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Embedded, joined at the hip with russia. so lets look at vel. >> veselnitskaya. happens to the best of us. >> thank you. what did we learn today? we learned in a completely unrelated case that she felt so emboldened, so backed up by the russian government, that she could draft a memo, draft a response to the united states department of justice as if it was the prosecutor, the russian prosecutors response. you only do that when you have the full backing and support of the russian government. so i...

Embedded, joined at the hip with russia. so lets look at -- >> veselnitskaya. >> the female russian attorney. >> happens to the best of us. >> whose name i have trouble with. thank you. indeed. what did we learn today? we learned in a completely unrelated case that she felt so emboldened, so backed up by the russian government, that she could draft a memo, draft a response, to the united states department of justice, as if it was the prosecutor, the russian prosecutors, response. you only do tha...

With. thank you. indeed. what did we learn today? we learned in a completely unrelated case that she felt so emboldened, so backed up by the russian government, that she could draft a memo, draft a response, to the united states department of justice, as if it was the prosecutor, the russian prosecutors, response. you only do that when you have the full backing and support of the russian government. so if there was any doubt in our minds that the woman at that table, at trump tower, sitting with...

Candidates during the campaign. >> steve, its certainly not every day that an alleged russian spy agrees to a plea deal and starts cooperating with federal prosecutors. >> yeah, anderson. ive heard a couple commentators talk recently about eight years ago the group of ten russian illegals that were caught and then returned in exchange for russian spies. i think this is a little bit different. maria butina in my mind is not a formal illegal. she probably doesnt work directly for the russian intel...

She was doing it, that we really still dont know, is that correct? >> its certainly not clear. we do know shes changing her plea. what exactly shes pleading to and who she influenced precisely, we dont know. she met some of the presidential candidates during the campaign. >> steve, its certainly not every day that an alleged russian spy agrees to a plea deal and starts cooperating with federal prosecutors. >> yeah, anderson. ive heard a couple commentators talk recently about eight years ago the...

>> well, brooke, not to get too much into the technicalities of this but its my theory that butina is not actually a staff officer of a russian intelligence service, shes someone referred to as a co-optee. whats beginning to emerge is she was in contact with a couple of oligarchs, one by the name of torsion, who is a senior, kremlin-type person and they came up with this idea to say, hey, lets get into the nra, look at the right-hand side of the american political spectrum and see what damage we...

There is a word that is sometimes used, co-optee. oftentimes soviet intelligence service would co-opt members of the diplomatic corps to sort of be trusted assets as it were. to say the ambassador was such a thing may be stretching it. ive got to believe a man as dynamic as he was and as detail oriented as he was certainly both knew what was going on and to the extent he could helped out. >> so i think these distinctions are important. i appreciate you making them. its one thing to call somebody...

Son-in-law, jared curbe er kush. adviser carter page, ousted national security adviser michael flynn. >> meeting with an ambassador, the argument could be made theres nothing wrong with that. but the fact that they denied these meetings, what do you make of that? >> its the push-back. as a former intelligence officer. the way im looking at it is the counterintelligence investigation. tough look at things like motivation. contacts with russia with the kgb, theyve accused kislyak of being a kgb ag...