or wikileaks collaboration. certainly guilty of bluffing and posturing and punking the democrats. unless they pass some law against bull [ bleep ] and i missed it, i'm engaging in trade craft. it's politics. >> that was roger stone back in october. since then, a series of reports suggest he may be the next target of special counsel robert mueller. there you see the headlines. abc robert mueller appears laser-focused on roger stone. "the wall street journal," mueller bores into trump adviser roger stone's ties to wikileaks. the washington post, trump's night owl calls to roger stone draw scrutiny. "new york times" -- roger stone sought wikileaks' plans amid 2016 campaign. roger stone is here with us now. welcome to "this week." it does appear robert mueller is developing the case that you were a key part of this whole russia investigation. russia funnels the hacked e-mails to wikileaks. you're the conduit between wikileaks and the trump campaign. are you confident you won't be indicted? >> none of that is true, o

wikileaks content. i want you to think for a moment what the implications are in saying it's from wikileaks because wikileaks has put things in public domain that some in this room probably approve of, things that the government probably didn't want us to see. the news has treated wikileaks has a quasi-legitimate news outlet in the past when it released those kind of things. and when you say wikileaks, people don't hear russians as a result. that's a name that's been around for awhile. when people also don't hear is julian assange doesn't like hillary clinton because hillary clinton wanted him prosecuted for what she considered his misuse of national security data when he released some of that other material earlier. so you think the press would be saying wikileaks, run by julian assange, who doesn't like hillary clinton. no. you'd think they'd say wikileaks, passing russian hacked content through. they didn't. we would interpret the content differently if we kept it tied to the source. some people migh

, i denied yet again on abc that i had any advance knowledge of the source or the content of the wikileaks disclosures, be they alleged hacked e-mails or alleged stolen e-mails. the as a matter of fact same they think i said on meet the press with chuck todd almost a year ago, which got virtually no notice. i think most americans now understand that the russian collusion delusion is meant to be a distraction from the far more serious abuse of power in which the obama administration used the authority and the capability of the state through the use of illegal and illicit fisa warrants to spy on donald trump's campaign for president and the trump campaign for planting faux russian collusion and the treasonous, in american history. the crime of uranium one. if people are looking for russian collusion they merely need to look at bill and hillary clinton and their acceptance of $145 million from the russian energy company while the transfer of 20% of america's enriched uranium was on hillary's desk for transfer to the russians. now, few american, i think, could withstand the kind of legal prock

jerry -- he wast he was so the source of any information pertaining to the wikileaks disclosures. in fact, i suppose the predictions regarding the wikileaks disclosures turned out to be entirely incorrect in the basis of speculation. doctorention that the briefed me on, the lucrative built -- business dealings in ukraine and russia prior to my tweet, inust 21, 2016 which i said, let's get it right this time, "the augusta brothers open time in the borough both will come is both accurate and entirely supported i email and ."xt message it was written as some type of cover up and defies logic in the written record. cover up of what? there was no controversy in the wake of my tweet for six weeks. there was no social media chatter, there was no media coverage, there was no mueller investigation. there was no congressional investigation, there were no subpoenas. so, cover up of what? and his colleagues are engaging in frivolous semantics, shifty word games, and nonmaterial hairsplitting, in a shameless bid for partisan advantage. has any proof whatsoever that i had advance notice of the

in fact, his predictions regarding the wikileaks disclosures turned out to be entirely incorrect. they were the basis of speculation. my contention that he briefed me on the podesta brothers' lucrative business dealings in ukraine and russia prior to my iconic august 21, 2016 tweet, in which i said, let's get it right this time, the podesta brother'' time in the barrel will come, is both accurate and entirely supported by email and text message records. the contention that the memo he subsequently gave me regarding the podesta brothers' business dealings was written as some kind of cover-up both defies logic and the written record. cover-up of what? there was no controversy in the wake of my tweet for six weeks. there was no social media chatter, there was no media coverage, there was no mueller investigation, there was no congressional investigation. there were no subpoenas. so cover-up of what? mr. schiff and his colleagues are engaging in frivolous semantics, shifty word games and nonmaterial hairsplitting in a shameless bid for partisan advantage. if mr. schiff has any proof w

the top line is wikileaks.wikileaks because of continued to drop tranche after tranche after tranche, managed to keep itself in a new cycle for the rest of the election. here's the effect on qualified to be president. here's a change in qualified to be president which i would hypothesize the something to do with this. affected the agenda during the last two debates. here's the speech excerpt of hillary clinton. she says you just have to sort of figure out how to get back to the word balance, how to balance the public and private efforts that are necessary to be successful politically and that's just not a comment about today. if you saw the movie lincoln and how he was maneuvering and working to get the 13th amendment passed and he called one of my favorite predecessors, secretary stewart, i just been governor and send it from you, rant against lincoln for president and he said i need help to get this done, but her butt is watching all the backroom discussions and deals in people get nervous to say the least i

to read very carefully that document to see just what wikileaks is accused of doing. it has already been included in the indictment of the russians who mr. mueller and his team have already indicted. where they made very clear that there were discussions post hacking by the russians of the dnc with wikileaks about the best way to make it all public and have the greatest impact on the election. that is already in the indictment. the question is, did wikileaks do anything more than that or is the legal policy issue going to say that that is enough to strip them of what american journalists would view as their first amendment rights? >> i absolutely agree. a prosecution or civil litigation against wikileaks poses a real threat to media freedom unle you can come up with clear ways of distinguishing what wikileaks does from what we think of as standard newsgathering tactics. we have not seen the full indictment against julian assange if it exists, but we have seen to lawsuits against wikileaks. i have looked at those and it is unclear the difference between what wikileaks

wikileaks. i love wikileaks. i love reading those wikileaks.t to start talking about wikileaks. the wonder of wikileaks. we love wikileaks. boy, they have really -- wikileaks. they have revealed a lot. wikileaks. wikileaks. that came out on wikileaks. this wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. it tells you the inner heart. you've got to read it. >> joining me now is msnbc legal analyst dahna is a vallos and nyra hack both coming back to the show. i want to put up roger stone's statement here. roger stone put it out saying none of these e-mails provide any evidence or proof that i knew in advance about the source or contact of any of the allegedly stolen or allegedly hacked e-mails published by wikileaks. danny, i mean, we're talking about roger stone here. can we believe him? do you believe him? give me your legal analysis here. >> we have to take a step back and look at what would be a crime. it may surprise some to learn that if roger stone and jerome corsi had mere knowledge, if they only knew this was going to happen and did absolutely nothing t

and wikileaks and russia and the relationship between all of these people and the trump campaign?john kirby, i mean, putting aside all the legal arguments on all of this, just getting to the national security implications of, a new disclosure that shows that there might have been some kind of conversations going on between trump associates and wikileaks about these e-mails that were hacked out of the dnc and the clinton campaign and john podesta and so on. what new could that tell us if we do have new revelations in that regard? >> well, it certainly could speak to coordination in cooperation with the russians to try to affect this election. that's one thing. number two, remember, this is, you call it hacking, whether it's a crime or not. i'll leave that to the lord, it was the weaponization of information in an election and american politics to benefit one candidate over another by a foreign government and that's what i don't think we can afford to forget here. >> that the seriousness by the involvement of russia in this. i think if i jump on something, i think the jury should be

wikileaks is or is not a journalistic organization.as director of the cia, he made very clear his view that it was not a journalist organization. it was an arm essentially of the russian government, which creates a different set of legal questions. in any case, it's also true that the relationship between the trump campaign and wikileaks may have gone beyond simply receiving information from wikileaks. there may have been coordination, there may have been collusion to use the famous word. and those facts are actually more important than any sort of advanced spin on the legalities. >> and there might be a legal issue but there will be political ramification it is that contact took place. >> especially since the president himself and the trump campaign and all of its surrogates have been saying for literally years now there were no contacts between wikileaks and the trump campaign. >> which again, to go back to your first answer is why it's so interesting that giuliani is opening the door to the possibility that there were those contacts

and decided not to do the same sort of thing that wikileaks generally does. some source that is not authorized to reveal information gives that information and they make it public. with that definition, that is what the new york times does and the ultimate conclusion of the obama administration was not to go to court on that. there is another way to view wikileaks and another of the factin terms situation. the other way to view wikileaks, as the current secretary of state did when he was the head of the cia, is that it is an intelligence gathering organization and not a journalistic one. i will not pause on that one because we don't have time. to make it more interesting, suppose the government makes the case that wikileaks did not just receive information, and now we know from the russians which they had hacked from the democratic national committee. in some formeaks had spoken to the russians before or during the process of the hacking. would that make them sufficiently un-journalistic or sufficiently like an intelligence gathering entity? or sufficiently l

wikileaks, i love wikileaks. wikileaks, right you hear this?ks unveils horrible things about hillary clinton. >> boy that wikileaks has done a job on her, hasn't he. >> it's that julian assange popular for clobbering hillary that leads to manafort reportedly heading to ecuadoecu the president listened to manafort about removing him, within days, robert mueller was appointed and the talks ended. if the doj is considering indicting assange, it would be bad for him to come to america, but the idea he could come to america as a place of refuge, that is popular with m some trump boosters like roger stone, or sean hannity, who promoted the argument that maybe russia wasn't the source for the e-mails. you can see it here. the banner announces to the audience, assanrussia not sourc e-mails. and then they were lobbying don junior, saying hi, don, it would be easy and helpful for your dad to suggest that australia point assange ambassador to d.c. and trump could appoint him to a hotel style embassy in d.c. with luxury immunity suites for whist whistle bl

wikileaks dumps it on the eve of the convention. and yet there's donald trump, who has been briefed on this multiple times, laying all the evidence out clinging to this idea that somehow it was that are virgo 400-pound guy in the living room on his sofa was responsible for the whole thing. so i think that is so illuminating about our president, how he used all this, once he gets something in his head, you can't dislodge it. you know, it's perhaps a pretty important clue to what's going to unfold in coming months. >> thank you all for being here. thank you to the miami book fair. it's an honor to be with people who love books. okay, so give yourself a round of applause just for that. [applause] so many of us are caught up on the twitter hamster wheel every day. probably one or two of you watch msnbc obsessively. [applause] as an msnbc contributor, ng. although i love the fact that those of us who do get caught up and watch the development day-to-day are able to take a break from that and do a deep dive with the book. when we wrote th

i denied yet again on abc that i had any advanced knowledge of the source or the content of the wikileaks disclosures or the e-mails or the stolen e-mails the exact same thing i said on meet the press almost one year ago that got no notice. i think most americans now understand that the russian collusion delusion is meant to be a distraction from the far more serious abuse of power in which the obama administration used the authority and the capability of the state for illegal and release it on - - illicit pfizer warrants to use the fbi to infiltrate the trunk campaign for the purposes to plant so russian collusion. it is also a diversion from the largest treasonous financial scandal in american history that would be the crime of uranium one. the people are looking for russian collusion they merely need to look at bill and hillary clinton and their acceptance of $145 million from the russian energy company while the transfer of 20 percent of america's enriched uranium was on hillary's disk on - - desk for transfer to the russians. now few americans i think could withstand the legal examin

he is saying i did talk about wikileaks.hen people change their story he amended the testimony so congress. when people change their story it raises a red flag. people don't lie when the truth is something to be fired. only when it is something to be damaging. >> the fact that he is karging that it is legal, how do you see it? >> he admits he hired corsi to do additional research, he was dealing in dirty politics. how dirty is dirty and does it become illegal? roger stone can never explain. i was telling your producer, i spoke on thursday and i asked him, how do you dweet out about him being in the barrel and he says that is categorically false. as we know you can say something false but we know that you have committed a crime. roger stone is definitely looking at his time in the barrel. he will be indicted for collusion we ch we know isn't a crime but conspiracy to commit some offense with russia as a hos style state. we know he has to amend his testimony three separate times before congress. so there's got to be that somew

here he is on the wikileaks issue. >> i actually is communicated with assange.ieve the next trench of his documents pertain to the clinton administration but there's no telling what the october surprise may be. >> what i said in my testimony was that i had never communicated with assange. that is correct. i have never met with him, spoken to him on the phone, e-mailed with him. >> let me be clear, the operative words in the first soundbite were i actually have communicated with assange and the second one was i have never communicated with assange. roger stone at some point has lied and that could be core here. >> yes. and we're seeing this throughout this investigation. >> if he did have contact with assange or wikileaks and know about the e-mails and take the trump e-mails, they said there's your collusion right there. now he's going to say i was just making an educated guess about what was going to happen but he has a credibility problem here and i think that's the perjury part of it. the question is did he purger himself before congress? if he did purger hims

. >>> roger stone says he has never been in touch with wikileaks founder julian assange. draft special counsel document indicating prosecutors are looking into his efforts to get documents from wikileaks ahead of the e-mail dump. >> stone tells abc news his e-mails about assange are being mischaracterized and he had no contact with robert mueller. >> does that suggest you are a target? you usually speak with witnesses first. >> it suggests nothing at all. again, where is the crime? i engaged in politics. >> democrat mark warner tells cnn he believes robert mueller will have a lot to reveal about the suspected ties with wikileaks and roger stone. >>> fbi director james comey agreed to sit with a private deposition with house republicans. he objected to the closed-door meeting. mr. comey tweeting he will sit in the dark, but republicans agree on free to talk when transcript released in 24 hours. this is the closest i can get to public testimony. house republicans will question comey on friday. an fbi representative will be there about the disclosure of sensitive information

who runs wikileaks. he happens to be in the news right now. the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of the u.s. attorney office is revealing the concept on this. those charges are not specified but it's been known that prosecutors are considering whether charging wikileaks for the 2010 publication of secret diplomatic and military. you and the guardian were right in the middle of that story. so you say in the book, if they were charged for the specific activities in which we are engaged, i would give evidence on his behalf. i believe then and now in the value of our carefully edited and rejected publication. what does that mean? if you are charged in the united states, you would be willing to testify on behalf of on his behalf? why? >> that's it we did -- and information thing. he doesn't believe in this. 200 years journalist, gatekeepers because we had the press. over slightly above everyone else. people could talk to each other on there. people are now questioning who are you to be the gatekeeper? what is a reasonable question. >> they don

here he is on roger stones and wikileaks. >> did roger stone ever give the president a heads-up on wikileaks leaks. >> no, he didn't. not at all. i don't believe so. but again, if roger stone gave anybody a heads-up about wikileaks leaks, that not a crime. it would be like giving them a heads up that the times is going to print something. once the -- that's why this thing is so weird, strange. the crime is conspiracy to hack. collusion is not a crime. doesn't exist. >> all right. so question to you, elie. is giuliani on sound legal ground? if you were a prosecutor in the case and you heard a defense attorney with this argument, what would you think? >> rudy kind of answered his own question there. he says in one breath, collusion is not a crime. no kidding, it's a word that rudy and the president kind of made up. but in the very next sentence, he says the crime would be conspiracy to commit computer hacking. yes, if the proof bears out that the president or roger stone or people around them were involved in the effort to hack and then to disseminate the e-mail through wikileaks, that would b

this is a passage from the report concerning the e-mails, wikileaks and wikileaks' founder julian assange. here's what it says. it is perhaps notable there were a number of posts expressing support for assange and wikileaks, including several on october 4, 2016. that was the day before roger stone's text message history indicated that mr. stone believed hacked e-mail data would be made public via wikileaks. in addition, wolf, the report finds the tactics were aimed at eroding public support for special counsel robert mueller and for former fbi director, james comey. wolf? >> very sophisticated work, in fact, by the russians. drew griffin, thank you for that reporting. our experts are here to discuss this and more. everybody stand by. we're going to have a lot to discuss, right after this. [deep breath] i receive travel rewards. i visualize travel rewards. going new places! going out for a bite! going anytime. rewarded! learn more at the explorer card dot com. ♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. mopping robotthe from irobot. its prec

the question becomes what was the connection between the trump campaign and wikileaks?e encouragement? was there coordination? was there collusion to use the famous word in connection with this campaign. that's -- that's what we don't know. it is not a crimecism my to receive information through the news media, but nature of the relationship between wikileaks and roger stone and people affiliated with roger stone, that's a question that is densely factual and it may or may not be a crime depending on what the facts actually show. >> and sam vinograd, i mean, doesn't that strike you as a little curious that he would be sort of engaging in, as jeffrey calls, it legal protection over this hacking issue? >> jim, there's so many things about rudy giuliani that strike me as curious, and this is just the latest one, but to jeffrey's point, one of the key factors here, of course, is whether any member of the campaign or roger stone knew where this material came from before they read it in the press. if this information was hacked by russia >> that would have shown the coordinat

where do the intersections lie between wikileaks and the trump orbit?be why this scoop in "the new york times" is so interesting. paul manafort, trump's former campaign chairman, who was in ecuador to discuss a new financial opportunity days before robert mueller was appointed, reportedly discussed a deal with ecuador's incoming president that would send julian assange back to the united states. from that piece, "if qu"in at l two meetings with mr. manafort incoming president marino and aides discussed to rid themselves of mr. assange holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london since 2012, in exchange for concessions like debt relief from the u.s. according to three people familiar with the talks." manafort's spokesman told nbc news manafort didn't bring it up, he merely listened and made no promises and no information that trump knew about it, but it raises questions of whether or not there was a quid pro quo. political reporter ken vogel, the great piece of reporting in "the new york times," joins us now. it's a fascinating additional dot, ken, betwe

we already have seen evidence that he did serve as a link to the president and wikileaks.hink more on that subject willie moer emerge. on the subject of corsi, he has decided not to plead. it may have been the opposite. he may have been in discussions and it could have been the special counsel who concluded he was not being truthful and that he was covering up crimes and that the special counsel was unwilling to go forward with a deal with him. but we do know in a document that was made public by corsi, they do have a lot of evidence linking corsi and stone to this criminal interference in the election. >> but look, let's play what stone said about -- really, he's defending his actions to contact corsi about wikileaks and julian a assange. play it. >> like every politico in america, like every political reporter, i was interested in knowing exactly what they had, but there was no response to that. if i send you an e-mail saying, george, you should rob a bank but you don't rob a bank -- >> but glen, does that hold up? because aren't you guilty by association if you work tow

both stone and the president deny ever discussing wikileaks. however, stone said he spoke to trump a day after he received this stunning e-mail from jerome corsi. you know, paul, this is like, here's a guy talking in spy language. our friend in the embassy. we know two he s. by the way, who is he kidding, our friend in the embassy? he's passing on this information. he's going to be in the barrel. it's so, you can't predict the future unless you know something ability the future. >> exactly. >> he knew about the hacks. >> he's not kidding anybody. so the message, if there is ever a jury trial will be c'mon, use your common does jerome corsi look like the kind of person who could divine these hacked e-mails will come from podesta of all people? and so again, common sense, forensic everyday like e-mails, and texts. it would be great if mueller could get corsi to admit it. >> that is likely to happen. corsi says i'm staying strong. but we heard the same thing from paul manafort. every single trump operative who mueller has prosecuted has pled guilt

if the president knew about wikileaks, that's not a crime. sure the president may have lied but he wasn't under oath. so that's not a crime. why are we hearing that from giuliani so much and now? >> because i think the evidence is pointing that way, and he needs to give talking points to his supporters at fox news and elsewhere. i mean, i do think there is more method to the madness than people are suggesting like this is just rudy being crazy. i mean, trump, the president's supporters need arguments. they may not be very good arguments, but he's supplying them. and i think just for example, one of them that i find completely maddening is the idea that, well, you know, donald trump was negotiating with russia for trump tower moscow during all of 2016, but everybody knew that anyway. nobody knew that. and in fact, it would have been highly significant information. what we knew is that donald trump during the campaign was currying favor with vladimir putin for unaccountable reasons. why was he saying such nice things about putin? now we hear it

because his contacts with wikileaks, messaging with wikileaks by donald trump jr. also could be involved in this indictment. so the roger stone connection here, like spokes on a wheel, could be very, very far reaching. >> malcolm, talking about this in the back alleys. it sounds like dick cheney talking here, back alley stuff, but it is the world in which roger lives. he was nixon's guy. he's a smart as hell guy. he does the tricks of politics which are sometimes not so nice. >> well, you're absolutely right, but i think he may have bit off more than he can chew here. you know, bob mueller's a pretty smart guy himself and i think what he's going to do here is he is going to build a cage for roger stone to jump into and then try to lie his way out of it. and he's going to start it off with an indictment. and, you know, i think this tier of people who are going to be indicted next are going to be some very surprising characters. i believe julian assange himself and perhaps the wikileaks organization will be indicted at the exact same time. they are the bridge from th

then a piece of information news and today smling that the wikileaks founder julian assange could be extradited to the united states. that ties in with a lot of other loose ends. the former chief spokesman matt miller and a national political reporter from the "new york times" covering a lot of this. your view is at the intersection and that was your job. what can be public and what they make of it. how do you view that and where do you see it going? >> you are right what you allude to. that's reading between the redactions tomorrow. there are a couple of things we can hope to find out. i am most interested to see what the southern district of new york has to say. a few months ago, they stood up in court said the president of the united states violated campaign finance and we don't know about that since then. we hope we will find out and how significant it can be and the extent to which it's ongoing. the critical question is what were the lies he committed? were they related to lobbying business. if it's the latter, we will see it redacted. if it's the former, it's hope. it doesn't h

were coming -- this wikileaks disclosures about john podesta were coming.le would believe him, especially those of us who've followed him for a long time, says i was just blowing smoke, i didn't know what was happening, i was just throwing stuff in the air trying to get people to believe bad things were going to happen to the clinton campaign. that could be true. however, it could also be true that he did have this inside information and he was lying about it. >> and mueller may have documents. he may have sources to refute what roger stone said to congress. if, if the mueller team is able to go after stone for lying to congress, they did that with michael cohen. they used it as leverage. do you ever think, based on what you know of roger stone, that he would cooperate? >> well, you know, he has made a big point of saying that he would never cooperate. and, you know, this is a guy who values toughness above all else. his political hero is richard nixon. as we've discussed, he has a tattoo of richard nixon on his back. >> not a -- >> no, it's like -- i've se

. >> did roger stone ever get the president a heads up on wikileaks leaks concerning hillary clinton and the dnc? >> no, he didn't. not at all. i don't believe so. >> he doesn't believe so? that certainly lets the imagination wander. anyways that's step one. step two goes like this. even if trump did know anything about it, it's not a crime. >> again, if roger stone gave anybody a heads up about wikileaks leaks that's not a crime. it would be like giving them a heads up that the times is going to print something. this is why this thing is so weird, strange. >> weird to him but perhaps central to robert mueller's investigation and significant in that giuliani allows for the possibility of the president through roger stone at wikileaks being party to or aware of some sort of coordination with russia. giuliani also let this slip about how much longer than we'd known the pursuit of business of moskow went on in 2016. >> did donald trump know that michael cohen was pursuing the trump tower in moskow in the summer of 2016? >> according to the answer that he gave, it would have covered all

he has denied having any contacts with wikileaks.e has denied he had any role there, but the more we learn, the more we -- i at least become concerned that he wasn't being honest with the committee. >> there's a suggestion, congressman, that mueller probably already has an unofficial transcript much roger stone's testimony before your house intelligence committee but now wants an official transcript. what does it say to you? >> well, again, i am not -- i don't know if, in fact, that has -- if that has happened, but obviously -- and i'm not quite sure where he would get an unofficial transcript, but if that is true and if an official transcript has been released, this, of course, would potentially form the foundation of then going back to roger stone and saying, you said this to congress and we know that not to be true. we learned something in the last couple of weeks, wolf, is -- and mueller showed this, that lying to congress is going to be an offense for which he will -- he will make an indictment. so, again, without confirming any

so is this at all similar to that wikileaks hack of the dnc in 2016? >> reporter: i think on the surface it may look like that. in actuality, probably not. look, we have this very important cybersecurity firm based in california linking dieb cables to china in the first place. they say the leaks resemble the people's liberation army, an elite unit responsible for other hacks according to various governments. on top of that, the way that this was done was just a simple fishing campaign. those emails that you might get that ask you, click here, then you log in thinking it's actually your company's e-mail when it's another company trying or group trying to get your information. and on top of that, unlike wikileaks, these were low-level classified documents. these were not high level even though we see sensitive information. most importantly, they weren't published broadly. it was just this cybersecurity firm that got this information. important to note, though, china says that they are the victims of hacking, something that i've heard from chinese tech of

as to whether there was collusion during the campaign between russia, who stole the e-mails, and wikileaksho then released the e-mails. as mueller is doing his investigation, you have the senate doing its own investigation and that's the root of today's news because the senate demanded from him any records of communication between stone and wikileaks. now stone responding today, saying he's not going to give that testimony. he's not going to give those records. i'm going to quote from his lawyer's statement. now, here he says the request as previously stated to staff are far too overbroad, far too overreaching, far too wide. it continues, mr. stone's invocation of his fifth amendment privilege must be understood by all to be the assertion of a constitutional right by an innocent citizen who denounces secrecy. that his word from -- stone's words through his attorney just in the last few moments, wolf. >> what is so intriguing is this comes only a day after president trump publicly in an official statement on twitter praised roger stone for saying he wouldn't testify against him. could this

wikileaks, according to u.s. law enforcement, is a nonstate, hostile intelligence service.ding to many, it's the first amendment protected news organization. if it is a news organization, then they stand like "the washington post" did when it received the pentagon papers. >> is that how wikileaks defines itself, that it is a news organization? it obtains information and then is offering as a service some dissemination of information? >> that's right, and they did that with snowden stuff. they did that with other classified stuff. and now this is with the hacked stuff. they view themselves that way. any prosecutor is going to have to look long and hard to see whether they want to have a first amendment challenge to any inquiry about them. so if roger stone is only talking to a first amendment news protected organization, it's a very much more difficult case for a prosecutor to bring than if they can prove roger stone was talking to the hackers and was somehow complicit in that whole scheme. >> on the heels of michael cohen's plea agreement, manafort, you know, getting the fi

both men deny having any inside knowledge about what wikileaks was planning. stone has said he spoke to trump the day after receiving those messages from corsi. this weekend trump lawyer rudy giuliani was asked about their conversation. >> did roger stone ever give the president a heads-up on wikileaks' leaks concerning hillary clinton and the dnc? >> no, he didn't. >> not at all? >> i don't believe so. but, again, if roger stone gave anybody a heads-up about wikileaks' leaks, that's not a crime. it would be like giving him a heads-up that "the times" is going to print something. the crime is conspiracy to hack. collusion is not a crime. >> in addition to all of that, so much to react to there, the daily beast is reporting mueller is scrutinizing trump associates who may have tried to shape the administration's foreign policy by offering to ease u.s. sanctions on russia. according to three sources, "the special counsel's office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail trump associates' conversations about sanctions relief and spell out how those

presumably rodger stone might have a lot to say about in including possible ties between the campaign wikileaks and russians. later today we learned he wouldn't be cooperating. he is taking the fifth, invoking fifth amendment protection

where's the wikileaks collaboration?here i allegedly hacked or stolen e-mails from wikileaks and passed them to donald trump or the trump campaign or anyone else? this is his thing. make your case. i'm going to fight. we don't believe you, mike. and that's what we're going to see at every iteration of this, but nobody knuckles up the way roger stone does. that's why the president kim him so close for so long. >> i have to tell you, i worked organized crime in the fbi in chicago. i met guys like this. they're pretty tough until the gavel falls and standing in front of the judge. i'm not buying it. here's where i think he may -- may -- be in some legal problem, if he facilitated, knowingly facilitated the leak of stolen computer information or data -- wikileaks -- if he knowingly did that, he conspired to do that, he's in violation of a computer fraud and abuse act. and so that's a real crime that has real penalty to it. i cannot believe that the special counsel -- clearly to me looks like they're preparing at least a char

and whether roger stone tripped off trump on wikileaks?the last weeks, we've written stories, we are putting these things together. everything is like a puzzle piece. remember, the president has said he didn't have any early knowledge of what wikileaks was going to do. yet, there are some interesting dates here. on august 3rd, roger stone we now know was alerted by e-mail by his friend jerome coursey that word is in london that our friend in london is going to release some damaging information in seconds, the sect confusing, it looks like october 2nd or second week of october. in fact, it was the first week of october. exact ily right. how did jerome corsi know that? that's in a draft charging document of robert mueller's. forgive me the e-mail was august 3rd. on august 2nd, we piece together another piece of evidence which is months and months ago, roger stone was on a conservative broadcast and said that he had just spoken with, forgive me, with president trump on august 2nd. so what's going on exactly? have you an e-mail one day and you

whether or not he had anything to do with assange or the wikileaks remains to be seen. but the questions have been raised, and some of his e-mails have raised even more serious questions. >> i want to turn to the late-breaking developments on the murder of the saudi journalist, jamal khashoggi. you're one of, what, a dozen senators briefed behind closed doors by the cia director, gina haspel today. give us your impression of the evidence you saw and heard. >> a jury would not need a lunch break to reach a guilty verdict based on the evidence that we heard today. i suspect that as most everyone who entered the room that the crown prince -- if he did not orchestrate the assassination, clearly was well aware of it from start to finish. the evidence that we were given by our intelligence agencies confirm that. >> we heard some very strong words, not just from democratic senators like you, but republican senators, as well. how could a bipartisan group of senators look at the very same intelligence and come away with such a different conclusion from what we're hearing from to

to see just what wikileaks is accused of doing. it has already been included in the indictment of the russians who, mr. mueller and his team have already indicted where they made very clear there were discussions post hacking by the russians of the dnc with wikileaks about the best way to make it all public and have the greatest impact on the election. that is already in the indictment. the question is, did we do anything more than that or is , is that enough to strip them of what american journalists would view as their first amendment rights? >> i agree. poses a real unless you are able to come up with convincing and clear ways of distinguishing what wikileaks does from what we consider to be standard newsgathering tactics, we haven't seen the indictment against a shot -- assange, that we have seen to lawsuits against wikileaks p at i look at those and it is not clear that what they alleged to have done isn't what reporters do every >> the real difference is it would be a pervasively anti-american, which was accused in the area.

i think on the surface it might feel like wikileaks, especially in the scope. but cybersecurity firm area one says these emails were accessed using techniques resembling those long used by an elite union of the china people's liberation army. it was just a simple fishing campaign aimed at diplomats in cypress of all places. that small island. fishing is just a very simple -- phishing is just a very simple message, you go to a website and think you're logging into your system. in reality, you're giving hackers your name and password so they can access these systems. unlike wikileaks, those were high-level cables, these are low-level classified documents, sensitive, and they were never published, at least not by the people who hacked them. important to note that china's ministry of foreign affairs says "the new york times" report is suspicious, groundless, and extremely irresponsible. they point out that chinese companies are often hacked. that's true, as well as u.s. companies and governments, as well. >> you know, hearing president xi describe president trump's

. >> reporter: today, stone told george stephanopoulos there's no proof he collaborated with wikileaks, the site that released thousands of democratic e-mails stolen by russian hackers. but a series of e-mails suggests stone did make efforts to contact the wikileaks founder, julian assange, and admitted as much in 2016. >> i actually have communicated with assange. i believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the clinton foundation. >> reporter: today, stone insisted curiosity is not the same as conspiracy. >> like every political reporter, i was interested in knowing what exactly they had. but there was no response to that. >> you're saying you never spoke to julian assange, never contacted wikileaks, never spoke about any of that to president trump or his kids? >> that is absolutely correct. >> did you find his answers credible? >> no, i didn't. not at all. >> reporter: the top democrat on the house intelligence committee said today the very existence of those e-mails contradicts stone's testimony before his committee. >> that testimony really needs to be provided to the sp

my purpose was to take a tip i thought to be solid, and after that follow the wikileaks twitter feed and set an alert for julian assange. that's called politics. reporter: special counsel mueller, his team, are expected to reveal what they call lies by former trump campaign advisor paul manafort. investigators say he broke his plea deal and may face more charges. manafort's lawyers dispute that. they say he did not lie. >> it means paul manafort was double-dealing. he was going through the pretense of cooperating and he was supplying information to the trump defense team. and he dangles a pardon for manafort which only adds to the body of evidence that the president is engage in obstruction of justice. reporter:' the president said he hasn't taken anything such as a pardon off the table because manafort has been treated so poorly. james comey agreed to testify in private as long as a transcript was released within 24 hours. eric: let's bring in robert bianci. we have breaking news, james comey will testify. how significant is that? >> a court is not going to get involved in congress'