There. Its not clear exactly why he was represented today by a public defender and the public defender told the judge that rick gates plans to hire his own private attorney, but that attorney was not here today. So in stead there was a public defender there who entered a plea of not guilty for rick gates. Again, both Paul Manafort and rick gates entered not guilty pleas. The judge has now set forth a schedule for future hearings before the judge that will be hearing this case we expect in a little while were going to hear at least from Paul Manaforts attorney who will come out here and speak to the cameras right after this court hearing. The two men did not speak. Manafort and gates did not speak during the court hearing. They just entered and came in and said their name when the judge asked them and apart from that they did not say anything, but wolf, at this point, theyve entered not guilty pleas here before the magistrate judge in federal court. Very significant developments, indeed. Evan, we will stay in very close touch with you. Thats it for me. Thanks for watching. Brooke bolduan, picks up our special coverage right now. Wolf, im going to take it from here. Thank you, sir. Im brooke bolduan. You are watching cnn special coverage of a landmark day of this russia investigation. Moments ago you saw there the spokeswoman at the white house Sarah Sanders responding to this news today. Not only had the first charges been filed as cnn first reported, but the first guilty plea is now in the books and the plea specifically involves Trump Campaign ties to russia. This comes from George Papadopoulos, the campaigns former Foreign Policy adviser. He admitted he lied to the fbi about his communications with russians and now we are hearing that he is indeed cooperating with authorities, could even more charges be filed against these two men . Paul manafort who led the Trump Campaign for four months and his business associate rick gates who also worked on the campaign. The two just pleaded not guilty in court. Right around the same time that that white house held its press briefing. Todays announcement has nothing to do with the president , has nothing to do with the president s campaign or Campaign Activity. The real collusion scandal as weve said several times before has everything to do with the Clinton Campaign, fusion gps and russia. Theres clear evidence of the Clinton Campaign colluding with russian intelligence to spread disinformation and smear the president to influence the election. Weve been saying from day one theres been no evidence of trumprussia collusion and nothing in the indictment today changes that at all. It is specifically about the campaign. It has nothing to do with the activities of the campaign. It has to do with his failure to tell the truth. That doesnt have anything to do with the campaign or the campaigns activities. But it isnt clear of evidence between ties between the campaign or figures. There is no alleged activity that the Trump Campaign was engaged in any of these activities. Most took place well before the campaign ever even existed. We will have much more on the moment of the manafortgates indictment. This is manafort surrendering and so far the allegations do not involve the Trump Campaign and the conspiracy of money laundering, but we have to start with papadopoulos and i realize this is a name that many of you are not familiar with so let me back up and set this up here. Investigators say he did not tell the truth on multiple occasions including his interaction with someone labeled foreign contact 1 within this criminal complaint, someone he called, quote, nothing. But i want you to take a look at what investigators later found in emails written by him, quote, just finished a very productive lunch with a good friend of mine, thats foreign contact 1, who introduced me to both putins niece and the Russian Ambassador to london who also acts as the Deputy Foreign minister. It goes on. The topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us and the russian leadership to discuss u. S. Russia ties under president trump. So lets start with that piece. Ive got Cnn National Security correspondent jim sciutto. Listen, there is a lot. Weve all been reading through this affidavit on this side, George Papadopoulos and people taking a note, page 8, section 19, footnote 2. It is the footnote that people are latching on to. Talk to me about that. This is one, we should say, of more than one references to communications back and forth regarding inside the Trump Campaign regarding communications with russian officials. So here is one here. It relates to an email that was sent by papadopoulos to another Highranking Campaign official, what the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Source tells me is Paul Manafort and it talks about a request from russia to meet with mr. Trump. The email goes on to say that russia has been eager to meet trump for quite some time and has been reaching out to me to discuss and this footnote relates to that email and it was forwarded to manafort to another Campaign Official which im told is gates who responds, lets discuss. We need someone to communicate to d. T. , presumably d. T. Is not doing these trips and it should be someone lower level to keep under wraps the kinds of communications theyre talking about. I want to draw your attention to another email that goes in august. So a couple of week, a few weeks later where a Campaign Supervisor tells George Papadopoulos, quote, i would encourage you and another Foreign Policy adviser at the campaign, quote, to make the trip if it is feasible. The reason i bring this up now is we just heard the first pushback from the white house on what we learned today regarding the statement of offense by George Papadopoulos saying he was low level, volunteer, no one really dealt with him. In fact, there were a number of emails that belie that fact. You have seenior Campaign Officials responding to forwarding his emails and instructing him to carry out meetings with russians. You just heard Sarah Sanders from behind the white house podium saying he was a volunteer and he was on a committee that met once. She said, jim sorry to jump in, but to underline your point, she said off the top. Todays news has nothing to do with the president. And she says and she sort of spes tied by saying nothing to do with Campaign Activity. This is Campaign Activity. Right. This is a Foreign Policy adviser in touch with other senior, more senior members of the team. He was a guy and volunteer and at one meeting and not true. There go emails that go months after hes taken the position with the campaign where hes in touch with senior Campaign Officials informing them of offers from russia to meet and has dirt on Hillary Clinton, offers that other members of the campaign, in fact, senior members of the campaign instructed him to go ahead and take these meetings. It belies the description one that he was a nobody and two, that what were talking about here and rather what the statement of offense talks about here had nothing to do with Campaign Activity and this is Campaign Activity. Its just hard to see how the defense youre hearing from behind the white house podium stands up with the facts. Lets call it what it is which is precisely what you just did. Jim sciutto, thank you so much. Lets broaden this out. I have a pulitzer prizewinning analyst and Jeffrey Toobin. We have a lot to get to. I just want both of your reactions. To jims point on how clearly Sarah Sanders was trying to diminish any sort of role that George Papadopoulos had within the campaign, but is this the closest to potential collusion that we have seen so far . Theres no question that these the emails in the charging document in the filing that muellers team went with in the papadopoulos case is the most detailed statement yet we have about how the Trump Campaign thought about russia, dealt with russia in addition to the meetings that donald trump jr. Had. Talked about. The only way to look at these things is holistically as together because they all suggest an extreme interest in meeting with russia which we need to say is unusual for a president ial campaign. And when you combine that with Paul Manafort who was the Campaign Chairman and we know from the indictment how much money he was making from the ukrainian interests that were allied with putin, you start to see a fuller picture of a campaign that was deeply interested in and perhaps involved with russia. And that is a very important part of this investigation. What are you thinking, carl . First of all, these documents show what a serious, sober, methodical investigation mueller is conducting and it puts an absolute lie to the Trump Campaign and Donald Trumps negations of why there ought to be an investigation. This is why there needs to be an investigation and this investigation needs to continue until the packs are known and if trump maintains they exonerate him and his aides thats one thing, but we are in deadly serious territory in which a conspiracy is outlined among these indictments. When you put the dots together it is a about a conspiracy, but the most important that we have not known about is it shows that the Trump Campaign knew about people having possession of the emails of Hillary Clintons emails supposedly back in march of 2016, and this is, i believe, quite a revelation. I dont believe they knew anything about it and what you see through all of these documents that have been produced through the court is the salivating by which Campaign Officials were just hungering for dirt on Hillary Clinton and thats understandable. The Clinton Campaign wanted dirt on donald trump also, but they knew that they wanted information through the russians who were seeking at the time a removal of sanctions and a different kind of relationship with a new president. So everything weve been hearing from the first time about collusion becomes at least plausible in a documented way. So herein lies the next question. If reportedly now papadopoulos is cooperating with the feds and so if hes cooperating, and if hes talking, does that then mean that he is to use the phrase flipped, and should other people in muellers sights and also the white house be nervous . Theres no doubt about that. The document says he is now meeting with the investigators and talking to them. We need to, you know, pause and say just because youre meeting with investigators and telling them what you know doesnt mean you are saying incriminating facts about x, y and z. We dont know what he is saying about other people and certainly hes explaining the context of the emails discussed in this document. If i can make a slightly separate point they think is not very controversial. This indictment today is a complicated indictment, the one of manafort and gates. There is no way in the krim federal criminal Justice Department this case could even go to trial within six months. There are going to be motions. There will be discovery and legal arguments. This investigation is going well into 2018, if not longer as a result of what happened today. And i think thats just something, you know perspective. This is going to last a while. People maying disappointed about that, they may be happy about that, but the Mueller Investigation is at around for at least another year. Jim sciutto is trying to chime in on the conversation on Paul Manafort. On manafort and gates, because papadopoulos and what we learned there is so explosive and relates directly to the russia investigation, lets not forget what crimes theyre charged with. Just a couple of things. Manafort was lobbying members of the u. S. Congress against u. S. Foreign policy positions. He was lobbying for a party in ukraine that is antinato. Nato, of course, u. S. Is in that alliance and a key member of that alliance. He was lobbying member of u. S. Conference in support of a jailing of a political opponent of the russianbacked president of ukraine. So these are not small things in the big issue when you talk about an american here who was not just cooperating with, but working for a foreign leader, a russianbacked foreign leader very much against u. S. Interests. So, yes, while those crimes or alleged crimes took place before the campaign, theyre not just accounting tricks or tax evasion. They are things of import. They are potential crimes of import. Two point, if i may. First, its very important to remember that manafort while he was the Campaign Chairman and supposedly aware of these contacts was talking to the candidate himself almost every day. One of the things investigators are going to want to know from manafort if they can get it from him and from others is well, was some of this about these emails conveyed to the president of the United States or the president elect or the candidate . The other thing that we really need to be calm and fair to the president of the United States here. That this investigation and this is a landmark and its a road map that shows us where the investigation is heading. And its not definitive yet and its time for everybody to say lets look at these facts. Yes, these facts are really serious business. There are Many Republican congressmen who are former prosecutors who are lawyers themselves and they know how to read this stuff. Sure. And they are going to have a little chill go down their back from reading this. The other thing that is so serious is it shows how wrapped up the campaign was in getting information from the russians. Does that mean collusion in terms of interference in the election . Not necessarily yet, but thats one of the things mueller is going to try and find out. Is this real collusion . Collusion is not incidentally a crime in itself, i believe. There is no title 18 crime of collusion, but were looking at outlines of a conspiracy to undermine the democratic election that took place in the United States and thats where these dots seem to be going if someone is trying to connect them. Last question, just where does all of this and there are other people, the x, y and z, right . Who may or not be in trouble based on what papadopoulos says. Where does it go next . Let me say the three words that youre never allowed to say on cable news which are i dont know. Did i know that papadopoulos was going to get plead guilty today . I mean, you know, mueller is doing a very Serious Investigation. He is, despite the best effort of people like me, not disclosing how hes getting where hes going. Yeah. So he obviously has access to a great deal of information that we as journalists dont, and hes moving forward. This is certainly evidence today of a very Serious Investigation that is farther along than most of us thought he would be. One other thing to keep in mind, that mueller has some 21,000 emails from associates of donald trump in the white house, in his campaign, in his business organization. All of those documents are potential perjury traps, the same way that papadopoulos has been accused of perjuring himself essentially because there is a record now through those emails and gives mueller an opening to ask these people as witnesses about anything whatsoever, if your hope hits, for instance, the president s assistant, what did you see, miss hicks on this date or that date that is referred to by mr. Papadopoulos . Those are the kinds of lines of inquiry were going to see and also, there are so many potential witnesses here who indeed could be frightened by what is happening to these three individuals. Sure. Sure. Just now director of white house communications. Listen, i appreciate your candor and the i dont know. We dont know, do we . We dont know. And we need to be calm and fair to the president , as well. Absolutely. No, you be calm. Im not going to be calm. Thank you both so much. Just a programming note for tonight, a cnn special report the russia investigation with jake tapper. It is tonight at 11 00 eastern only here on cnn. We have much more to come on this breaking news today. Well dig into the white house response including the president tweeting this morning in all capital letters, no collusion. Does that still hold true after todays guilty plea . And the president has already shown he is not afraid to use his pardoning powers doing it once with controversial former sheriff joe arpaio. Might trump do it again with those indicted in the russia probe . Well discuss what he could do legally. Im brooke bolduan. Youre watching cnns special live coverage. Press brew. Thats it. So rich. I love it. Th