i do not know this george papadopoulos guide, he met this australian guy in a bar. anything democrats could have held onto, they are trying to hold onto to indict trump. tat.s a coup d'e it is obvious. if you want real information, go to info wars, x intelligent committees have their own website. they will tell you the crap that is going on in our government. there is some vital context that is missing from what our caller is saying. first off, we do not know that mccabe quit because of this memo. if he lefty that because of any potential wrongdoing, that is wrongdoing that will be revealed in a report that is being put together by the fbi inspector general. the inspector general is a watchdog within the bureau whose job it is to monitor potential problems there. additionally, our caller said that mccabe told the house intelligence committee that the dossier was the central reason for this investigation. democrat sources have pushed back against that. they say that the memo's claim is not accurate. that is something we could potentially see disputed in a memo from d

it mentions george papadopoulos, trump campaign aide, who pled guilty to lying. the dossier was the only thing that the fbi used to get this fisa warrant, it also says that george papadopoulos was the whole reason the russia probe started in the first place. >> in july. >> in july 2016 our reporting is that he told the australian ambassador that the russians had incriminating evidence on hillary clinton. the ambassador told the fbi. that kicked the whole thing off. clearly that information was included in the fisa application. i will say it's hard to make a judgment based on this memo, jake. it certainly raises some questions about the fbi, concerning questions. but you can't make a judgment because it doesn't include the other information that the fbi included in the application. >> right. >> and for the renewals. there was critical information missing here that the fbi director himself said in that public statement. >> the fbi said that this memo is misleading because it leav s leaves out a lot of information. i want to ask you a couple of questions about carte

who did george papadopoulos tell about his contacts with russians? more recently carter page, a figure that became really an unwitting eye of the storm in the fight between the white house and the fbi over the release of the highly politicized nunes memo that told a very narrow and distorted view of a surveillance application, the fbi wanted to surveil an american. we now have more questions about maybe he was talking one of these 13 russians. we don't know. but in terms of how this gets filtered down, it is possible that there are more questions than answers after today. >> two questions before i bring a former assistant director of the fbi in. if you're communications director in the white house, what do you think they'll say, and what would you counsel them to say? >> the communications director in this white house, i go to wittingly or unwittingly is a witness in the special counsel investigation. so i don't know if that hampers her ability to counsel the president. in the bush white house when there were people who were witnesses, they didn't co

and someone closer to the trump inner circle than george papadopoulos who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi in october. here's rick gates today walking out of federal court. he's not some coffee boy, volunteer or unpaid intern. he was the deputy campaign manager at one point. unlike paul manafort who resigned after a few months, gates remained with the campaign until election day, he was on the transition team and inaugural committee. and once trump took office rick gates formed an allied group to help support the president's agenda and he was a regular at the white house. he could supply valuable information about the inner workings on the trump operation. according to a document, rick gates conspired to lie to the united states regarding money he and paul manafort earned while working for a political party in ukraine. work they did without registering as foreign agents per the law. he also lied in an interview this month about a 2013 meeting between paul manafort, a congressman, dana rohrabacher. both men were hit with a 32-count indictment in virginia on thursday. the "new york t

especially for people like george papadopoulos, carter page, some of these people who floated around trump who are not sophisticated people, who are

we had mike flynn and george papadopoulos. >> harris: we are going to give you a chance to step back and continue your excellent look at this and reporting today. >> thank you for having me. >> harris: thank you. i do want to point out because i know our team out here brought us because you and i were frantically trying to get that pdf open. >> melissa: i could do it. >> harris: we got it. the point i was going to make, we have a copy of the white house later, when you read through, it's a page and a half almost, it's a third the length of this document. it's interesting to me because it lays out with the president was kind of coming from and his counsel. and that's part of the story too. >> howard: when president trump repeatedly says that the special counsel investigation as a witch hunt and he believes like he said today that justice department has been biased in favor of democrats as republicans, a lot of people would take issue with that. you can start to see his worldview here because you look at this white house memo, and it talks about who got involved in using these warrants

it was triggered earlier about the different adviser george papadopoulos. the memo alleges the justice department did not disclose the bias of the author. the newspapers all report the fisa surveillance court was told about the political motivations behind the dossier. >> democrats are warning the release of the nunes memo could lead to a constitutional crisis. the number two democrat in the senate dick durbin said that on "the state of the union." >> to say that this is the end of the investigation and this is all trump needs to fire rosenstein or mueller. this could precipitate a constitutional crisis if the house republicans believe they set the stage for this president to end this investigation, they are basically saying in america, one man is above the law. that's not a fact. >> and at that same moment, reince priebus was on "meet the press" saying he never thought robert mueller's job as special counsel was at risk. >> i never felt of all of the things we went through in the west wing, i never felt the president was going to fire the special counsel.

was that there was a counter intelligence investigation of george papadopoul george papadopoulos. another trump campaign advisor in july chl the first part

the dossier has nothing to do with george papadopoulos' meeting in great britain. it also doesn't have anything to do with the obstruction of justice. there will be a russia probe without a dossier. >> reporter: that statement coming from trey gowdy is significant. according to devin nunes, trey gowdy is the only republican on the intelligence committee that has seen the raw data and intelligence that allowed the fisa court judge to go ahead and issue the warrants to surveil carter page. if anyone knows about the val validity of the memo or the implication of the russia investigation it is trey gowdy. the president tweeted portions of the editorial that suppose that there are political actors with the department of justice and fbi that are anti-trump. we heard from donald trump jr. on saturday and he said the release of the memo is like sweet revenge for him and his family. democrats are pushing for the release of the so-called schiff memo. the rebuttal of the nunes memo. according to democrats it contains more contacts. we could potentially see the taem intelligen

george papadopoulos never does. carter page and jeff significances did he ever does. not one of these people never ever, ever smells something fishy and thinks they have a responsibility to the united states of america to protect the integrity of the election. no, one of them. but an australian diplomat did. that's who obviously does it. we have confirmation of that thanks to the announce memo. congressman eric swalwell, have you seen evidence of anyone in the trump campaign ever contacting any officials of any kind to say something smells fishy here? >> good evening. not a shred of evidence. one of the reforms will have to be put in place is a duty to report law if a foreign adversary or foreign agent contacts a u.s. person and wants to interfere in a federal election, that you should have to report it to the fbi and there's one other that i wanted to point out. michael cohn didn't think it was odd in october and december of 2015 when felix sater was suggesting that in addition to putting a trump tower in moscow, that they get donald trump and putin together because

it also included that george papadopoulos had been contacted about receiving russian dirt. he was on the same foreign-policy team as carter page. carter page also since 2013 had been suspected of being a russian foreign agent. we just wanted a breaking news, carter page sent a letter in 2013 saying he had been doing work for the kremlin. they had all the right in the world to be concerned about these individuals. >>chris: i want to focus on one sentence in the memo gentleman. deputy director mccabe testified in december 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the court without the steel dossier. congressman stewart, i noticed that is not". did deputy director mccabe actually say that? >> that may not be his exact words but i assure you, i was there, part of the question. i promise you the intent of his answer was that we would not have gone forward were it not for this dossier. there was two basic pieces of evidence. the dossier and ironically, a yahoo news report that was based on what? the dossier. the authorof that news report w shocked, saying they

he claims he says president trump never met this guy, george papadopoulos. the only problem is we have a picture of them sitting together. do you believe me or lying eyes. he never met the guy, yes, he has, mr. nunez. your flakery for the president is embarrassing even you, i think. you're watching "hardball." why did i want a crest 3d white smile? dinner date...meeting his parents dinner date. so i used crest. crest 3d white removes... ...95% of surface stains in just 3 days... ...for a whiter smile... that will win them over. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. there'swhatever type ofhe end of eweekender you are,ton. don't let another weekend pass you by. get the lowest price when you book at hilton.com you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get

especially for people like george papadopoulos, carter page, some of these people who floated around trump who are not sophisticated people, who are not a tate team players, don't have deep experience, now they're getting called out. >> thank you guys very much for joining us. coming up, new report tonight that the person in charge of overseeing the mueller probe, rod rosenstein called the white house about jared kushner's security clearance problem. >>> later, a cpac official said the only reason michael steel was elected to be the head of the rnc was because he was a black guy and that was the wrong move. who's getting the last word tonight? michael steel. it's 6 am. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, more than a thousand workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for

and george papadopoulos subsequently pleaded guilty for lying to the fbi about that conversation. it's quite apart from a president of the united states inviting a foreign power to mess around with our elections and i wonders why there's a question about collusion today. as you point out, that is a very concerning timing coincidence to say the least. >> the democratic memo says by september 2016 carter page, george papadopoulos, paul manafort and michael flynn were all under fbi investigation. why? >> well, i think you are referring to a footnote about who we subsequently find out was under investigation because indictments were issued. but the key point there is that carter page is surveilled after, not during, but after the application to surveil carter page. and the more important point if you'll indulge me, there was all sorts of reasons going way back, years before, for the fbi to have an interest in carter page's relationship to the russians. he called himself an adviser to the kremlin. there's a lot more there than the steele dossier, which is what the republican memo it wa

you knew about george papadopoulos. you know about general flynn. all of that had been already reported. this had not been reported and we felt like once again the american people wanted to know. by the way, those things that you talked about in the work of the special counsel, which let me restate, i support and want him to continue, but none of that, virtually none of that indicates any collusion on behalf of the trump campaign and russian officials. if there isn't anything. you've got some financial irregularities that happened years before the election. it got some people in a process crime, as they call it, where they were honest with the fbi, but no one has said they are showing evidence of collusion between trump officials and any russian agents. there just simply isn't any. >> chris: let's talk about the memo and its central allegation, which was that the fbi misled the fisa court, the foreign intelligence surveillance act court to get a warrant to surveilled carter page without revealing the fact that this was political opposition research,

it began with george papadopoulos. new information is out there that they previewed, the russians did, to george papadopoulos the anonymous dissemination of hacked information, quote unquote, dirt on hillary clinton. i think this raises the seriousness of the investigation and the fbi's work here and their credibility also i think has been restored. >> congressman, we've been picking this apart a little bit with our panel, as you talk about credibility. the fact that there seems to be this back and forth between the gop memo came out first, now the democrats' memo, and all this is playing out in public, if you will. does this start to call into question the credibility of the work that's being done in the house, the work that's being done in your committee? >> that's what we're up against every day, you know, republicans on the committee who seem to believe that their role is to be the lawyers for the white house, and to be in the defense case for the white house and to not have the independence you need to understand

clear about this they no one of these people seriously believe that carter page or george papadopoulos these bumbling inturn idiots were russian agents this was an attempt to use their bumbling to get intelligence wire taps inside the trump campaign it's true well what i find especially astonishing about this whole story is that feisal warrant was based on a story written by michael isikoff. and why do you want to get the story from the facts facts from christopher stevens so the story is that d.n.c. campaign paints pace christopher steele so that he would dig dirt on trump like heem going to mosque or hotels meeting with prostitutes there sleeping on obama's former badly you know in a hotel then michael isikoff takes an interview from this guy and then finally decides oh the whole possible fits together that there is a conspiracy against the night that's all you do also know that the face of court was not made aware of the origins and the author of this dossier ok what is there not being in there also were not told this article that was in the yahoo newsletter was also my suggestion i

what's your reaction to george papadopoulos? >> the trump team has been working overtime to portray him as a nobody. >> this individual was the member of a volunteer advisory council. >> he was the coffee boy. if he was going to wear a wire, all we'd know is whether he prefers regular american coffee. >> but the coffee boy found his way to the big boy table with donald trump and other top campaign people. >> he doesn't know how to even make a coffee. >> the fiancee of george papadopoulos says he was much more than a coffee boy. >> he attended many events and entertained contacts with high-level officials of different countries. he was actively giving his input and insight in terms of strategies. >> and it turns out papadopoulos may be the very reason there's a trump-russia investigation. "the new york times" reports back in may of 2016 papadopoulos told an australian diplomat that the kremlin had thousands of e-mails that could be damaging to hillary clinton. >> this is a big deeshlg the fact that a trump foreign policy official

the complaint says george papadopoulos, he lied about his contacts with foreign nationals who had close connections to the russian government. - it's still halloween, bitches. [laughter] [cheers and applause] just two hours--two hours after the manafort story broke, we suddenly find out that one of trump's campaign advisors, george papadopoulos, was trying to connect the trump campaign with russian government officials who had dirt on hillary. so now the story is back to trump-russia collusion. because unlike manafort's indictment, papadopoulos' crime does relate directly to colluding with russia, which makes the situation much more dangerous to donald trump, especially given this little detail. - we know he's cooperating. he was actually arrested in late july. and court documents say he's repeatedly been by the government since then and has been providing answers. - the papadopoulos indictment has gotta be the one that has trump world really sweating because it's a guilty plea, it directly deals with collusion and he is cooperating. - that's right, folks. it's mueller time. [traditiona

so the memo undercuts its central argument in the text. >> what george papadopoulos said to officials, and australian officials. >> right. >> and with the fisa warrant, it has to be reuped every three months. if there is not something, it goes away. that happened with paul manafort. he had a fisa warrant. it went away. another one was opened later because of new information that was found. again, this with carter page, they clearly thought they were getting something, enough to warrant the fisa warrants every three months. the thinking in the white house memo, rather from the white house on the memo, was its release would help bring the investigation to a conclusion. does that happen now? does it absolve president trump of anything? >> no. as i said on this program months ago, this was part of a campaign to undermine the fbi and law enforceme enforcement. it would be untenable to have fired mueller. but that's the way sit is going. i'm dubious because this has turned into a clown show conspiracy. imagine this whole thing never had to become public. if the congress wants oversight on t

the fact of the matter is george papadopoulos has pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with the russians. they've got a guilty plea from michael flynn who was the national security adviser. they've got cases going against the former chairman of the campaign, manafort, and gates, his assistant. so none of those people are named carter page. and carter page is the guy who at the center of the memo that came up this week. even if you argue that there's something wrong with the warrant against carter page, it doesn't make the rest of that investigation go away. so again, it's clear this administration and their allies are very concerned about this investigation. i'm not sure they've done anything other than to say what you're mentioning, throw some dirt at it, make it look like it's dirty. >> i'm curious, jay, how much you think republicans will pick up the ball and run with this. of course it is super bowl weekend. how much do they go with it or stop. >> you've seen the republican party that's been very split over this, because what is so striking is that this is a republi

george papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy. >> george papadopoulos was the reason the russia investigation, the counter intielligence investigation began. >> what's obvious here -- >> he's trying to say no relevance. >> mr. nunes is trying to undermine the investigation of russian intervention in the 2016 campaign. carter page is not the way to do it. the george papadopoulos case is the way to do it. not satisfied with having created a lot of gonoise about e carter page warrant. mr. nunes is going after the papadopoulos investigation. why doesn't he care? why doesn't the congressman care about the intervention and our elections by russia. why is he so focussed on domestic conspiracies that likely don't exist? this is what's so unfortunate because he's the share of the committee that oversees our intelligence community. i can't imagine how they can take this man seriously when he keeps focusing inward when he should be looking outside at adversaries trying to undermine our democracy. >> the president said the memo totally vindicates trump putting his own name

papadopoulos. someone a foreign policy advisor for candidate trump and meeting secretly with the russians and talking about the stolen clinton emails. >> i don't think it has any impact on the russia probe. >> the memo has no impact on the russia probe. >> not to me it doesn't. i was involved in the tracking of it. >> the fact that the republicans in the house refuse to allow a minority report, the democratic response to their memo, is an indication that they are just bound and determined to continue to find ways to absolve this president from any responsibility. >> we had collusion, conspiresy, people accused of treason. no one is making that allegation anymore. dianne feinstein said there is no evidence of collusion and that's the point the president is making. >> melissa: let's bring in our panel. richard fowler is a fox news contributor and radio talk show host. brad blakeman is a form assistant to george w. bush. brad if we're trying to figure out who may have helped the russians or colluded w

what they did was confirm that the investigation really began with george papadopoulos. and not michael steele -- christopher steele's dossier. so i think it muddied the waters in a funny way, in a different direction than the one intended. >> george papadopoulos, the young national security volunteer who worked for the campaign. david axel rod is the one this london who told them, that they were collecting hillary clinton's e-mails. it was the australian intelligence community who then eventually notified the us about this and that got the ball rolling. that was long before the dossier. >> absolutely. and he is someone who pled guilty as has general flynn. there are two others under indictment. the notion that this is a could not strived case based on the dossier is belied by what has happened since. and we know that the special counsel has talked to at least 20 people in the white house lube. we have no idea how many witnesses he's talked to beyond that. we know he has access to a wealth of documents. so my guess is that whatever case he is producing has very little or

papadopoulos which one. will stroll down a street in deep meant in the long haul that the mounties profess connected to russia to the union of russia. well even stout and secret police would not accept it you know like you would talk to someone in the london world for a long time quit cold connection to the really bad script elements but if you're generally going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the memo seen with r t. the us is losing into a summer on the climate denying precluding them from the dissipating in this new economy number one and number two the effects of the climate change and why the catastrophes the global you know migrants that are the result of it all this other problems are hurting the u.s. economy on the other side of the trade so you've got a double bind. appetite i mean for conflict is very very low these days public service much more eager to see economic improvement and they are to. actually get into a fight with a neighbor or or with

was that there was a counter intelligence investigation of george papadopoul george papadopoulos. another trump campaign advisor in july chl the first part carter page discussion here. there was clearly more evidence submitted than the dossier and the article. there was another trump foreign policy campaign advisor was under investigation. that's important. >> listen, you can say there were other people and under investigation for other crimes. that doesn't in any way reflect on this question about carter page. whether he was under investigation or not, george papadopoulos. the reality is he had nothing to do with carter page. they drew no alliance between them at all. >> that maybe. they were both trump campaign foreign policy advisors. which maybe significant. yes? >> i suppose you can maybe draw that conclusion. i'm telling you i don't think in a court of law you could. this person is under investigation therefore we can investigate this person. when there's no relation between them. >> the memo goes to great end to point out the fisa court was never told that it was a clinton

the george papadopoulos information was also part of it. so just in the four corners of the document itself, it goes against what they are saying. so you know, it is just mind-boggling what's happening. >> this is why these committees operate in a bipartisan way. >> i don't think the purpose of this document was to clarify. i think the purpose was to muddy. and i think it is to muddy at a particular time when we think the special counsel is moving toward conclusion. at least on the obstruction of justice investigation. we know they're investigating to get, to be able to question president trump. we assumed that would come toward end of it. and that i think may be one reason we're seeing it happen. and one reason it is confusing is because, it seems to me, part of the point. >> if the purpose is to muddy, which this goes to you, what does this say about the aiders and abettors who released the documents, the republicans in the house? so many of whom had been so supportive, in the past, the fbi, et cetera. >> the key is to hear the democrat s

the dossier has nothing to do with george papadopoulos' meeting in great britain. it also doesn't have anything to do with object stlustruction of. so there will be a russia probe even without the dossier. >> bob mueller should be able to turn over every rock, pursue every lead so we can have trust in knowing exactly what the russians did or did not do. >> it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest the special counsel shouldn't complete his work. i support his work. i want him to finish it. >> i support the mueller investigation. i hope he does it fairly and honestly. we would all expect that. >> so jim acosta, how is the trump administration taking the fallout of this very serious pushback of republicans who totally disagree with him on the overall mueller investigation? >> reporter: well, wolf, you're seeing the president once again touting this memo that was released by devin nunes, and he's not backing off of any of that. he hasn't done that. in the last 48, 72 hours he was talking on twitter saying that the memo vindicated him. you saw the sunday talk shows,

we know a previous guilty plea involved george papadopoulos because of false statements he made to the special counsel's team. this is yet one more indictment in this case, the latest being handed down by robert mueller's team here. this actually relates to -- scaten arps was dispatched by paul manafort back in 2012. he did the report for the ukrainian government of viktor yanukovych and worked to justify the jailing of one of yanukovych's opponents in ukraine. again, this is a wide-ranging reach by the special counsel involving paul manafort's work in ukraine. that was the initial indictment back in october. today this latest indictment against a lawyer for lying to the special counsel's office in relation to his communications with rick gates -- of course, rick gates, the deputy combine manager for the trump campaign and also indicted for lying about some of the communications he may have withheld from the special counsel. this all bit by bit, the special counsel handing down these environments, somehow becoming more of a rapid success. we saw the indictment on friday of the 13 russi

papadopoulos case and that tree is not poisoned but produced a lot of fruit. two guilty pleas and two indictments and so the idea that this memo was going to undermine the entire mueller investigation, i think it completely fell apart today. what remains to be seen is whether trump thinks he's gotten the political space because he gets up and watches fox and friends and is encouraged in this manner. to make a move against rod rosenstein and that way kind of shut down or curtail the mueller investigation. i think that is remaining to be seen. >> jill, watching this today i thought about you and your experience in watergate having recently really been immersing myself in the blow by blow details and i wonder what parallels you see today. >> there are so many parallels to this. first of all, richard nixon asked john dean to write a whitewash mem ore saying that he had fully investigated the accusations and that no one in the white house or in the committee to re-elect the president was involved. that is what this memo was. it is a whitewash. it is outrageous and

so far so warrant mentioned information on george papadopoulos which want to put the opal stroll down australian diplomat in a long time but that the mounties profess connected to russia. really in russia during the clinton well even started a secret police will not accept it you know like you would talk to someone in the london. reportedly in connection to the really bad script elements but if you're gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the memo with our.

it refers to then campaign george papadopoulos who according to "the new york times" told a new york diplomate over drinks russians had political dirt on hillary clinton. they said it did not start as a result of papadopoulos whom another trump adviser famously dismissed as a mere, quote, coffee boy. instead they have long said that the steele dossier was the reign for the russian investigation. which they said made the entire investigation a sham since as the nunes memo alleges that was ultimately made for by democrats during the campaign. so the dossier had nothing to do with the launch of the russia investigation. and the gop in this memo intended to discredit the whole thing actually admits that. but the memo will not give up on the dossier being at the core of the russia investigation. ittal ledges dossier was serious abuse at the highest levels of fbi in obtaining the fisa warrant on carter page. it then says then deputy director andrew mccabe quote testified that no surveillance warrant would have been sought without the steele dossier information. that's a pretty i in kre cre

george papadopoulos who is also pleading guilty? who on god's green earth is george papadopoulos? not a high profile guy from the campaign. if george papadopoulos and rick gates were two guys out of three in a lineup, what are the odds you pick either one of them out without a name tag? there have been surprises from the very beginning. there is so much attention, so much interest, so much intense reporting pressure on the details of the mueller investigation and it turns out they do not leak, and we really have no idea ever what the special counsel is about to do in this case next. and if you talk to anybody who tells you today that oh, yeah, they saw today's indictment coming, they saw this indictment coming, they saw this new guilty plea and cooperation agreement coming, they could have told you this is happening before it happened, you should break up with that person because that person lies to you. there is nobody outside the special counsel's office who knew before today we were about to get what we got. we were about to get a guilty plea and cooperation agreement from rich

papadopoulos which one of the local stroll down australian diplomats in the long haul that the mounties profess connected to russia and that he in russia he's doing . well even start in secret police would not accept it you know like you would talk to someone in the london who works for a long time and quit. connection to the really bad script elements but if you're generally going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the member states with our team. the u.s. . is losing until a summer on the climate denying is precluding them from the dissipating in this new economy number one and number two the effects of the climate change and why the catastrophes the global you know migrants that are the result of it all this other problems are hurting the u.s. economy on the other side of the trade so you've got a double bind. across europe municipalities are taking their water supply back from private companies who p.m.a. to me to be about the social simple song alone even find company elsewhere they can find private companies to take over the utilitie

but robert mueller knows because george papadopoulos is now a cooperating witness. when you take the fact that the trump campaign had that information in april, and then in june they were told in an e-mail to donald trump jr. that the russian government wanted to help elect trump president, it makes trump's actions in july when he made that statement at the press conference -- in a way it's collusion out in the open. after his campaign was told that the russian government had obtained clinton e-mails, he's out publicly asking them to release them. if that was a private communication, we would just be waiting for an indictment or impeachment referral. when you put it in context to the rest of the timeline, it's an extremely damning piece of evidence. >> stone has been a french character in this story from the beginning. he's somebody who makes outrageous statements online, makes outrageous statements in person as well. he's somebody that many folks have tried to chalk up to someone who likes to stir up trouble, not someone who necessarily knows as much as he claims t

whether he was under investigation or not, george papadopoulos, the reality is he had absolutely nothing to do with carter page. they drew no lines between them at all. >> that may be. they were both trump campaign foreign policy advisers, which may be significant, yes? >> well, i suppose you could maybe draw that conclusion, but i'm telling i don't think in a court of law you could. this person is under investigation. therefore, we can investigate this person when there's no relation between them. >> all right. the memo goes to great end to point out that the fisa court was never told that it was clinton campaign funding and democratic party funding behind the dossier. we've had democrats say that it was pointed out that there were political connections to the funding. do you agree with that? >> yeah, they do say that, and it shows their deception. it shows they were trying to hide the fact that hillary clinton paid for this. look, they knew that. >> do you have evidence -- hang on one second. do you have evidence that they tried to hide it, or do you have evidence that they just omitte

papadopoulos' meeting in great britain. it also doesn't have anything to do with obstruction of justice. so there's going to be a russia probe even without a dossier. >> he's clearly -- and other republicans not on the same page as the president. >> right. congressman gowdy laid it out pretty clearly, wolf. some republicans want to create a little distance between them and the president because they know that the memo did not, quote unquote, vindicate the president. it also doesn't undermine the mueller probe. i will just say that i think it is important for all the reasons kaitlin stated to see the democratic version of events. in the last couple of days i don't think we've gotten a satisfactory answer to one point in the nunes memo, which is this idea that the fisa warrant application did not include information specifically saying that the fusion gps memo was from a democratically funded source. democrats have sort of yadda yadda'ed that point. >> it will be fas tagt cinatinge what the president does, assuming the justic

trump -- donald trump and george papadopoulos on march 31st 2016. msnbc contributor jennifer ruben is a "washington post" columnist who rights the right turn column. i thought that was an interesting contention for mr. nunes to make. >> you know, it's pretty scary that he has such a poor grasp of details. not the kind of guy you want to be chairman of the house intelligence committee. and that really is, i think, the takeaway from all of this. which is, yes, he's malicious. yes, he's trying to carry water. but, basically, he's very thick. he's very dumb. and that is disturbing in and of itself, because this is an important role. these positions are supposed to be exercising oversight. and this person is totally incapable of carrying out anything remotely akin to his real job. >> well, speaking for myself, i reserve any judgment on the mental acuity of the chairman, one way or the other. i honestly mean that. at one level, if you view him engaged in a sort of tactical feint to undermine the investigation or to give people in trump's base some reason

mueller probe. >> george papadopoulos was charged for lying to the fbi and the russia probe and it's interesting because in the last page of this memo, wolf, it makes reference to papadopoulos, that his name was in the fisa application for carter page. in the memo, the argument was made that there was no evidence that carter page and george papadopoulos had talk ed or thee was any sort of cooperation or conspiracy between the two. it does sort of undercut the argument that the dossier was the sort of principle part of the fisa application, that that was really the only reason why the judge signed off on it, because it mentioned that papadopoulos was also used to make the case. to remind viewers, our reporting is that george papadopoulos told the ambassador well before this application was improved that russians had incriminating information on hillary clinton. he allegedly, according to court records, was told that by a professor in london, that russians had thousands of hillary clinton's e-mails. that sparked alarm bells in the fbi when that information was reported and that's why t

papadopoulos. there are also important developments tonight stemming from our own nbc news reporting that over 130 white house officials did not have permanent security clearance as of november of last year. today oversight committee trey gowdy sent the white house a request for information on all officials for whom a security clearance was pending or had been adjudicated since january 21, 2017, the first day of the trump presidency. and our own ken dilanian has reporting on the process at the white house. according to an excerpt of a questionnaire obtained by nbc news. white house officials are actually asked if they are vulnerable to blackmail. it reads in part, quote, with as much detail as possible, please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, which would suggest a conflict of interest, be a possible source of embarrassment or be used to cooers or blackmail you. that's a change. let's bring in our lead off panel on a busy thursday night. matthe

that guy george papadopoulos did plead guilty to the fbi about lying about his contacts with the russians. papadopoulos is what started the investigation. they released this memo to prove that the dossier started everything. the memo says the dossier didn't start anything. at which point everybody in america goes, everybody else in america, i guess, goes, right, that's what we have been saying. but what happens now to all the hype this thing? this was a lot of hype. what happens to the plan by the white house where the president was apparently led to release this thing? not because he knew what was in it. not because he bothered to read it himself, but because he was watching fox news segments about it and those fox news segments were convincing him that this memo was the magic ticket that was going to be his the get out of jail free card. what happens to the president's argument that this memo is all the justification that he needs to start removing the deputy attorney general or maybe even the fbi director or everybody else who might conceivably give him some path towards stop ipin the

former national security adviser michael flynn and former campaign aide george papadopoulos both pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about their russia contacts. let's bring in our panel now frank, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi, jill wine banks former assistant water gate special prosecutor and kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the "boston herald." i want to start with paul manafort's statement after gates pleaded guilty. you see here on the screen "i continue to maintain my innocence, i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface he chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me." so, frank, what is mueller trying to do here with the gates deal and these new charges against manafort? >> well, he's taking a page right out of the playbook for organized crime cases. you need to flip people and get to your target and get people informing on