Ceril travels to haiti to investigate. Im natalie live in atlanta and cnn newsroom starts right now. Our top story, the russia probe that u. S. President donald trump repeatedly dismissed as a hoax has now led to very real federal indictments against 13 russian operatives. The charges filed by special counsel, robert mueller, paint a vivid picture of wellfunded russians pretending to be americans. They set up fake social media accounts and spread dirt about Hillary Clinton, championed donald trump and with members of his campaign. The president s initial reaction to it said nothing about the attack on u. S. Democracy. He repeated, again, no collusion. Later, he released this statement. Its time we stop the outlandish, partisan attacks and farfetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors like russia and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions. For more on the indictment and how russia is reacting, Matthew Chance joins me live from moscow. Hello to you. Russia continuously denied, denied and denied and called all of this fake news. Are they still denying . Reporter yeah, i was going to say, you can add a couple more denials to the list of denials you made. Already, theres been a couple denials from senior russian officials. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it was absurd that 13 individuals could have basically distorted the outcome of the u. S. President ial election. Her boss, the Russian Foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov said theres much talk of state interference in the u. S. Election. He added, i havent seen a single fact to date. There are more denials coming from the russians. Of course, the indictments id fi 13 individuals who the indictment says were involved in that manipulation of the election process. At least one of three companies is a notorious kremlin controlled. Basically influence the politics and the election process in other countries, including the United States. Take a listen. In may, 2016, a small group of antiislamic protesters gathered outside a muz lislim community center. Across the street, a rally formed. The two sides held a rally in a Stark Administration of discord. The organizers were thousands of miles away, in st. Petersburg, russia, working for a secretive organization, according to a recent indictment had a strategic goal. The name, the Internet Research agency, dubbed the kremlin troll factory by former employees who smuggled out rare images. Cnn spoke to a russian journalist who went undercover as an Internet Troll there. Translator the u. S. Elections are the key issue for the kremlin. Of course, russia invested a lot into them. Thats why they are working, i have no doubt. Reporter it was during the russian backed rebellion in ukraine in 2014, when evidence emerged of prokremlin troll factories, filled with bloggers paid to spread false Information Online about the conflict. This is the russian who ran the operation. He is known as putins chef, because one of his companys provides Catering Services to the kremlin. He denied guilt. Americans are impression able people. They see what they want to see. I have Great Respect for them. Im not upset. If they want to see the devil, let them see one. It is the devilish work of russias Internet Trolls and the social divisions they have that the u. S. Moved firmly against. There is a Silver Lining from the Trump Administration. The Deputy Attorney general, rob rosenstein, also added there was no allegation that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity nor any suggestion that the meddling altered the outcome of the u. S. President ial race. Again, thats something the Trump Administration may draw solace from. Right. There could be more to come. Matthew chance, we thank you for your reporting from moscow. Thanks, matt. Lets talk with our panel of experts, steve morris, cnn contributor and special agent with the fbi. Reva martin is a civil rights attorney and Ron Brownstein is a cnn analyst and editor for the atlantic. Thank you all for joining us to talk about this. Well, finally after so much time, we hear from mr. Mueller. Indictments are handed down. Its quite interesting what all is in this. Lets bring it upright now and look at it. 13 russian nationals indicted, charged with conspiracy to defraud the u. S. , posed as americans and created false u. S. Personas online, operated social media pages designed to attract u. S. Audiences. Facebook, instagram and twitter. I want to go to each one of you to get your initial reaction to the first, significant charges. Lets start with you, steve. You know whats interesting to me is what the motis op randa of these people are. Its like civilianized trade craft from the old soviet days, the standard poison pen stuff that they have used for years. Its the way they have always done it, including using unwhiting participants on the other side. I think there was probably training involved in this. It just has the governments fingerprints all over it. What about you . I think, natalie, what is so shocking is the nature, the depth, the expansive nature in which the russians interfered in our elections. We have been hearing all year from Law Enforcement and Intelligence Community this meddling happened. We have also heard and watched our president push back on it, call it a hoax, say it was made up by the democrats as a way to explain why they lost the 2016 election. Today, we have proof that this isnt a hoax. This wasnt something made up fwi democrats. There was real russian meddling in our elections and it wasnt just surface level. It was expansive, it was deep and designed to do exactly what we saw happen, to create decension, casting doubt on Hillary Clinton as a candidate and creating this cyber warfare we saw take place. We can no longer say that this was made up by anyone. This is real. It happened in realtime. As far as we know, its continuing to happen. Well talk about the president s reaction in a moment. Ron, i want to get your initial thoughts on this indictment. I would just say three quick points to compound what we just said. The first point is, this explodes the idea from the president that this was a hoax. The whole story, it was china. It was some guy who weighed 400 pounds on his bed in new jersey. This was a detailed, comprehensive russian plan to sew discord and to help donald trump. Second, this is a clear and present, ongoing danger. Everything laid out here can be applied in the 2018 and 2020 elections and the u. S. Government, partly because of the president s reluctance to admit it occurred at all has not been diligent in that. The third point, most important politically in the u. S. Is the humbling reminder, we dont know what bob mueller knows. We can safely assume, he knows more than we do. All the analysis of this investigation, i think, is limited by the reality he is constantly shown the ability to surprise us in this era of pervasive media. It shows he is more deeply into this entire tangled story than anyone on the outside comprehends. The fact there are 13 individuals indicted here, this is a lot to digest. I want to throw this to you, steve. It wasnt just that there was this network of hacking into media social sites, there were russians inside the u. S. In various states. Tennessee is one of them, pretending to be campaign workers, staging events and promotions, mingling with unsuspecting american voters. Thats almost surreal. Theres a word for it. Its espionage. Its old school. Its what they have always been doing. I think the only thing we can take away from this thats positive, at least as far as the governments react is the fbi doesnt really care if the president believes in this or not. The fbi is going to continue to investigate it and still move forward and the Justice Department is going to do what they can. At the same time, if the president is not going to jump on the russians about this, then theres limited political will here. Lets talk about, also, it does not suggestion collusion, at this point, between the Trump Campaign and russia. Rod rose enstein was careful not to mention that. The focus, so far, is russias attack on u. S. Democracy. Dont read too much into it. If assistant attorney general was careful in stating facts as it relates to this indictment. Thats not uncommon. It wouldnt be common for him to stand there and project what may be coming as it relates to other individuals. What we do know is there are unnamed coconspirators mentioned in the indictment. We dont know who those individuals are or what may happen with respect to those individuals. We dont know what may happen as it relates to further charges and indictments. When President Trump says no collusion, no collusion, thats an empty statement at this point. We know that this investigation, all the reporting suggestions this investigation is ongoing. We dont know what further indictments may be coming after this indictment. Right. Ron, i want to ask you to talk more about President Trump. We all mentioned hes been calling the Russian Investigation a hoax since he was running for office. Lets listen. Yeah. The russia story is a total fabrication. Its just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of american politics. This russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. The entire thing has been a witch hunt. Look, there has been no abinstruction or collusion. I think it was russian hacking. I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. Ron, lets point out, this is a tweet from donald trump. Russia started their antiu. S. Campaign in 2014, long before i announced i would run for president. The results of the election were not affected. The Trump Campaign did nothing wrong, no collusion. Back when he was visiting vietnam and meeting with president putin, after the meeting, he made it clear to the American People and the world that he believed vladimir putin. Right. I mean, this directly is a, you know, a house dropping on the president s claims about the core issue of whether russia meddled. It does not, yet, get to the question of whether there was collusion on the part of the Trump Campaign. Its premature for the president to claim exoneration. The issue of whether it affected the outcome of the election, that is really unknowable. Its hard to imagine you would have hundreds of thousands of social media interactions and rallies and not move the votes of somebody. I mean, what the president is referring to is, theres no evidence that russians directly altered the results in Voting Machines or voter registration. But, look, i think, politically, one of the impacts of these indictments are to make it, i think, much tougher for the president to entertain the notion that he is clearly entertained before of firing bob mueller. The idea of firing bob mueller, now, when something of this gravity has been laid out and he is in the midst of prosecuting and investigating is more fraud. We have to leave it there. Theres a lot thats not in this round of indictments. Also, how does this revelation affect the midterm elections . Well dig down into those things as we push on here. For now, we have to let it go. Ron brownstein, reba martin, thank you all so much. Still to come here on cnn newsroom, President Trump visits victims of the Florida School shooting as the fbi makes a strong admission. What it knew and missed about the gunman. Also, cnn heads to haiti to learn more about Charity Workers accused of using prostitutes while assisting earthquake victims. We have the report in a moment. 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President trump is in florida giving his condolences to the victims of the mass shooting, the massacre in parkland. Trump visited with two of the wounded and met with First Responders. He posted these pictures online. Our brian todd is in parkland and was there during trumps visit. He has details about critical information the fbi bungled. Reporter President Trump is spepding the weekend at his maralago estate, not far from here after the horrific School Shooting wednesday afternoon. The president came to south florida on friday and spent time with the victims of the shooting at a hospital in Broward County, then came here to the Broward CountySheriffs Office to get an extensive briefing from First Responders and the Sheriffs Office on the shooting wednesday and the response to it. This comes as we are getting really disturbing, chilling new information about warning signs, clues that were missed and some information that was mishandled about the shooter, specifically a crucial tip that was given to the fbi. New and alarming details of missed and a mishandled warning sign. The fbi says it was given information on january 5th on a tip line. The caller provided information that nikolas cruz was erratic, armed, had a desire to kill people and showed the potential of conducting a School Shooting. This information was never passed on to the miami field office. The po ttential for the fbi miss something. We have protocol to prevent these things. We will look into where and how the protocol broke down. Reporter this, in addition to a second notice regarding disturbing social media posts including a massacre saying i want to shoot people with my ar15. I want to die killing a ton of people. A former teacher said faculty received an email in late 2016 prompting them to be on the lookout for cruz and let them know if he was seen with a backpack. Describe the email . It was simple. If he comes on campus with a backpack, let us know. Reporter recommending in january, 2017, a threat assessment be conducted to determine if cruz was a danger to the school. The document issued after he was involved in an assault. Cnn cannot confirm the authenticity of the document. Its not clear if the assessment was done and Broward School has not commented. Police records show 39 calls to the shooters home over the past seven years for various reasons, including reports of, quote, mentally ill person. Child or elderly abuse and domestic disturbance. Not all the calls refer to the shooting. I dont know how often, but there were definitely police cars in the driveway. Reporter she is two doors down. She and many neighbors had encounters with cruz over the years. Her daughter saw cruz shooting toward a neighbors yard. Mom, that redheaded kid is shooting chickens. They had chickens. I saw him with a long gun, i dont know anything about guns. I saw it was long. Reporter cruz lived there with his adoptive mother until she passed away in the fall. A neighbor captured this video of a regular and frightening occurrence. A shooter wearing a make America Great again hat firing in the backyard. He lived her until wednesdays deadly rampage. He fired 100 rounds during the rampage. They detailed the moves, some of them seen calculated. Some haphazard. He entered the school building, fired into rooms on the first floor before moving to the second and third floors. He finally exited the building and blended in with students. He made stops at the nearby walmart and this mcdonalds. After leaving the area, he was apprehended in nearby coral springs. As the Parkland Community searches for solace, many are asking, with so many warning signs, why wasnt he stopped . A question that is placing serious pressure on the fbi director. Florida senator, rick scott says the fbis failure to take action against the killer is unacceptable and is calling for chr Christopher Wray to resign. We are learning more about the confessed gunman from a closed group that nikolas cruz belonged to, illustrating his obsession with guns and violence and among hundreds of racist comments, he talks of hating jews and mexicans. Out of pakistan, a man sentenced to death for the murder of a 7yearold in early january. Shortly after this little girl went missing, she was spotted on closed circuit tv being led away by a man. Her body was found four days later, tossed on top of a trash pile. The court found 24yearold guilty on four counts, including abduction, rape and murder. Protesters marched in force across the country after her body was found. They demanded justice and better protection for chil