Today on an email exchange for team trumps advisers and associates that raises more questions about the Trump Campaign and whether or not they had advanced knowledge about emails stolen from the Clinton Campaign and later published by wikileaks. The new report raises those new questions about what the Trump Campaign knew about russian efforts to release those emails and damage Hillary Clintons candidacy. These are the some of the same questions at the heart of special Council Robert muellers investigation. Mueller has charged more than two dozen russians for their efforts to interference in the 2016 election. Many legal experts have positted the collusion investigation is probing whether there was a conspiracy that ties the Trump Campaign to that russian effort. The times report raises new questions about what Trump Campaign head steve bannon knew and when he knew it. It also describes how roger stone, a longtime ally and adviser to donald trump, quote, presented himself to Trump Campaign officials as a conduit of inside information from wikileaks. Russias chosen repository for documents hacked from democratic computers. The times describes an email exchange between stone and bannon. Mr. Bannons october 2016 email correspondence shows the perception that mr. Stone knew what wikileaks had in mind for mrs. Clinton spreads to the highest levels of the Trump Campaign. No evidence has emerged that mr. Trump or his advisers alerted the authorities. The report ads, mr. Bannon and two other former senior Campaign Officials have detailed to prosecutors for the special Counsel Robert Mueller how mr. Stone created that impression according to people familiar with their accounts. One of them told investigators that mr. Stone not only seemed to predict wikileaks actions but also that he took credit afterwards for the timing of its disclosures that damaged Hillary Clintons candidacy. Joining us from the new york times, mike schmidt, one of the reporters who broke this story this afternoon. Nick confessore, political reporter also from the new york times. From the Washington Post, White House ReporterAshley Parker and senior political reporter aaron blank, Frank Figliuzzi, former fbi assistant of counterterrorism and donny deutsch, Karine Jeanpierre and rick stengel, former under secretary of state for public diplomacy. Mike schmidt, take us through what you guys are reporting and its significance in the broader sweep of the Mueller Investigation into this potential conspiracy between the russians and Donald Trumps associates. What were trying to get at in this story is the question of stone. Was stone simply representing himself as a person that was in touch with wikileaks to enhance his credibility, to give him relevancy within the campaign . Was that why he claimed to have insight into what was going to happen . Or did he truly know something . Was he really in touch with wikileaks or Julian Assange . And thats at the heart of the investigation. That question. And senior Campaign Officials were sort of dubious of stone but they wanted to sort of they didnt want to alienate him because he was out doing a lot of work for the president , really trying to help them. But at the same time, they werent sure what to make of it and thats what mueller is still trying to figure out. To answer the question, was stone truly talking to wikileaks. And what stone represented to the campaign was that he was. And it seems like from the emails that you guys report on today, that the Trump Campaign had the same response to more inside information from russia that don junior had to the meeting in trump tower. This teams like a second proof point that they were very interested and eager to receive aid from russia. Its interesting. Bannon sort of does both of them. In one of the first emails that bannon ends hes basically got Better Things to do than talk to roger stone. But its after assange goes public that bannon reaches out to stone to find out what he knows. To see if theres anything more there. Stone had assange had just held a press conference and bannon was asking stone what he knew. And if there was anything more there. You know, look. Stone was doing a lot of work for the president. A lot of stuff outside, really trying to help undermine clintons campaign. And one of the emails even shows stone was asking bannon to have Rebecca Mercer send money to his outside group trying to show that bill clinton had an illegitimate child. So a lot going to there between stone and the campaign. And Frank Figliuzzi, donald trump seems to be doing a volume business of sleaziness and hoping hell avoid the long arm of the law. If i can start reading through some of these emails for all of you and take me through what, as an investigator, these emails would mean. Let me start with you, Frank Figliuzzi. For matt boyle who is at breitbart to roger stone. Assange, whats he got . Hope its good. Thats from matt boyle at breitbart. Roger stone reports it is. I would tell bannon but he doesnt call me back. My book on the Trump Campaign will be out in june. Many scores will be settled. Frank . Everyone thats a party to these emails asking whats he got. Hope its good and then bannon finally weighing in and saying whats this all about, that expands the scope, the universe of people who may be charged as conspirators, accomplices, having prior or advanced knowledge of whats going on. Look, my theory on this is, walks like a duck quacks like a duck, its probably a duck. The timing of these instances, the timing of the release of the trove of emails after we hear President Trump on tape saying really disgufsting things. This saul tiis all timed perfec roger stone cant escape that timing. He can say it was all bragodocio but the timing of it is too sharp to be other than something deliberate and something knowledgeable. So the other thing thats got my attention here is were hearing now that muellers looking at witness tampering for roger stone, telling people dont cooperate. Dont testify. So youve got kind of a myriad of things happening. And then lets not forget this. This is wikileaks. What does that mean . It means, as ive said many, many times that the fbi, the u. S. Intelligence community, has more information than were hearing. They cover wikileaks. Wikileaks, there was great debate in washington, by the way, as to whether wikileaks was actually should actually be plead as a foreign power because of the damage they were doing in terms of leaking voluminous amounts of classified and secret top secret communications. What does that mean . It means our government is on them like a blanket. And so that means that mueller is privy to the other end of these conversations. He knows whats going on and when he finally sits people down and interviews them, its either their choice to lie or tell the truth because hes got the answer. Nick confessore, its a great point, and i know youre all in on some of this forensic investigative reporting when bob mueller writes an indictment over the summer for some of these russians he had keystroke evidence. It means exactly what Frank Figliuzzi just explained. Robert mueller knows everything that transpired, and he has a long history as someone who knows how to bust cybercrimes going all the way back to his years as a u. S. Attorney in northern california. The heart of silicon valley. So talk about these the indictments of the russians. Talk about i think people lose sight theres so much public facing information on the obstruction investigation. But the questions about a conspiracy with russia do get deep into the weeds of what Robert Mueller has been able to deduce and what hes been able to investigate on that cybercrime front. Well, look, we now have a lot of paper, nicolle, on the fact there was an Incredible Campaign from the russian side to influence the election, to hack emails, to spread content disinformation. And on the intelligence side, to find puppets and dupes in the Trump Campaign. They were constantly driving by this campaign trying to find some way in with officials. They tried almost everybody it seems. So theres a lot of paper on this. We have something uniquely trump can thats hard for mueller. The president and people around him and around his campaign, there were a lot of people who, like the president , bragged a lot about their abilities. Talked up their own game in their own book. Said they could do a lot of things they couldnt necessarily do. And roger stone is a great example of this. This man takes pleasure as a trickster. Claimed credit for the Brooks Brothers riot, claimed credit for taking down eliot spitzer, the governor of new york and now at a certain point in the campaign, hes taken credit as being the goto guy for wikileaks. And the question is do you believe him . Was he exaggerating at the time or is he lying now . Mike schmidt, its a great point about roger stone. You can almost hear Donald Trumps if roger stone is to be indicted as a lot of people suspect he may be, you can almost hear the white house response, well, he was hardly involved. We hardly knew him. But youve reported that mueller has questions for the president about wikileaks. One of the questions that mueller has as theyve shared with his lawyers is for the president , what did you know about communications between roger stone, his associates, julian asank sange or wikileaks. This goes straight to their questions about what the president knew about this effort, this russian effort to help the Trump Campaign. Thats the big question that hangs over this that we dont have an answer to. What did the president know about this . Did he have any advanced knowledge from stone, from anyone nels the campaign about what was to come . And theres these major questions that still hang over the investigation. That being one of them that, you know, mueller is still looking at. How much information was trickling back . Where was it trickling . If bannon was talking to stone,s but he passing it on to the president . I dont think theres any evidence of that but was stone still talking to the president. The president continues to talk to a wide range of people while he was candidate, certainly while hes been president. Thats what mueller is putting a lot of time and effort into. He doesnt want to close his investigation without having turned over every stone to figure out no pun intended to figure out whether there was where that information was flowing. How much was going from wikileaks to stone to the campaign. Aaron blake, no one that covers politics will forget where they were when donald trump said, russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find Hillary Clintons emails. We pretend there arent public facing evidence. The president claims hes innocent on a lot of these questions because the campaign was too incompetent to be this strategic. But these are a whole lot of coincidences that we have to buy. Yeah, and i think whats interesting about this reporting, as much as it fills out the picture of a roger stone who was pretending at least to have contacts with wikileaks and trying to get the campaign interested in those is this is another example of his story changing. He told the Washington Post earlier this week that he didnt talk to Trump Campaign officials about wikileaks during the campaign. Now we find out that he was actually emailing with steve bannon about these things a couple days before the actual wikileaks emails came out about Hillary Clinton. This is the latest in a series of examples of roger stone saying things that later turn out to fall apart. One of them has to do with his contacts with wikileaks. He didnt have direct contact. Turned out he was direct messaging with them. He didnt have contacts with any russians about the campaign. Turned out he talked to a man who identified himself as Henry Greenberg who was identifiably russian and had been identified to him as a russian. So were kind of finding this kind of drip, drip, drip of things that contradict what roger stone has said to us in the past. And, of course, this isnt the first time weve seen these denials fall apart. But the question is, why were the denials false . Why did he say these things now being contradicted . Was he covering something up or just being this guy who is exusing confidence about exactly what happened and was really just pumping himself up as this guy who was significant and really close to wikileaks through this whole thing. Ashley parker, such a commentary on the trump raerks that we have to get to the bottom of whether something is puffery or what was at the bottom of it. Let me ask you about steve bannon. Your colleagues reported that steve bannon had been back in to talk to Robert Mueller and mikes reporting today, the tie and the emails and the contacts now with roger stone. Talk about how steve bannon has been overlooked as one of the potential key figures in tying wikileaks and roger stone and the dirty tricks he was engaged in to the heart of the Trump Campaign. He was running the Trump Campaign at the time that donald trump said russia, if youre listening. How about looking for those missing emails . Steve bannon is often overlooked because hes done so much filling in of the narrative and fire and fury and other places of peoples culpability he talked about weisman and the Money Laundering guys going through manafort and jared and we havent spent time talking about what may be legal exposure for steve bannon himself. Steve bannon was a key figure during a key and critical time of the Trump Campaign, not just the role he played in the campaign but also his connections to top donors like the mercers who he mentioned. His connections to the breitbart website which was a place he used to get out of a lot of information. And what bannons involvement shows and roger stones is that while the white house and trump allies like to dismiss some of the people so far caught up in muellers investigation as a little periphery or even if they did something wrong, the president had absolutely no idea, steve bannon is absolutely a top person who was clearly interested in this topic thats worth noting when he thought roger stone and he was trying to figure out what mueller is trying to figure out now. Is this puffery or a conduit to wikileaks and assange and russia. He wasnt racing to call the authorities or the fbi but reaching out to roger stone. So you have roger stone who is not that peripheral either. On the one hand on the fringe. Talking to steve bannon. Helped install manafort. Kept for close periods in close contact. This brings it closer to the person at the top and to the top level of the campaign. Mike schmidt, do you have any indication that steve bannon or roger stone have tripped themselves up legally in any of this process . Are they under any additional scrutiny or renewed scrutiny from any of the committees to which they testified before . Because these all seem like new revelations and things weve never seen or heard before. Yeah, in terms of if bannon has criminal exposure, we have no indication hes under investigation for this. Hes a witness thats gone in, has cooperated extensively with mueller. Appears to have told mueller about a wide range of things spending many hours with him. No indication hes a target. Obviously, mueller spending a lot of time looking at stone and part of stones problems that some people believe is his testimony to congress. Stone last year going up to the hill, testifying about, you know, a wide range of issues that went on during the campaign, his contacts. And does he have, you know, does that testimony line up with what mueller has found about and truly what his contacts work . And that is among many different things, whether its his outside groups he was raising money for, whether its his contacts with assange that mueller is spending all this time on. It seems like whenever we get an answer on that, well have a clearer picture on these major questions of collusion. I think it brings into focus rick stengel the vast ngs of the Mueller Probe. The professional ump of the Mueller Probe and durability of muellers factfinding mission. Hes sent cases out to the Southern District of new york. But as mike schmidt just detailed, the Mueller Investigation is going to answer a lot of questions. Among them, whether or not people like roger stone and steve bannon and others i would assume, maybe don jr. , maybe jerod, lied when they went before congress. We are still, almost a year and a half into this, getting new pieces of information about what they said and when they said it. Yes, yes and yes. But im going to pour a little water on this because i hope the special counsel his bigger fish to fry than roger stone. Roger stone is a sleazy member of the underside of american politics. Hes been trying to fasten himself to republican candidates since abraham lincoln. The fact he could get a little bit of traction with a guy like donald trump. Hes about the only guy that makes donald trump look like George Washington