if i'm talking to rick gates, i have some questions. number one, who directed you to do this, number two, who did you talk about, speak about with this in the campaign. i want to see your laptop, your cell phone, if you tell me in terms of your contact with the russians, i want to know whether it is reflected in your calendar to your laptop. there is a bigger question, it's not only what contact rick gates had with the russians. i want to know in conversations with him, because clearly he's cooperating, who else was aware of these conversations? who else was in contact? was there a tone around the campaign that said it's appropriate to talk to the russians before we get into office about some sort of trade in exchange for relieving sanctions with them? he could be a gold mine of information beyond just financial transactions that may relate to paul manafort, if i'm on the mueller team, i want to know everything about the campaign, but about who else directed it, who else spoke, who else was involved in sort of conversations about foreig

let's see what rick gates says. there's also reporting today by reuters that says the mueller probe is looking into russian contacts at the republican national convention. it's very clear robert mueller is looking at the collusion issue actively. >> what questions do you have right now about collusion between the -- alleged collusion i should say between the trump campaign and the russians? >> we know that george papadopoulos had advanced knowledge that the russians had hillary's e-mails. who else in the trump campaign knew that? we know that george papadopoulos was communicating with some of the highest levels of the folks at the trump campaign, did any of them know about hillary clinton's e-mails that russia had and were going to release iss and did they act on that. that's conspiracy and collusion. >> reuters is reporting that the special counsel, robert mueller, is also investigating russia's role and possible influence at the 2016 republican national convention when the then senator jeff sessions, now attorney

he'll need more, but it's not just rick gates. so remember, rick gates, might have kept -- have e-mails, have documentation, other evidence that then leads to other people who may know more. sarah was reporting rick gates was not in the inner circle but as mueller is able to get more information about what might have been happening in the inner circle, some of that inner circle may begin to talk as well. this is how a conspiracy unfolds. we're watching it in 24/7 cable news time. which is some random case of some random lawyer, a court filing at 10:00 p.m. at night with like a little reference to a potential, you know, discussion between manafort and a russian intelligence agency or that they were friendly. then leads to, you know, sort of disclosures about what gates may be saying. and this is just going to keep happening. it's at the oval office, we know that now, and we are heading towards, as i've been saying the unknown. is it a pardon or is it a firing? the idea, in my mind, the idea that donald trump lets this get much, muc

>> look the conversation isn't just about rick gates. if i talk to rick gates, i have questions, number 1, who directed you? number two? who did you talk about, speak about with this in the campaign. i want to see your laptop, your cell phone, if you tell me in terms of your contact with the russians, i want to know whether it is reflected in your calendar to your laptop. there is a bigger question, it's not only what contact rick gates had with the russians. i want to know in conversations with him. clearly, he is cooperating. who else was aware of these conversations? who else was in contact? was there a tone around the campaign that said it's appropriate to talk to russians before we get into office about some sort of trade in exchange for relieving sanctions with them? he could be a goal mine of information beyond just financial transactions that may relate to paul manafort, if i'm on the mueller team, i want to know everything about the campaign campaign but about who else drebled it, who else spoke and was involved in conversations

but it's not just rick gates. rick gates might have kept -- have emails, documentation, other evidence that leads to other people who may know more. sarah was reporting that rick gates wasn't in the inner circle. but as mueller is able to get more information about what might have been happening in the inner circle, some of that may begin to talk as well. this is how a conspiracy unfolds. we are watching it in 24/7 cable news time which is some random case of a random lawyer, a court filing at 10:00 p.m. at night with a little reference to a potential discussion between manafort and a russian intelligence agency or that they were -- that they were friendly, then leading to, you know, sort of disclosures about what gates may be saying. this is just going to keep happening. it's at the oval office. we no he that now. and we are heading towards as i've been saying the unknown. is it a pardon or is it a firing? but the idea that -- if my mind the idea that donald trump let's this get much, melania trump closer seems i

this one, if he is looking at rick gates and rick gates had connections with russian intel officials, where is that leading us? >> that is the question at the heart of this investigation. were there contacts, collusion, conspiracy between the trump campaign and the russian government. here we now learn from these filings that paul manafort's business associate also worked for russian intense. we know rick gates was in touch with this person khruduring the campaign, what they said, whether they agreed to coordinate in any way, we don't know. stepping back, the gates/manafort team, which was running the campaign for a while and gates stayed on after manafort was fired, were in touch with someone from russian intelligence during the campaign. sounds like a pretty big deal to me. >> folks were lying about it. you brought up the three cs, contacts, collusion, and conspiracy. one of the fascinating things is this word collusion, which doesn't mean anything legally really here. i mean, it's -- you know, there is this investigation going on right now. and they feel like they have proven there

it is also a reminder we have rick gates. >> right. >> rick gates is cooperating with us. we have michael flynn. he's cooperating. >> and a few others probably not mentioned. we're looking from the outside in. we are describing motive to the action that we can't be aware of. because i have to tell you having covered the doj for years and knowing the people that know him, it's been described as a black box. is and the other metaphor is peeling back of an onion. he progresses methodically. what we see is to give us -- i don't think he cares. he's doing his job. he's going to do it the best way he knows how. and i think we find that they're not going to be coming forward with too much information except through court documents. and then he's going to -- which is really very professional way of doing things. very contrary to washington, d.c. where if you say hi, it turns out three blocks later that you gave the gettysburg address. it speaks to the professionalism of this investigation and the thoroughness of it. i don't like the word collusion, though, since it's not -- you ca

that witness is rick gates. tonight for the first time, we know how he's helping. for a time, it was believed mueller was manly using gates for information about manafort, his former close associate. now cnn is learning mueller is not primarily interested in what gates has to know about manafort. instead, cnn is learning that mueller is seeking information from gates about the central question, did members of the trump campaign work with a hostile foreign policy to win the election. evan perez is one of the teams of professionals that broke the story. he joins us now. explain what you are learned. >> this is fascinating. this is all in discussions happening last year, months before rick gates decided to plead guilty. in those discussions with the prosecutors from robert mueller's office, gates was told they didn't need him to flip on paul manafort to provide information against paul manafort. instead, what they said they needed him for was their core mission, which is looking into possible illegal coordination between trump campaign and russians, what people called

we're talking about the deputy rick gates. he was a business partner with manafort's firm before being brought onto the campaign, eventually sefvering all ties with the white house in march of last year. he pleaded guilty of lying to the fbi last month. sara, walk us through how mule ser trying to connect the dots here. >> wolf, when gates pleaded guilty, i think robert mueller was thinking about how he could pull him in. sources are telling my colleague that when rick gates was speaking to the special counsel's prosecutors, they made it clear, we don't need you to flip on manafort, we don't need your cooperation in this case, but what we need your cooperation for is our broader mission, which is connecting russian collusion with members of the trump campaign. when you look back at the campaign, rick gates wasn't necessarily particularly close to president trump. he wasn't necessarily in all of these top meetings, but he was, of course, close to paul manafort who was the campaign chairman at the time. and sources are telling m

i want to talk about rick gates for a moment and this new court document that came out showing that rick gates was talking to a russian intelligence -- former russian intelligence official during the campaign, september or october lead up to the election and at that time he was in the rnc. he was the liason between the rnc and the trump campaign. as somebody who used to run the rnc, what does that job entail and what does that mean? >> liason for the rnc. it doesn't entail anything. there is no such job. it doesn't exist unless the chairman and the presidential nominee make it up and create the space. when you -- in a presidential campaign, once the campaign team takes over the rnc -- >> the same thing. >> they put people in and out all of the time. they give them all of the inflated titles that don't mean anything. within the overall structure of the building, that was a space that was created for him to do what he needed to do from a, quote, political side on behalf of the president and that is the only reason you are in the rnc to deal with politics. >> and i was told he was in charge

how big do you think this rick gates news is? >> number one we don't know. this is very much blind man in the el vants with everything we learn. we get this trickle of hints and tea leaves and suppositions. there's a lot that's very suggestive about this development. we don't know what it means. we won't know. what we do know is the way mueller is proceeding is very methodical and it's what trump feared, nothing is off limits. he's casting a wide net. he's following the investigation where it leads him and he doesn't consider anything to be out of his purview. i think what we see is that this is suggestive of an investigation that is wide ranging. >> we don't know, jeff, what gates has said to mueller. >> we don't. we don't know what the part-time russian spy said to manafort and gates. we do know he was an employee. this is not some tenuous connection. this is a direct relationship between manafort and a russian spy. what that led to, what exchanges we had, i don't know. this is not like crazy talk. this is a real connection between soviet spies and the cam

that witness is rick gate, tonight for the first time, we know how he's helping. for a time, it was believed mueller was manly using gates for information about manafort, his closest associate. now cnn is learning mueller is not primarily interested in what gates has to know about manafort. mueller is seeking information ability gates about the central question. did members of the trump campaign work with a hostile foreign power to win the election. evan perez is one of the teams of professionals that broke the story. he joins us now. explain what you are learned. >> this is fascinating. this is all in discussions happening last year, months before rick gates decided to plead guilty. in those discussions with the prosecutors from robert mueller's office, gates was told they didn't need him to flip on paul manafort to provide information against paul manafort, instead, what they needed him for was their core mission, which is looking into possible illegal coordination between trump campaign and russians, what people called collusion. and so this is a big deal, simp

rick gates is cooperating with the special council. is it likely this came from him? and if so, mueller knows what they talked about? he has to know. >> it probably came from him. well, we know there are a lot of trump associates who have had contacts with a lot of russians including russian spies. people have lied about it. some people have now plead guilty to various crimes who are cooperating with the special council robert mueller, of course, this is exactly why president trump and his lawyers may have been contemplating using pardons to try to get people not to talk. but that in itself is going to get the president in deeper trouble this is a very bad situation for the president, as people are starting to talk to robert mueller about what they know. there are a lot of russians running around, making contacts with a lot of people who are close to the president and his campaign. >> there certainly are a lot of dots, whether there are connections, we don't know. listen, and that's what they're investigating, sarah sanders was asked about the new york times report, t

that rick gates, his deputy campaign chairman was in touch. working with someone who was a former russian intelligence official. that's relevant because if you look at the changing story of the trump world going back months and months, there were no contacts yet. there were contacts but it was about normal stuff that campaigns talk with foreign officials. but are hehere we learned that a former russian intelligence officer. they could have been talking about a business deal. at least relevant to this investigation. >> it raises the notion of collusion. that's why it is potentially significant. >> lease ves it open. >> the white house press secretary, sarah sanders, would only say that there are not currently any discussions or conversations or pardons at this time. does it sound like she is leaving the door open? >> i thought she is saying that isn't happening right now. that doesn't shut the door to suggesting that these conversations haven't happened in the past. and i think that's to jeff zeleny's points. saying, i don't want to talk about

does rick gates hold the key to more than we thought? the road to collusion could run through this former campaign aide. "i have antivirus, but my computer's still slow..." "that's not right..." "maybe if i reboot..." "what's with all the popups?" "why does it keep on crashing?" "this is taking forever." "i think it's time for the fixmestick." fixmestick is a plug-in virus removal device. it's the smart, simple, safe way to clean your computer yourself. with fixmestick you don't have to replace your computer. it helps you keep your files, and your privacy. fixmestick reboots your computer from a system on the stick, so that it can remove the malware that got past your antivirus software. it's the smart, simple way to clean an infected computer, with a whole lot going on inside the stick... [computers sound] "alright, this computer's powered down. " "let's reboot from the stick, and start scanning..." fixmestick contains 3 independent scanners, and connects to more in the cloud, for fast and effective detection of the latest threats. "i t

shimon, why is it significant that rick gates is now cooperating with mueller's team about this part of the investigation. >> reporter: you're right. it certainly is a significant development here. one of the things that makes it so significant is all along we have thought that he perhaps was cooperating and helping in the man fort investigation, but we've now learned based on our reporting that this really doesn't have anything -- his cooperation doesn't have anything to do with man fort, and it more has to do with the central mission of the special counsel investigation into russia collusion and russian interference. we know at least on court documents that were released this week rick gates was communicating with a russian intelligence official during october 2016, during the height of the campaign, and this alleged russian agent is also an associate of paul manafort. he was doing work for paul manafort in the ukraine. all of this connection, certainly a key significant fact in the mueller investigation. >> what might gates actually know? >> certainly the suggestions are that he k

now, rick gates connects through to paul manafort also, besides the business association. there was a russian agent, someone who is working for the russian intelligence, it was revealed couple of days ago in court had been communicating during the campaign with rick gates, the russian agent, also an associate of paul manafort, and all this really suggests is that this collusion investigation is still ongoing, that there is some significance to the mueller investigation, concerning this alleged russian agent, and really this really goes to the heart of what mueller has been doing for the past several months in this investigation. >> all right, shimon prokupecz, thank you. >>> joining us now to help make sense of this development, cnn contributor and law professor at the university of texas, steve vaddic. thank you for being here. what kind of questions would mueller want to ask gates? >> yeah, i think shimon's properreport is spot on here. the question is what information, what evidence, what firsthand understanding does he have about contacts between senior members of the

this lawyer was doing work with man ford and rick gates on lobbying work out of ukraine. the details in the court file point to more allegations that senior members of the trump campaign were communicating, as you said, and conducting business with a russian person connected to russian intelligence. so this information that is contained in this court document basically says that rick gates and this person a, this intelligence official, were directly communicating in september and october 2016, that person a had ties to russian intelligence services and also had these ties in 2016, and also that this intelligence person, this person a, he worked with rickm ri manafort and gates. he did work for manafort in ukraine. significant in that it points to more information that senior members of the trump campaign were communicating with russian intelligence. >> shimon prokupecz, thank you very much for that report. joining me cnn reporter bianna golodryga, senior political writer at 538, perry. people will hear that report and say, the deputy campaign chair had contact with russia

cuccinelli, the question remains, what did rick gates and person "a" discuss? and did the president know about it? he's denied his campaign had anything to do with the russians. can they really keep saying he didn't? >> certainly he can. i mean, you'll recall -- i forget the name of the individual, but it was more related to plan that fort where some russian contacted the campaign and wanted to get a briefing on what was going on and manafort blithely said, sure, we'll talk to him and nothing more. we haven't seen anything more on that. this isn't the first time we've seen some sort of contact especially between manafort and gates and someone who they had previous worked in in their particularly ukraine cran york with pro-russian forces in ukraine. they both have that long history before they ever came to the campaign. so, is this the same person, is it a different person and as you said, don, what did they actually talk about? >> this happened during the campaign. >> yeah, that wasn't the first one. i was using the other one as an example. that was during the

last month rick gates agreed to cooperate with robert mueller. gates pleaded guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators. peter doocy again with the rest of the story. >> shep, we don't know a ton about this russian spy. just that the special counsel's office has connected this person to the gru, the kremlin's intelligence apparatus. beyond that, this spy is referred to as person a and the government is alleging that a dutch lawyer who is about to be sentenced for lying to the special counsel heard about person a from rick gates. we know this because there's a seven-page long sentencing memorandum where this line is contained. it says "federal bureau of investigations special agents assists the special counsel's office assessed that person a has ties to a russian intelligence service and had ties in 2016. during his first interview with the special counsel's office, vanders 1 admitted that he knew of the connection stating that gates told him person a was a former russian intelligence officer with the gru. now vander zwaan is waiting for

gates, there was this connection with rick gates to russian intelligence officials. now what we've learned is that the special counsel, when they were talking to him about potentially cooperating, they essentially said to him they didn't need his help in the paul manafort case. it seems they have everything they need and they feel like they have a plretty airtight cae for paul manafort. but what they wanted from rick gates, who was a high-ranking official within the trump campaign, is what he knows about any potential collusion, what he knows about contacts that russians may have had with people inside the trump campaign. and also financing. he is close -- was close to people in the campaign who were involved in some of the fundraising. certainly manafort was part of that. and another individual by the name of tom barrick who was part of fundraising for the i naug ratio -- inauguration. we believe rick gates is an essential part in putting together the puzzle of collusion and russian interference in this case. >> he may testify against manafort, still? >> yes. basica

. >> rick gates, the former campaign official with trump has been cooperating, as we know, with the mueller team. what we're told is the mueller team has been primarily using rick gates for information about what they call the central mission of the investigation which has been russian interference and collusion in the 2016 campaign. the interesting thing here and perhaps significant development is that very early on, before gates had agreed to cooperate and when he was in talks with the special counsel to cooperate, they told him we're told they did not need him for paul manafort. instead, wanted to hear about what he knew about contacts between the trump campaign and russians. now, we may have a hint as to just how mueller has been using gates' information from a recent court filing that shows gates was communicating with a russian intelligence official who was also a close associate of paul manafort, and the court document said gates knew of this connection while he was working for the trump campaign. >> shimon, what kind of information could gates have? >> well, gates has ties to member

does rick gates hold the key to more than we thought? the road map to collusion could run through this former trump campaign aide. "i have antivirus, but my computer's still slow..." "that's not right..." "maybe if i reboot..." "what's with all the popups?" "why does it keep on crashing?" "this is taking forever." "i think it's time for the fixmestick." fixmestick is a plug-in virus removal device. it's the smart, simple, safe way to clean your computer yourself. with fixmestick you don't have to replace your computer. it helps you keep your files, and your privacy. fixmestick reboots your computer from a system on the stick, so that it can remove the malware that got past your antivirus software. it's the smart, simple way to clean an infected computer, with a whole lot going on inside the stick... [computers sound] "alright, this computer's powered down. " "let's reboot from the stick, and start scanning..." fixmestick contains 3 independent scanners, and connects to more in the cloud, for fast and effective detection of the latest thr

we see this with this conversation with rick gates. what's interesting, what mark was saying about not knowing the content of this conversation, we don't know publicly. but because rick gates is cooperating with the mueller investigation team, we should presume that mueller knows the content of those conversations. >> mark, along the way we're all getting a master's degree in contemporary russia. and we've learned that so many people who come up in the news are hyphenates, part-time oligarchs, part-time government types, part-time spies. tell us about this man suspected to be person "a" with the for most of us the unpronounceable name and what's known about him? >> consta tin worked with paul manafort and gates for years in their work as part of the pro-russian government there. he was a business associate, he kept ties with manafort and gates really up to the end. and the question has been exactly how directly is he tied to russian intelligence? there was always suspicions of that, his background, that he may have had past ties. but t

we see this with this conversation with rick gates. what's interesting, what mark was saying about not knowing the content of this conversation, we don't know publicly. but because rick gates is cooperating with the mueller investigation team, we should presume that mueller knows the content of those conversations. >> mark, along the way we're all getting a master's degree in contemporary russia. and we've learned that so many people who come up in the news are hyphenates, part-time oligarchs, part-time government types, part-time spies. tell us about this man suspected to be person "a" with the for most of us the unpronounceable name and what's known about him? >> constantine kilimnik is a ukrainian who worked with paul manafort and gates for years in their work as part of the pro-russian government there. he was a business associate, he kept ties with manafort and gates really up to the end. and the question has been exactly how directly is he tied to russian intelligence? there was always suspicions of that, his background, that he

. >> reporter: rick gates now at the forefront of the russian investigation. the 45-year-old four of four entered trump's orbit through paul manafort. gates inintern gates interned at manafort's firm. a decade later, in 2016, manafort joined the trump campaign and brought his trusted deputy along with him. >> paul manafort has done a terrific job. and all of his team. >> reporter: manafort took over the campaign and gates became his number two. they die -- devised a strategy. sources say gates oversaw the process of putting together the plagiarized speech melania trump gave which he denied. >> your willingness to work hard at them. >> your willingness to work for them. >> reporter: court filings exposed what prosecutors described as an 11 year scheme they did while doing laundering work. among the charges, conspiracy to launder money and failing to report foreign bank accounts. manafort pleaded not guilty and so did gates initially. in february this year, gates struck a deal. conspiracy to fraud the u.s. and making false statement. >> i think those are issues

now, keep in mind, rick gates, as we know, is an important figure in this investigation. now that he's cooperating, certainly he has information that could be helpful to the investigation, he had a seat at the table with the president, he was running the campaign, paul manafort's deputy, he was also helping with some fund-raising and as well as the inauguration, all of which is now under investigation by the special counsel. >> shimon prokupecz, thank you for that. attorney general jeff sessions may be keeping a wary eye on president trump's twitter account this morning. wondering if he again is going to be criticized. sessions says that he's not ready to name a second special counsel to investigate republican claims of fbi bias in both the russia probe and the investigation of hillary clinton. but sessions did reveal one concession, a federal prosecutor who will now investigate those claims. cnn's laura jarrett joins us now live from the justice department. tell us about this prosecutor, laura, and what is he looking for? >> hi there, brianna. the man now at the center o

on the issue of rick gates, he was the deputy campaign chairman, as you know. the notion now that we've learned that he had some contacts with russian intelligence, a russian intelligence officer during the course of the presidential campaign, some are suggesting that it looked like attempted collusion if not collusion. what are your thoughts? >> well, i think this is why we should continue with the senate judiciary committee's investigation and the senate intelligence committee's investigation. there have just in the last few days been a number of tantalizing developments that suggest that either cambridge analytica and facebook may have been involved in stripping information from 50 million americans and making that available to a firm that also claimed to have some role in the social media campaign of the trump campaign, and then this latest report about the deputy campaign manager for donald trump, allegedly having contacts with russian intelligence. i'm struck that the house committee has abandoned its investigation when they haven't interviewed any of the

that official is the former deputy campaign manager rick gates. he pleaded guilty to charges from mueller and is cooperating with the special counsel. and one of the things mueller is looking at includes gates contacts during the 2016 campaign with alleged russian intelligence agent who also had close ties with the trump campaign chairman paul manafort. this is a potentially explosive development. putting collusion at the core of mueller's investigation. and an allegation that president himself, of course, has denied at every opportunity. >> there is no collusion between me and my campaign and the russians. >> there has been absolutely no collusion. there has been no collusion between us and the russians. >> there has been no collusion between the trump campaign and russians or trump and russians. no collusion. bottom line, they all say there is no collusion, and there is no collusion. >> gates is cooperating with mueller, and he is crucial in the investigation h he was manafort's right hand man and had intimate knowledge what was going on inside

the special counsel's team revealing that former trump aide rick gates knowingly interacted, he knew he was interacting with a man with ties to russian intelligence during the campaign. stay with us. if you've been diagnosed with cancer, searching for answers may feel overwhelming. so start your search with our teams of specialists at cancer treatment centers of america. the evolution of cancer care is here. learn more at cancercenter.com/experts if yor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. this condition has not been reported with en

rick gates was the deputy campaign manager. he may not have been involved in a lot of the high-level meetings. what is interesting in a criminal investigation in a prosecution is that what co-conspirators say to him, such as paul manafort, who may have been in a meeting, can be used in court against manafort or others even. >> got it. >> even if gates was not there himself, if people are telling him things about a conspiracy with russians, then that's admissible. >> okay. dan goldman thank you very much. >> thank you. >>> now to this today, president trump's very first day in office without his trusted adviser, hope hicks. here was that good-bye moment yesterday. the white house may not fill her position after all after outside advisers are telling president trump he doesn't need a communications director. hicks' role within the west wing was critical, "new york times" calling hicks, quote, the unofficial translator to the rest of the staff. although hicks never once gave an on-camera interview, olivia nuzzi joins me. she had t

you say this is beginning to look like what collusion looks like however, we don't know what rick gates was speaking to this person connected to russia intelligence about. if possible, it may be even likely it had to do with many of those issues that rick gates and paul manafort were tied up with years before they joined the campaign. >> i think that's possible, john, but when we start to add up the different facts here, remember that paul manafort agreed to work for free. it seems if they were in contact with russian intelligence and doing work completely unrelated to the campaign, why would they be involved in the campaign? i think that mueller is going to want to get to the bottom of what were these contacts about and how did they relate and perhaps they weren't connected but i think it is incredibly problematic and something that everyone should be concerned about given we are talking about a campaign for one of our elections. >> asha, reuters and others are reporting that the trump legal team on the russia investigation is getting bigger all be it with people we don't really know t

because that was the campaign that was the election and that rick gates was having these conversations with this person in october of 2016. >> before the election. thanks so much. really appreciate the report. so who is going to take pore the president's border wall? if you asked him during the campaign it was mexico, right? now he's suggesting that the u.s. military foot the bill. well, like most of you, i just bought a house. -oh! -very nice. now i'm turning into my dad. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. i mean, why would i replace this? it's not broken. i'm trying to manage my a1c, and then i learn type 2 diabetes puts me at greater risk for heart at

then you have a person like rick gates flipping, who has known paul manafort for the party bart of ten years or more. why is paul manafort standing tall and it's always been my suppo supposation. >> if you're president trump and you knew paul manafort was in that key trump tower meeting with your son and son-in-law and that was a quid pro quo where the russians were offering dirt on the clintons, and you're worried about that, you want to make sure that manafort doesn't get into the mueller camp, one way to prevent that is to offer a pardon. >> what makes it a potential explosive situation for them in rallying the white house, people might be wondering, what's the silver lining in here for donald trump. i have one, the "new york times" story says it's unclear whether dowd who resigned last week discussed the pardons with mr. trump before bringing them up with the other lawyers. and joyce, this goes to a defense we have seen in the stormy daniels case, in the case of silencing women and now we're seeing the same implied defense here tonight, which is donald trump must have the most rogu

that cooperating witness is this man, rick gates. trump campaign rick gates. now cnn has learned mueller's team told gates we don't need your help on manafo are. t, instead asking for help on the central question, did members of the truch campaign work with russia in order to win the presidential election? joseph moreno, nice to see you. happy friday. >> happy friday, brooke. good to be here. >> this is a big deal. for months all that really was known from the mueller probe is that they were looking into this obstruction and that had been a huge focus and now it's a different story with its collusion and potential connection between a former trump campaign member and a russia intel officer. >> absolutely, brooke. bank fraud, tax fraud and has nothing to do with the president and the campaign. and it's an example of overreach by the special counsel. the fact that this connection may, in fact, exist now between mr. manafort, mr. gates, this third party and possible russian intelligence goes to show you that we really don't know what the special counsel had and w

that includes president trump, paul manafort, rick gates, steve bannon, hope hicks, and others. the subpoena reportedly asks for all communications from november 1st, 2015, up until next. nbc news has not yet independently confirmed this report. we should put that caveat out there. ken dilanian, what do you make of this new reporting? what's he looking for here? >> well, he wants all communications from everyone for all time. we should not assume that just because he's asking for this stuff from one witness he doesn't already have it or a lot of it because what's been very clear from our interviews with people who have been before robert mueller is that those guys have a lot of resources at their disposal. u.s. intelligence resources. they have e-mails. they have location information. they have all kinds of communications. they know about meetings you were in that you don't even remember you were in. so, you know, they're going to dot their i's and cross their t's and asking everybody for every scrap of paper they have. they know about the communications between those people. >>

. >>> this is new reporting from cnn that before trump campaign aid rick gates flipped, mueller's team made it clear that they wanted information on potential collusion between trump and the russians. meaning this was not just about paul manafort. to be clear, nbc has not confirmed this report, but it does overlap with some of what we know, that mueller is using gates to tie the campaign directly to the russians. we did show you on this new court filing that says that gates was directly communicating to someone in 2016 to someone who had ties to russian intelligence services. so did gates have no choice but to flip? is this information coming from somewhere around gates? that we do not know yet. today news that a trump ally was detained at boston's airport and questioned by mueller investigators, including about contacts with, yes, roger stone and wikileaks. and this comes amid some other reports that this comes amid contacts between the trump team and the rnc. there are investigators in congress and there are investigators worried that trump could lash out and try to get mueller fired

when donald trump fired paul manafort, rick gates stayed on. he was in and out of the white house the first two months of the trump presidency. he's a potential treasure trove against the president. i think jared kushner is in bob mueller's cross-hairs because of allegations of wrongdoing. kennedy: that's 666 fifth avenue. a $1.8 billion office building. i don't know if there are ties between the potential financial woes round that building and potential foreign investors that the "new york times" laid out, but it seems as though perhaps maybe there is a connection between the financial misgiving of the real estate empire, potential money laundering and the security clearance. judge napolitano: our colleague charlie gasparino reported it's well known the mueller camp crossed the red line president trump said they should never cross. which is look into dealings with foreign banks. the washington post story this morning is devastating to kushner. it says he has been putty in the hands of diplomats who engaged in recorded conversations to try and

kennedy: you this is a result of the deal that rick gates made with the special counsel to keep himself out of decades of years in prison. >> he was exposed to decades and years. he's now exposed to two or three years, not decades, years. and that will probably be reduced to months. because of his cooperation helping mueller. kennedy: what could he have sai. >> just as we never heard of the lawyer before, we've never heard of this united air of emirates guy and it turns it he was around during the campaign, throughout the transition and at the white house. you said it perfectly, was there a pay to play. stated differently, was there an agreement with the campaign. you provide us with something of value. i'm using that phrase intentional because it comes from the federal statute in return we'll look favorably upon the needs of your oil rich united air of emirates once donald trump is elected president. the reason i say something of value is because it is a felony to give or receive something of value from a foreign national or entity when you're running a federal campaign. kennedy: that'

he admitted he knew of that connection, stating that rick gates told him person a was a russian intelligence officer with the gru. that's all in the alex van der zwaan sentencing stuff that's going back and forth. part of the story is van der zwaan pleading for leniency and the special counsel not at all indicating that they are down with that. but the other part of it is the special counsel's office showing their hand as to something they've got. dear mr. president with no little team. these filings from the special counsel's office now spell out explicitly that during your presidential campaign, your campaign manager and your deputy campaign manager were in frequent contact with, what's the phrase? with a person the fbi assesses to have had current ties to a russian intelligence service. and they couldn't have been unwittingly duped into doing this, because your deputy campaign manager is on record, telling other people at the time, hey, call this guy. he's gru. he's russian military intelligence. and that's not us guessing at what the special counsel office is looking at, that's them tell

new court documents filed by mueller's team are taking a look at by rick gates. >>> plus apple's ce on o tim cook takes aim at facebook in the wake of the cambridge analytica scandal. what he has to say about customer privacy concerns. the roasted core wrap. 3, 2, 1... not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. and no surgery. results and patient experience may vary. some rare side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort and swelling. ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting.com today... for your chance to win a free treatment. hnew litter?lled this no. nobody has! it's unscented! (vo) new tidy cats free & clean unscented. powerful odor control with activated charcoal. free of dyes. free of fragrances. tidy cats free & clean. when no scents makes sense. >>> welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian along with louis burgdorf. amid reports that president trump's lawyer dangled potential pardons for former aides who were being investigate

all it really tells you, which we kind of knew from mueller's filing the other day on rick gates, is that, you know, they have not lost interest in the question of collusion. and they are still asking questions and conducting a serious investigation on the basic question of what the core relationship was, if any, between russian intelligence and the trump campaign and its people. and i think this is, you know, further evidence of that, and there has been a lot of evidence of that of late. >> michael caputo who worked on the campaign for the convention and during the convention says the kislyak meeting was not a thing, it was just a side meeting. it wasn't preplanned, they weren't talking about anything specific, it was part of a number of other ambassadors that were at the convention. that it's not unusual. he would also say the idea of arming somebody, the u.s. arming somebody to fight against russia would have been a very big deal, and that's why they reversed that part of the platform. does that arrangement hold water in this case? >> two things. the point about the meeting betwee

carter page, cory lewandowski, donald trump, hope hicks, paul manafort, rick gates, roger stone, bannon. he clearly doesn't want to talk about roger stone and steve bannon. >> you know what, too bad. it is not up to witnesses to decide what they want to talk about and what they don't want to talk about. you know, this is ten people who are obviously centrally involved in this investigation. and prosecutors and fbi agents, their job is to set a wiet net, if he has no contact with steve bannon, so be it. but when you get a grand jury subpoena, you have to answer it. what he keeps saying, they want me. mueller wants me to say x. mueller wants me to say y. mueller wants him to tell the truth. that's why someone gets a grand jury subpoena. and the idea that sam nunberg gets to decide what he talks about and what questions he answers, i think everyone knows that's just absurd. >> jeff is spot on. i would say one of the most striking things i heard from mr. nunberg today is him saying he has, quote, no interest in providing these records to mr. mueller. jeff can attest, all of the subpoenas i

gates told him person a was a former russian intelligence officer with the gru. that's all in the alex van der zwaan sentencing stuff that's going back and forth. part of the story is van der zwaan pleading for leniency and the special counsel not at all indicating that they are down with that. but the other part of it is the special counsel's office showing their hand as to something they've got. dear mr. president with no legal team. these filings from the special counsel's office now spell out explicitly that during your presidential campaign, your campaign manager and your deputy campaign manager were in frequent contact with, what's the phrase? with a person the fbi assesses to have had current ties to a russian intelligence service. and they couldn't have been unwittingly duped into doing this, because your deputy campaign manager is on record, telling other people at the time, hey, call this guy. he's gru. he's russian military intelligence. and that's not us guessing at what the special counsel office is looking at, that's them telling us what they've got

the fact that he talked fo a senior trump campaign official, rick gates, the month before the election is material. it's mueller showing his hand, it's mueller telling us what he thinks is important. it's almost to the point of why he thinks it's important. >> judd, konstantin has denied any ties with russian intelligence. in the pleadings it said he does have the ties. he said he did speak to the 2016 campaign every couple months. >> yes. a couple things that are important here. the first is that kilimnik, the first part that he was part of russian intelligence is important. but we're also getting to the frame of mind of russian government, alex vander swan and paul manafort. it says that vander swan thought kilimnik was part of russian intelligence because gates told him so. you wouldn't see this in mueller's report for mueller didn't have the goods on this. we know in the past alex vander swan recorded the conversations. he had a conversation with kilimnik and gates in 2016. one can speculate mueller may have a copy of the recording and that puts more pressure on gates. and i think

moeller has secured a guilty plea from rick gates on money laundering and lying to investigators. lauren blanchard fox news. >>> president trump poked fun at himself last night at the gridiron dinner. mr. trump said quote, it has been another calm week at the white house we have it running like a fine tuned machine.>>> president trump comments were raising eyebrows. president trump thinks it is great that china's president could hold office for life. he said maybe the u.s. could do it the same. >>> a self -- south bay democratic blasted the transom but -- president. i have refrained from being anti-trump, talking about something un- american. george washington would roll over in his grave. >>> a new ad campaign keeping the daca front and center. hundreds of thousands of dreamers is still in limbo. it was scheduled to end tomorrow. two federal courts block that from happening. they rejected president trumps administration to bypass to go to straight to the spring -- sprays -- supreme court. >>> in a rare weekend session the florida senate rejected a proposal to ban assault weapons