Explosive charges are laid out in a 37page indictment that shows how the covert operation used social media, ads to de denegrate ted cruz, marco rubio. We have dates and details offering real clearcut proof that its not a hoax, not fake news, despite trumps repeated claims that the story was, quote, cooked up by the dishonest media. Both the white house and trumps communication departme department realdonald trump on twitter chose not to address the massive conspiracy to defraud the american electoral system instead to say that he and the Trump Campaign was cleared of all wrongdoing. The fact remains that muellers investigation is steadily closing in on his inner circle. According to cnn, rick gates, a top Trump Campaign adviser is set to finalize a plea deal with mueller which would make him the fourth member of trumps team to either plead guilty or be indicted in muellers russia probe. House Intelligence Committee congressman Eric Swalwell joins me now n light of these indictments, what do you make of the president of the United States making no mention of russian interference in his response . Good morning, joy. Do you believe it now . Thats what i ask and most americans ask of the president. And if he doesnt, is he siding with russia . Because that we saw in that indictment that we have the clearest evidence that russia meddled and the evidence is so strong that prosecutors believed they could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, highest standard in the law. If the president is not to act, not to enforce sanctions, if hes not to put in place a whole of government approach to prevent them from doing it again we have to ask what do they have on him that would prevent him from acting in americas best interest . To that question of the sanctions, because it is a pretty glaring fact that donald trump has refused to implimt the sanctions passed overwhelmingly by congress, what will congress do about that . Its a great question, joy. Its not one that ever really happened where Congress Passed sanctions the president signed into law the sanctions and the executive didnt enforce them. We really have the power of the purse. Most legal experts believe that the supreme court, if it ever made it up there, if you could establish standing, could kick it back and say its a political question or use your appropriations process. I think its really on the leaders in congress, particularly the republican majority, to say were not going to Fund Programs important to you unless you do all its going to take to address this russia meddling threat. What are the chances of paul ryan doing that . Zero. I mean, it passes the past shows us what the future will look like, paul ryan has done zero. In fact, he has refused to put in place the Bipartisan Legislation ive written with Elijah Cummings to have an independent commission. A number of other pieces of legislation that would protect bob mueller. We dont expect him to do much. Hold on tight. Hopefully theres a democratic majority come november. Lets bring in our panel. Stay with us, congressman. Former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor, malcolm nantz. And msnbc intel analyst and former fbi double agent. Im going to start with you on this, jill. Four trump aides that have already become indicted or pleaded out in the mueller probe. Former National Security adviser Michael Flynn obviously pled guilty, George Papadopoulos also pled guilty and Paul Manafort indicted and rick gates indicted. This indictment of 13 russians, donald trump claims, exonerates him. Whats your response to that . Lets look at what this indictment does not do and also point out that there was one american also indicted. Its the 13 russians but there was the one american who pled guilty and is cooperating with them. And i would also say there is someone else cooperating because the detail of the new indictment shows that. And youre talking about a plea deal that was reached with a california man who has agreed to cooperate with mueller. He commit ted Identity Fraud as the ongoing russian probe, he sold Bank Account Numbers using the stolen identities of u. S. Citizens to people or enemies outside the United States. Meaning he was selling Bank Accounts so that these russian operatives could obtain paypal accounts, et cetera, in order to fund their operation . He is cooperating. Im also suggesting the underlying indictment also shows that there is someone else. Because the kind of details that are set forth in the story that this indictment tells even donald trump had to admit sort of subtly, but he did say yesterday that the russians did this. So thats number one. But in terms of your original question, this indictment does not show anything about no collusion. That could come in the next indictment. And thats a very good point, actually. Lets go to one, the sound bite of rod rosenstein, Deputy Attorney general, who actually took the step of considered maybe in jeopardy of his job. He actually came out and put this on his indictment by himself announcing it and speaking about it. Here is the part he talks about, the knowing participation of americans. Lets listen to that. There is no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election. So, jill, youre saying that that does not mean that there is no collusion . It doesnt. He said in this indictment, in the indictment. Lets stress those two words. This indictment is the first one. Right. We dont know whats coming next. This indictment is limited only to the social media problem. It doesnt even deal with the hacking of the dnc or podesta. It is only the social media and how they set out to create derogatory information about hillary and praise donald trump. They created rallies, they hired people who were not knowingly participating. They thought they were dealing with americans. They didnt know they were russians. They had someone posing in a jail outfit who was supposed to look like hillary. They built a cage for hillary. They did a lot of things to use americans. And they didnt know they were participating. That doesnt mean there arent others. Ari melber used a great analogy. It doesnt mean when Paul Manafort gets indicted that Michael Flynn isnt going to be indicted. Its just this deals with man manafort. Texas based grassroots organizations that suggests to these russians who, again, maybe they thought they were americans, you should be targeting these purple states and start using that kind of rhetoric. Three rugs involved, the Internet Research agency, something called Concord Management and consulting and catering, which was used to launder the money and yevgeniy prigozhin, putins chef. How do you tie this together . Is it plausible to you that these three campaign officials, one, two and three, had no idea they were dealing with a Foreign Intelligence Service . Its possible. The question is whether its plausible. Yeah, its possible, presenting on how they presented themselves, whether they presented themselves as foreigners, americans who are whether they were saying, hey, were doing internet stuff, were doing research. Can you give us advice on that . The whole purpose of a covert operation these are intelligence subcontractors to the russian ssv. They were set up with this specific purpose for the Management Mission against the entirety of the United States. Matter of fact, two people at this table, who are africanamerican, were victims of this Internet Research agency. We had mimes and tweets sent out about us. That being said, it would be easy for them to come to the United States and to go and meet american citizens and tell them, hey, were going to do certain things and those americans to be unwitting. If i could make one quick point about this indictment on a broad scale, this is a hard concrete wall that he has set up to say this entire operation is a foreign covet intelligence operation, which is now a criminal enterprise. Anyone from this point onward who is connected in any way, shape or form to this, whether they know it or not, is now connected to a criminal enterprise. Talk a little bit about how this works. You having dealt with the russians in this way, how do they make the approach . This appears that they just pretended to be americans. Is that typical . Yeah, i think that is typical. Thats a thing thats a great question. The thing to go on this is the innocuous things that come out of this indictment are important. Russians traveled to the United States to, quote, collect intelligence. I want to make that very clear, joy. Woo ertalking about spying. To gk b to go back to what malcolm was saying, they were collecting intelligence. I helped the russians for three years collect intelligence. I was spying for them. The other thing that jumped out here was texas. You know, i dealt with the russians. The russians rin credibly good at interrogation, manipulating and managing people, targeting people, having those conversations, figuring out a way to say clandestine and covert. They dont know how our democratic process, our election works. It leads me to believe that theres no way that the russians understood concepts without help from americans. That brings me back to texas. Texas, we know theres a russian consulate there. Russian consulates shall undoubtedly have russian operatives. If youre going to look for targeting data thats going to support trump thats going to help you push these memes out, push out this social media campaign, what better place to do that . We know that mueller went there in december the congressman is here. If i was working for him and an analyst on his team i would say that is the place to start, the fact that theres a consulate there, the fact that they went to texas gives you great pause as perhaps that is a clear nexus to something much deeper than just 13 russians in russia. Congressman swalwell, what are the chances that the chairman of your committee, devin nunes, will do that . Two of the people targeted for disinformation were senators from texas and florida. Marco rubio and ted cruz. To denigrate them and make them unviable. Any chance that nunes will investigate that . Same chances as paul ryan doing something. Its the pun sentiment thats kept our investigation going as well as the hard work of our members and staff. To naveeds point, cambridge actually did reach out to Julian Assange to try to get Hillary Clintons deleted emails. It put the timeline into much better focus. We know in april 2016 George Papadopoulos goes to london and receives information from the professor and also an outreach from foreign nationals saying that the russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Then the candidate in the summer of 2016 invites the russians to hack Hillary Clintons emails. And then his family shows a willingness and eagerness to take meetings with the russians to receive the emails. Don junior communicates with wikileaks to have information on Hillary Clinton. They gave the greenest of lights for the russians to do this, showed no objection to it. I think thats what bob mueller and his team are looking at now, did this ever amount to a working relationship. People looking for higherlevel connections to the Trump Campaign, lets keep in mind, rick gates, a campaign adviser, is close to a plea deal. He will be talking. Mark carallo met for more than two hours with special counsel muellers team. A lot more people are going to be talking. Its going to get interesting. Thank you very much. Keep us updated on whether the democratic memo will come out any time soon. Up next, no security clearance . No problem. Stay with us. Thank you all very much, appreciate it. Mr. President , Sensitive Information mr. President do you have a vetting problem . Just one more question trump wont answer. Nbc news reported this week more than 130 130 political appointees in the Trump White House lacked permanent security clearances as of november. Including dozens of highlevel officials who report directly to the president. Now chief of staff john kelly is overhauling the White House Security clearance policy. If anklecy true to his word at least 50 senior staffers could soon lose access to classified info. Jill winebanks, naveed jabali how on earth could john kelly still have a job if 130 white house staffers he is the chief of staff. He must know they do not have security clearances and yet there is a strong possibility that some of them are handle in classified information, including the staff secretary who was to hand the Daily Briefing to the president. Its like a bad snl skit. It really is. Whats happening here you get an interim clearance while your clearance is being whats known as adjudicated. Your background form where you fill out all your contacts. You turn that in. Its reviewed. The adjudication wases based on the review of that form, you being interviewed, your family being interviewed. What this means is that people are being fwiven interim clearances simply because they arent able to pass that background check or the background check hasnt been completed. If its the former, that is to say, they cant pass it, thats hugely disturbing. Thats basically saying that someone doesnt qualify for a security clearance but well keep giving them an interim. Thats gaming the system. Thats exactly how its not supposed to work. Naveed, have you been through this process . I have been. If you hadnt have gotten it, could you have done your job . Absolutely not. Ill be perfectly candid about this. When i joined the u. S. Navy one of the things i had to do was come to jesus moment and decide if i was going to say on my sf 86 if i had foreign contact, which included the russians, under federal law business. That caused two years of questions because i was involved in a classified operation that couldnt be revealed. But i did the right thing. It was a huge weight on myself, on my family that had to go through this. In the end, i was honest. Right. What bothers me here is that there are people Jared Kushner has amended his form. Ive lost count of how many times he has done that. That to me, and a security officer, is probably someone who shouldnt be eligible for a clearance. The fact that theyre given interim clearance is gaming the system. Look at the list of people who dont have a permanent security clearance. Ivanka trump, the daughter, Jared Kushner, her husband. Sarah huckabee sanders, White House Press secretary, don mcgahn, white house counsel, and the man who sometimes tweets as trump dan scavino. 130 . 130. That tells me they didnt go and hire anyone from the Bush Administration who had already been cleared. The interim security cloerns process is supposed to be interim. Its supposed to be there for 90 to 180 days at a maximum. Then you get your permanent clearan clearance. These arent regular clearances. This is top secret, special compartmented information, plus special access program. Right. Two to three levels above top secret. Once they got i understand theres like 15 to 20 people who were in a category of unclearable. I had never heard the term unclearable because those people would have been terminated or disappeared long before their clearance would have been adjudicated. There are people there who have felony convictions, as i understand it. The rest of the staff, theres something wrong. Theyre choosing them for loyalty. You mean like they beat their exwives . Or Something Like that. Even that, you get theres a process for that. Its when you lie about it and dont tell anybody and your exwife comes out. Boom every person in the government in armed forces who has that done loses their clearance that day. They get hauled into a room. They get a full lunchstyle polygraph to determine if theyre a spy for another nation. Why this hasnt happened especially Jared Kushner, a man who asked the russian to use their systems in their embassy in order to keep secrets away. Is the risk blackmail . Is that the risk . Phenomenal levels of blackmail right now. Right now every one of those people can be termed because they have something to hide. Right. And Jill Winebanks i want you to listen to Sarah Huckabee sanders, who herself does not have a permanent clearance trying to excuse all of this. Can you guarantee you are protecting classified information given that you have someone like rob porter who didnt have a security clearance were doing every step we can to protect classified information. If you have concern with classified information plenty of it is leaked out well above the white house walls. Look around this room. You guys are the ones that publish classified information and put National Security at risk. Im speechless. Are you . Yes, i am. Its always diversion and blame someone else. And they are doing nothing. Malcolm really set it out. This is an abysmal situation. I was general counsel of the army, i went through the process. One of the things you have to answer is, is there anything that will embarrass the admini