Page 117 - Curious News Today

Dilanian, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. ken, this is kind of weird that we have to keep on discussing this. and i apologize for having you do this all the time, because we did this on friday. we do it all the time. trump says the payments were not illegal and even if they were made, they werent a campaign contribution. the united states government sees this differently. >> they do. and whats curious about president trumps reaction today to this and his comments is that wh...

Russians, none of them notified the fbi or the authorities that russians were trying to deal with them on various aspects. what is your reaction to that? you were the director of national intelligence when this was all unfolding. >> well, exactly. i never did understand why all the focus, attention and outreach to russia, of all countries, our arch adversary. so now as weve certainly learned a lot more since i left the government in january of 2017 about these -- more and more knowledge about th...

>> even if they do, it wouldnt necessarily go to the part of any conclusion that mueller reaches. they might do this just for public relations. >> right. >> so they can have their report. >> i will tell you, the real curious are the members of the democratic run house ju dishy committee. >> you got it. >> swearing in, january 3. lynn sweet, liz wheel, good to see you both. >> thank you. still ahead, more bomb shells from muellers court filings and were now learning trumps former campaign manag...

There could be matters relating to obstruction in communications between the white house and manafort, and manaforts lawyers have been reporting on that, and that could be somethng mueller is looking at but i am not sure that will make its way into the memo we will see tonight. >> we know michael cohen has pleaded guilty for arranging russian deals for the president well into the campaign, and cohen said under the presidents direction he made illegal payments having to do with stormy daniels a. ...

>> who has not spoken to muellers team? >> roger stone? >> and why? who has not talked to him. perhaps michael cohen initially. the first thing that strikes me as the most curious is there is corroboration for them to want to speak to this person already. nobody asked a question as a prosecutor and muellers team proved time and again they have corroboration or hard statements and documents before they ask these questions. in many ways, they are lining up against what they already have and more t...

And to go back and look at what general flynn lied about, that is somewhat puzzling. he lied about two specific instances. one where he talked to the russians about taking it easy and not overreacting to president obama throwing out some diplomats and closing two missions. that was the first thing he asked them to do. the second was to vote no -- to vote yes and be supportive on a u.n. resolution supporting israel. so its curious, why would you lie to the fbi about those two specific things. >> ...

Them. >> he was very close. >> i was very close to her. >> she adored him. >> what was it that pulled you back up on your feet afterwards? >> he was very strong then. he was wonderful. >> from the oil business to politics, he was a congressman, a cia director, and the loyal vice president to ronald reagan. he would then get his own chance. >> i want a kinder and gentler nation. >> as president, guiding the country through the end of the cold war and driving saddam hussein out of kuwait. but with...

He is a friend of felix saters, right. felix sater is involved in this deal. but im not quite certain. none of my sources have suggested it, and im not certain that he is the guy i would immediately sort of pivot to. i would be more curious to know who either at the banks or at the kremlin were these individuals talking to. who was working that behind the scenes? >> who at the banks or at the kremlin. >> i feel like im following your breadcrumbs a lot these days anthony cormier for buzzfeed news...

Tonight one of the people involved on the russian side of this is a russian general who has military background. >> we reported on that. >> very good. theyre furthering your reporting on that tonight. >> thats right. >> does that indicate that there is a military intelligence, there is a russian intelligence operation element to the trump tower moscow deal? >> i understand it and ive heard that you dont -- no one ever leaves the g.r.u., right? no one ever leaves russian intelligence. but my unde...

Seven, in particular, 7 a, in which it references the fact that there had been the multiple discussions with individual one, of course, but also with family members who were inside the company. so thats, i think, very, very important. and then also in 7b sub-1, it talks about cohen having had discussions about the business travel to moscow with a senior campaign official. so, of course, curious who that might be, could it be paul manafort? >> very good points. stay with us. evan perez joins us a...