Mark Bazetti News Today

Contribution, as it were. you cant take money and you cant take help as well, which is one of the focuses of other russian -- well, other foreign, that is russian interference in the campaign. >> you know, mark bazetti, i assume rick gates, experienced political hand and others in the trump campaign, know what the law is as far as getting in-kind campaign contributions from foreigners? >> well, wait, weve all been reporting on this for a long time now, and weve all been puzzled to the extent tha...

Considerable suspicion. >> jeffrey, just to be precise, it may not necessarily be illegal, but it is clearly wrong to hire an israeli company to create fake social media personas and entities and individuals to go out and mislead the american public. >> well, i think that might actually be illegal. not on the foreign side of things, but just on the hacking side of things. to create false internet entries, whether they are social media or e-mails, i mean that is a crime under american law. here i...

Manafort, so the chairman. so a senior role in the campaign, and some of the work continued after the election as well, the inauguration, et cetera, some involvement there. in fact, most importantly of all, here is someone who pleaded guilty to crimes and in his guilty plea agreed to cooperate with special counsel investigators. so someone who -- and you wouldnt have gotten that cooperation agreement from robert mueller and his investigators unless rick gates in effect proved his value in what i...

By russia and other foreign nations to interfere. china is cited as well. so not a small problem. >> yeah. >> certainly did not dims appear in 2016. >> jim sciutto, thanks very much. mark, thanks to you. i want to give credit to your colleagues bylines and for your strong reporting in "the new york times." more on breaking news right now. democratic congressman ted lew is joining us. thank you for joining us, congressman. >> thank you, wolf. >> what is your reaction to the new report from "the...

Bogus personas to target about 5,000 delegates who would be attending the republican national convention, and in the process not only praise donald trump but smear and attack his chief rival at the time, ted cruz. >> right. the focus at the time was on the convention. so they were worried, and the reason why manafort and gates were hired was because they were worried about everyone defecting towards cruz, there being this revolt at the convention. that was the focus. so thats why mr. gates may h...

I think in many respects the most important aspect of the trump tower meeting is that everyone involved, when hearing that the russian government said they wanted to help, didnt go, what do you mean the russian government wanted to help? thats illegal, thats crazy. they had the meeting, which turned out to be a bust. it, of course, raises the question were there other attempts by other foreign governments to get involved. marks story today in "the new york times" is not a direct attempt by a for...

Government, including that of russia, to help elect a president. when you get to corporations which often have roots in more than one country, operate in different areas, i think there you get into more gray areas, and i think the fact, as marks story very clearly points out, that this deal did not come to fruition, i think that argues against any claim that this might have been illegal. >> jim sciutto, is it a crime to create fake online entities, online personas to try to manipulate an electio...