Monday . Supreme court. And then the kids were to be reunited. What a week. And then him on this trip ov overseas and meeting with Vladimir Putin and theresa may and now the indictment. So a lot to cover. Happy friday night. See you soon. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. On the brink of the meeting with Vladimir Putin, a Huge Development in the Mueller Investigation. The Justice Department announcing indictments against a dozen russians and not just some shadowy hackers, all of them Intelligence Officers in Vladimir Putins military. Accusing them of engaging in a sustained effort to hack democrats emails and Computer Networks during the 2016 campaign. The indictment announced by Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein at almost exactly the moment that President Trump met Queen Elizabeth at windsor castle. And make no mistake, Robert Mueller was very much aware that the president s next meeting is his planned summit with Vladimir Putin himself, and in just three days. A meeting behind closed doors with only interpreters present. Well Rod Rosenstein said today he briefed the president about the allegations earlier this week. But listen to what President Trump said just this morning, again calling the investigation a witch hunt when he knew what mueller had. I think that were being hurt very badly by i would call it the witch hunt, i would call it the rigged witch hunt that really hurts our country and our relationship with russia. He think we would have a chance to have a very Good Relationship with russia and a very Good Relationship with putin. A sustained effort to undermine the credibility of the russia investigation. And that is the only example of trumps own words coming back to haunt him. This is july 27th of 2017, months before election day. Russia, if your listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. That is candidate trump publicly asking the russians to get Hillary Clintons emails and the russians tries to do that. From the 29page indictment, on or about july 27th, 2016, the kpeer tors attempted to spear fisch for first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a Third Party Provider and used by clintons personal office. Hat tip to my colleague jake tapper who pointed out the russians took him seriously and literally. And the u. S. Intelligence caught some of the very same russians named in todays indictment congratulating and celebrating the success of the operation during the campaign. In the wake of this senator john mccain saying if President Trump is not prepared to hold Vladimir Putin accountable, the summit shall not move forward. And the white house is insisting the summit will go ahead as planned. This is a crucial moment. Will this president call putin to account and make him answer for his crimes . Will he defend american democracy . What is a strong leader does. But a deliberate and pre34ed tated attack in the strongest possible terms you have to ask yourself why. Lets bring in dana bash. Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger and Shimon Prokupecz. Good evening. Im asking if the president of the United States will defend the american democracy. What strange times. Shimon, you first. Break down what the indictments of the 12 russians military officers lay out because of the mountain of evidence. It is extraordinary. It certainly is. There is quite a lot of evidence in this indictment and the people that this indictment has targeted are not just some folks in russia. These are senior level military intelligence officials. You have a commander, a major, a lieutenant colonel, sort of running this hacking operation on behalf of the russian government and the indictment lists how they went about it. The hacking of the dnc and the dccc and then the spear phishing of people attached to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the chairman john podesta and then the indictment talks about how they went about distributing some of the emails that they were able to obtain, the information that they were able to obtain, creating two personas, guccifer 2. 0 and then dc leaks which they used to distribute some of the material and then also, though not named in the indictment, wikileaks was used as well, according to the indictment. And really the other thing here, don, in the indictment they talk about how a member of the Trump Campaign was in contact with guccifer 2. 0 and we know based on the reporting and even roger stones statements tonight, he is likely the person in touch with guccifer 2. 0 about some of the material that the russia intelligence was able to obtain through the hacks. And then lastly, don, another point, according to the dime, russia intelligence, this gru unit, hacked the website of a state election board where they obtained some 500,000 information from 500,000 voters, drivers license information and a addresses and Social Security numbers and this information is in the hands of the russians, don. As you were going through that, it is amazing. Because it is really complicated, dana. And it is a lot. And not only complicated, it is extremely serious and you have to wonder why the president may not be taking it seriously still calling it a witch hunt even after Rod Rosenstein briefed him. We remember that clip of donald trump from july of 2016, russia if your listening. What were learning in the indictment is the russians were listening on the same day they started the spear phishing attacks on the campaign. It is remarkable. It is remarkable. The exact day that you played the clip, you showed the quote from the indictment and it was public so you certainly could make the argument that that it wasnt privately colluding. But they were paying attention, they, the russians, in a big way. And just to answer the fundamental question that youre asking about why the president is still calling it a witch hunt, why he called that more than one time during this trip hes on even though Rod Rosenstein, his own deputy general announced he briefed the president several days ago about this and thence and it bears repeating, and weve said it many times over the past year and a half, the president when he hears russia and meddling, he hears my presidency is illegitimate and that is the accusation on me and it still is even to this day, even with the incredible detail that we see in this indictment about the lengths to which these russians highranking officials went to built this elaborate highly technical scheme, very expensive scheme, in order to meddle in and disrupt an american election. Yeah. Gloria, you could hear me . Yes. Because you are nodding your head. The response from the white house, you would think there was great forensics, i want to thank our Justice Department and our investigators, they are topnotch. You would think. But this is the response from the white house today. It says todays charges include no allegations of knowing involvement of anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election results. This is consistent with what we have been saying all along. Why do they even need to say that . Why didnt they say russia attacked and hack our election and they will pay and they need to be responsible. They declared and this will not stand as one former president said. This will not stand. Instead, what we got was an incredibly narcissistic statement from the white house which said this is about me, as dana was saying, this is about the legitimacy of the Trump Presidency is he daerelict in his duties when you are the president of the United States it is incumbent upon you to talk to the American People about the risk the democracy is at as a result of this russia hacking. President s are supposed to rise above. And theyre supposed to tell the American People the truth. And tell the American People what is at stake here. And it was very interesting to me today, don, because i was listening to Rod Rosenstein very carefully and he went a little bit beyond just talking about the indictment, et cetera, et cetera. And said in fact the politics should not get in the way here. And we should not judge this indictment by who was victimized. I. E. , Hillary Clinton and the campaign. And i think that is that is the way donald trump judges it. Which is that Hillary Clinton was the victim here. He was the beneficiary. If it had been reversed, he would be screaming about the russians. But it isnt. And so this is the way he sees it and i think Rod Rosenstein was sending a very strong signal like, stop this. Not just with what he said but with doing it today. Exactly, on the eve of the summit. Exactly. Very astute assessment. Matthew, let me bring you in. Because i spoke to dana about just how listening to shimon and it is a lot to take in if you are thinking we cover it every single day and for the average person at home and they are like guccifer and 2. 0 and all of these folks involved and is roger stone and what have you and you have to put the names together and systems and spear phishing and what have you. But the remarkable amount of detail, mueller even knows how they paid for it with bitcoin. What can you what do you learn what did we learn about the level of detail in this indictment . The bitcoin stuff is remarkable. Espionage is a cash business. You have to pay for it somehow some way. The bitcoin allows one to kind of remotely pay for something anonymously. This is also a situation to figure out who made the what payments through the kind of bitcoin register which might if you are a future criminal or spy, maybe be more cautious about which cryptocurrency you use. This is a new world were living in. It really is. I think overall, the the level of detail built on a narrative since january 2017 when the intelligence kind of the agencies released their assessment. And what they said back then was that russia, during the campaign, had developed a this is a quote, developed a clear preference for mr. Trump. And that is continued here. And when you look at the white house statements and denials, trump and his supporters said it about the assessment and again today, saying, well, nobody said any votes were changed. That is missing it is a dodge in a lo in a lot of ways. But that wasnt their role. That wasnt their role. The intelligence said that wasnt the role of the investigators here. We have no idea if votes were changed or not and that is another piece to look at in todays indictment. The hacking of state voting machines, state election systems not voting machines. Misspoke there. That is a subject that remains kind of deeply shrouded in mystery and havent been any kind of complete investigations of any of the states. So a little bit here and there but we actually dont know what went on in a number of states where electoral rolls and there were problems with voter registration. And we dont know if any of that was a result of hacking or not. We still dont know. It makes one wonder if the oldfashioned way where you go in and punch a ticket and everything is on paper instead of this electronic way, which one is better . Any time you talk about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, youre over my head because my nieces boyfriend at christmas tried to explain what cryptocurrency is it money or not . Is it cash . I have no idea. Otherwise im not getting it. But stick around. Because were having this as an incredible conversation. The mysterious congressional candidate would asked guccifer 2. 0 for documents and got them. Going new places. oh going out for a bite. Going anytime. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com its willingham, edge of the box, willingham shoots. Goooooooaaaaaaaallllllll that. Was. Magic. Willingham tucks it in and puts the championship to bed. Sweet dreams, nighty night. As long as soccer players celebrate with a slide, you can count on geico saving folks money. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Pressure, what pressure . The players on the. Heres something you should know. Theres a serious virus out there that 1 in 30 boomers has, yet most dont even know it. A virus thats been almost forgotten. Its hepatitis c. Hep c can hide in the body for years without symptoms. Left untreated it can lead to liver damage, even liver cancer. The only way to know if you have hep c is to ask your Healthcare Provider for the simple blood test. If you have hep c, it can be cured. For us, its time to get tested. Its the only way to know for sure. Rod rosenstein briefed President Trump this week on the indictments against 12 russians Intelligence Officers for election interference but at his News Conference with the britain Prime Minister before the charges were announced the president once again slammed the Mueller Investigation as a rigged witch hunt. His words. Back with me now, dana bash, Gloria Borger, Shimon Prokupecz and matthew rosenberg. And you have information on how the intelligence congratulated each other. What could you tell us. This is extraordinary. Giving us the indication that the u. S. Government and the fbi and the intelligence folks were all over this group once they determined what they were up to and what they were doing. And they were able to collect essentially intelligence of that though how this group, the russians, some are named in the indictment, were celebrating the success of the operation, that is the hacking operation, the way they got into the dnc, the Hillary Clinton campaign. They were celebrating. And then also after trumps victory, there was intelligence that indicated this group some of the people named here were celebrating his win. And all of this sort of has given the Intelligence Community and the fbi that feeling that these guys were behind some of this operation, the hacking, sort of the entrance to the dnc and the contact with the guccifer 2. 0. Because what they found was sort of why would they be celebrating or be so happy about some of the success and they used some of that to form their opinion and certainly in getting evident and bringing this indictment. Dana bash, another thing that were learning in this indictment is congressional candidate requesting stolen documents. So i just want to read some of this. It says on or about august 15, 016 the conspirators received a request for stolen documents for a candidate from the u. S. Congress. They responded using the guccifer 2. 0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidates opponent. Does that have a whiff of collusion . I think it is more than a whiff. I think the stench is pretty thick. But we dont know who were talking about here. It said u. S. Candidate. It is unclear if that candidate won. Unclear what party that candidate is from. And certainly we and others are digging to find out. Im glad you brought it up because there is so much information in here in terms of the what shimon was talking about, all of the russian attempts successful attempts to kind of on an election in a president ial level and the candidate for the u. S. Congress, who, according to the indictment, was proactive in reaching out to this what turned out to be the russian Intelligence Officer and not the other way around. And i want to quickly say about this, talking about congress in particular, it is not just about 2016. Were looking at 2016 now. But talk to republican and democratic operatives and members of congress as they did today, it is happening now. There is evidence that it is happening now in a way that could affect and and probably will effect this novembers election. And the concern among republicans on capitol hill is that what is the ultimate goal in russia . To keep things churning and chaotic. So how do you do that . You help along the democrats to beat the republicans in the house. If you have a split government it is more chaotic and that is something by ignoring what happened in the past youre not able to deal with what is happening with russia, what they are doing in the present. Gloria, i heard a comment someone comment on another network trying to down play it and saying the russians have been doing this for ever and interfering in our elections. That may be so, but to this degree and with this sort of technology and looking at the means and ways they are doing it, this is unprecedented and this is huge and should be taken seriously. We shouldnt say we shouldnt try to down play this . No. Of course not. What youre just saying is, in fact, what the president has said to some of his friends whom ive spoken with, he dismissed this as they spy on us and we spy on them and this goes on and he doesnt want to admit in any way, shape or form that his presidency might be delegitimized and they were pushing on an open door here and they got a lot of response. The detail in this indictment to me is stunning. And maybe there is a lot of detail in this indictment because they know these guys will never be brought to trial unless the president in some way gets them extradites, which he wont. Or if they go