can get it from a crime or not. congressm congressman, mueller is saying he was in contact with him in the months leading up to the collusion and gates knew that this person was an intelligence agent, was a spy. how significant could that be, that he was both in contact with this individual, that he knew this individual to be a russian spy, and that this happened in the months before the election, congressman? well, as richard said, it certainly establishes a tie between the campaign and the russians. question is is this criminal? i simply don t know the answer to that. but i ll tell you it seems that this moves beyond paul manafort business dealings that preceded his time with the campaign. kind of really puts the campaign directly in the cross hairs. and so we still have a lot more to learn from director mueller, but i would be a little nervous right now if i were part of the campaign and part of the trump campaign. it seems to me they have a lot to worry about. i m not saying the
counsel robert mueller is looking at collusion between the trump campaign and russia. with the help of a key trump campaign official. 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
that trump himself, the president, is so compromised by russia. whether criminal compromise, whether you can call it collusion, but that all of these different tentacles from the financial to the obstruction of justice, and now to collusion, are leading to just one clear description of the president of the united states. and that i thisnk is scary not only those close to him but scary for the country. and i say it on the air we sometimes have to take a deep breath and realize what is unfoldsing in fronts of us. the other part, congressman, i want to ask you about, is this this story. three on capitol hill asked jeff sessions to appoint a second special counsel carter page. and whether more should be done to investigate hillary clinton s tie toss the russian nuclear energy deal with uranium one. now sessions has said no.
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 campaign. as one person with knowledge of the situation said of gates, he was an implementer. the alleged russian intelligence agent is referred to as a in court documents, but we understand it is constantine who once worked foreman a fort and lived in moscow and ki kiev according to sources close to the investigation. what could they know? reporter: they believe they could have information valuable beyond business partner paul manafort who is also the campaign chairman. one of the things sources were telling my colleague, caitlyn,
once. but we have the meeting in trump tower with russian agents. we have mr. papadopoulos who had his russian handler, the professor they called him, over in london. and now we have gates and his russian agent contact. and that probably is only the beginning of it. the critical question for robert mueller at the end of the day is whether there was illegal collusion. whether it was criminal. right. whether it violated campaign finance laws or whether there was collusion before or after the fact with respect to computer hacking or other crimes. a lot of people are lying about their con tarkts with ttacts wis and that s criminal. we ll have people going to the slammer and the question is who and how high up it will reach. but the notion no collusion is ridiculous. will is collusion and we know it by now. well the question of course as you point out is what is criminal, right, is wanting to get information from whoever you