump jr. and others involved in that meeting said nothing came of that meeting. and certainly they're going to be very interested to speak to mr. gold stoestone currently in bangkok. trying to get him to testify. apparently, though, there is no date set yet. but certainly special counsel will want to know what exactly was said prior to that meeting and what was the dirt that this man was actually talking about, victor. >> frederik pleitgen there in moscow, thank you. >>> jared kushner pla

. >> fox news has learned that natalia veselnitskaya -- the june meeting with the president son.he meeting included a half dozen others. paul manafort as well as the president son in law jared kushner. the russian lawyer and her team promised damaging information about hillary clinton but they turned the conversation to anti-russian sanctions. during the same time frame, fox news has confirmed bank records show fusion gps was paid for work on behalf of russian interests while fusion paid former british intelligence officer christopher steele to dig up dirt on trump. simpson's contact with the russian lawyer with revelations the dossier research was funded by the dnc and clinton campaign raises new questions about the company's role in the election. >> there is clearly a massive effort to influence our political process by russia through money and other means and we need to get to the bottom of it. the evidence is pointing at hillary clinton, fusion gps, and others. not donald trump. >> the legal teams did not respond to requests for comment. simpson will be on the help for closed

. >> yes, richard that stems from many nt views from lawyers in the trump meeting with veselnitskaya. and i think there has been some miss reporting and misunderstanding about what exactly she's been saying for sometime now where she got her information. and we wanted to make it clear, and we called her again this week, and she's telling us, and it's confirmed by a source familiar with the area, that she got the talking points from fusion gps this firm by former reporter. the reason this is interesting, getting a lot of attention, this same firm fusion gps compiled the infamous trump dossier, paid christopher steele to do it. they are saying those two cases did not mix. and this russian lawyer had no idea they were working on the dossier at the same time. now of course some questioning that and say this was polluted by russian misinformation. and all i can tell you is fusion gps is disputing that. >> and in the end this lawyer potentially upon? >> yeah, that is always been a theory of intelligence sources is that, you know, whether she was bringing significantly incriminating informat

this is interesting, this interview that the kremlin link here, nutallia veselnitskaya gave a 2 and af hour interview. she said the president's son hinted at changing an anti-russian law in exchange for dirt on hillary clinton. i want to make sure we get that. dirt on hillary clinton, how does this affect this probe at all? >> well, i think it certainly stirs the pot. i mean this meeting when we first found out about it back in july, it was unclear the trump administration and others that it was not about dirt, about the campaign. it was about the russian adoption law because putin in 2012 had forbidden americans from adopting babies from russia. but as things have come out, we later found out that the pretext of the meeting is that russia said they had information that could help the trump campaign get dirt on hillary clinton. so the administration later had to acknowledge that that was true, their e-mails had proved it. this, natalia's statement now suggests they were willing to trade. and, you know, this is a different encounter she's given in the past. i think we have to be carefu

the possible circumstances for quid pro quo in that they both came to the meeting and natalya veselnitskayayer, and in the early explanations of this meeting remember, that was something that the trump said said that was all the meeting was about, they said adoptions, but the u.s. adoptions of russian children was stopped in response to this magnitsky law which penalizes and sanctions many senior russian government officials which according to this lawyer that was something that don junior communicated to her that if donald trump were president that situation might change. we weren't in the room. we don't know that, but that's what she says. we just have a statement coming from donald trump junior saying the following in response to this and this is a statement to cnn. we've addressed the circumstances of the june 9th meeting on a number of occasions and what the interview shows once again is everyone in attendance has a similar account as to what happened. that's true, but we should also note that initially that trump explanation said it was about adoptions and it was that donald trump jr.

he did not call the fbi, as we've seen numerous times, right, when veselnitskaya, this russian lawyer reaches out to him. he does not -- or through rob goldstone. he does not call the american authorities. it's this kind of, you know what, whoever is willing to help us, however they're willing to help us, we don't know. we welcome it. >> so pamela, speaking of, then, how does the intel community view wikileaks? >> well, what's interesting here is that he tweeted out that wikileaks link after the intelligence community had released its statement in october saying the russians were behind the hacked e-mails of the dnc and they were using wikileaks as a vehicle to gt those e-mails out. so even after that don junior tweeted out that link. if you look at this past april, mike pam payo, the head of the cia came out and had very strong words about wikileaks, calling it a none state hostile intelligence service. take a listen. >> it's time to call out wikileaks for what it really is. a none state hostile intelligence service often abet by state actors like russia. >> now, we should point out,

. >> bloomberg did an interview with veselnitskaya and she said that donald trump suggested a reviewa sanctions law. the explanation of the meeting has changed several times, but she went a bit further in this interview. what do you think of this new information? >> it's another, you know, more proof of not being truthful about these meetings. >> and willingness to -- >> yes. it's what april said. there's a pattern here. >> if her account is true. >> it's effort, you know, this incredibly combative and this willingness to sort of twist the truth and hide things, just a style of politics that i think will come back to haunt them or there really is collusion here, because it's incredible how week after week there's some new information coming out about communication and offer some sort of kwid pro quo happening that they keep denying but the rel agsz keep happening. >> april, let's talk about the president's approval rating. just 36% say that they approve the way trump is handling his job as president. how does the white house explain those low poll numbers which have been consistent t

then you fast-forward a few months to that infamous june meeting with veselnitskaya, obviously she wasdoption. this was a lot more about the scoop that she wanted to give and the dirt on hillary clinton as well. and then you piece the puzzle a few months later and then you're into october. and the question is when did wikileaks enter the picture and what was their role in releasing those e-mails and who knew what when? >> i just want to read a couple of sentences. a a rally on october so donald trump said i love wikileaks. on october 12th wikileaks sent a direct message to donald trump jr., quote, hey, donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our publications. >> you've got to couple this with what the president has also said in recent days about what putin said in response to russian meddle z. let me explain why this is significant from a national security perspective. we have the president of the united states encouraging wikileaks to publish stolen information. we have the president suggesting a couple of days ago that he believed a russian dictator over the u.s. intellig

we saw it with the veselnitskaya meeting where he met with the russian lawyer after expressing any greatt in any derogatory information about the lawyer might have on hillary clinton. and now we're seeing it again through another russian cut out. remember, the russian lawyer was the cut out the first time. and this time it's wikileaks. and so we see the willingness of them to do it. one of the interesting things about running these covert action and these covert influence programs is, you know, your supervise, your bosses always want to know are they effective. how can we tell that we're really changing peoples' minds. if wikileaks sends something to donald trump jr. and 15 minutes later that same message comes out of donald trump sr., the candidacy mouth, that's a pretty good indication that you have really good impact with your operation and that you're being successful. and by the way, you might say that somebody like papadopoulos is some volunteer or part time guy, donald trump jr. is not a part time son. he's not a paid son. he's a member of the family, which would make him that muc

becomes harder to justify that don junior did not tell his father about the meeting with natalia veselnitskayadonald trump was in that tower the same day the meeting occurred. remember the president said i didn't know anything about that meeting, i wasn't aware of it. the fact that he tweeted 15 minutes after his son got that tweet makes people question whether or not that was accurate. also remember wikileaks came across as an objective news site. we got from these direct messages with don junior that wikileaks specifically said, here's an idea, why doesn't your dad release some of his tax returns through us so we can put it out and look like we're not just pushing antihillary clinton stuff. that we're against both candidates at times. >> they contacted donald trump jr. after the meeting breaks saying i'm sorry for what you're going through, why don't you give us your e-mails, we'll put them out, and that will help us, make us look more credible, but donald trump jr. ignores that. but then decides to release the e-mails. >> exactly. what i would really focus on as well is how quickly the vice