In the case of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Tonight, saudi arabia has conceded khashoggi was indeed killed while in the saudi consulate in istanbul, turkey, october 2. They say 18 people are being held in connection with his death. And we will have much more on this still developing story coming up. But we begin this evening with brand new allegations of interference in u. S. Elections, coming even as the president continues his campaign to get out the vote for republicans. And to be clear, this is not about the Russian Election interference in 2016. This is about the russians interfering right now, and in realtime, with our midterm elections that are 18 days away. The Justice Department today revealed its charges against a russian operative, a woman, based in Saint Petersburg with links to vladimir putin, a woman who will never likely see the inside of an american courtroom, the president has spoke been the development during events today in arizona. Nothing to do with my campaign. With all of the hacker, and everything that you see, nothing to do with my campaign. If theyre hackers, a lot of them probably like Hillary Clinton better than me. Now they do. Now they do. But you know, they go after some hacker in russia and they say, oh, but it had nothing to do with my campaign. The governments criminal complaint reveals that a woman has been charged with conspiracy for taking part in a scheme, to quote sow division and discord in the u. S. Political system. In other words, to turn us against each other. Prosecutors say she worked for a russian firm that Robert Mueller first indicted back in february for meddling in the last election in 2016. That same firm was linked to a man known as putins chef, who has also been named in the mueller indictment. Todays criminal complaint says the russian conspiracy to influence our midterm elections, 18 days away, included, quote, posing as u. S. Persons, to operate fictitious social media, to address Divisive Political and social issues or to advocate for the election or electoral defeat of particular candidates. Now, the social media post covered the gamut. Gay rights. Gun rights. The anthem protest in the nfl. Family separation. Criticism of mueller. Criticism of john mccain. Any subject that can divide americans one against the other. Prosecutors say this is how conspirators referred to mueller, as they spread articles attacking him, quote, as a puppet of the establishment, and his investigation, as damaging to the country. This post was also allegedly part of an online propaganda campaign, titled quote, every deported illegal household saves taxpayers 700,000. Todays charges were revealed not long after the nations intelligence chiefs issued a joint statement of warning today, warning of foreign interference in our election, from russia, china, and other foreign actors, and it came just one day before the National Security adviser john bolton heads to meet with russian officials in moscow. Indeed, just within the past month, President Trump has been pushing this new theory, the new line, on election meddling, that it is not the russians, it is the chinese. Regrettably, we found that china has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election. Coming up in november. Against my administration. And just this past week, he has continued to repeat that, along with some other familiar themes. Do you believe that the russians interfered in the 2016 campaign . Election. Well, they meddled but i think china meddled, too. Do you really think i would call russia to help me with an election . Give me a break. They wouldnt be able to help me at all. Call russia. So ridiculous. First of all, there is no collusion. Do you think i would call russia . I need help in idaho. I need help in iowa. Lets call russia. It is a con job. Can you imagine me saying, oh, i dont know what to do, gee, lets call the russians, maybe they can help. Can you believe it . No, can you believe the stupidity of this . Lets call the russians. It was an excuse, made by the democrats for losing an election that frankly they should win. Todays news brought a sobering assessment from an intelligence veteran who is a frequent guest on this broadcast. Here we are on the eve of the midterm elections and were still hearing solid evidence that nothing has changed, nothing has stopped, the social media were consuming is propagated by a foreign adversary. Lets bring in our leadoff panel on a busy friday night. Mi mi, Southern District of new york and a distinguished fellow at the Pace University school of law. Julia ainsley, nbc news justice reporter. Josh gersten, senior White House Reporter for politico, and michael mcfall, a former u. S. Ambassador for russia which makes him a better than average expert on russia. Welcome and good evening to all of you. Julia, i would like to begin with you. What is your number one takeaway from this document we have printed here today . It is like what we used to call the phone book of a mediumsized u. S. City. Thats right. I can remember some phone book, brian. There you go. There is a very detailed, obvious, even when mueller turns out the lights and closes up the special counsels office, we are living in what may be the new normal. We are going to continue to see interference. Primarily, as weve seen, from russia. And they lay out all of the ways they can do it. All of those ways that you can see, that they can sow discord from both sides. What i think has to be taken together is that report that also came out today, from the Intelligence Community, saying that you should be aware of other meddling campaigns, from russia, and they say china, and iran, but what i want to really clearly point out is that we have yet to see evidence of any other country illegally meddling in our elections. Weve seen the president pointing to ads that china might have taken out in a newspaper. Nothing to this extent. Nothing like what weve seen russians do on social media has been able to be charged by one of our federal districts like we saw today. This is a very calculated campaign. And it is the same play book they used in 2016. And they are able to use this same play book, brian, because of the president s reaction. Just like what we saw over the weekend, just like what he told 60 minutes, the president wants to say that he doesnt need help from russia, so therefore, he is not really able to just take on the responsibility as the president , in order to get rid of this Election Hacking and election meddling because it would affect him as the candidate. He is still hung up on his candidacy more than his presidency and as we saw frank point out, there needs to be that kind of action to stop this, or like i said, we are living in this new normal. Those are my takeaways. I heard from an fbi veteran this week, incensed that, effective on the 60 minutes interview, the president has changed his talk can point do you think i would really call russia, as this investigators put it, the allegation, he was in with them somehow, this was compromised somehow and it was a rolling effort and it allows him to ask the rhetorical question, do you think i would call them to help me in this election . Julia, on the last point i want to play for you, former cia director mike haden who was asked on cnn this afternoon, about the presence of china in this intel document. Lets listen. We all have seen all of the details involving russia. Have you seen specific similar details involving china, iran, and other foreign actors . I have not. I think what were seeing is a bit more of just another nation state attempting to influence american policy through traditional tools. I mean you and i may not like theyre taking on a fourpage ad in the des moines register, but thats above board. That is fair play. The russians are doing something more extensive. And more below the surface. So josh, thats what hayden has been saying all along. And other intel veterans. The question to you is, square whats in this complaint with the talking points you have heard from this president over these many months. Well, i mean im struck by the fact that it does seem to reflect a great deal of sub ter fuge and a very insidious effort on the part of the russians because when you read through the complaint, a lot of the tactics theyre using and a lot of the tweet, the meme, some of which you have just shown, brian, it is very hard to tell looking at them that this is some kind of an russian effort. There is no obvious tell here. So it seems the president is trying to minimize this activity. One thing i would say also, im not convinced that the legal system ultimately may be up to dealing with this challenge. It struck me in reading this complaint that a lot of what people are objecting to here goes well beyond politics. When you talk about sowing social discord and turning gay americans against other americans, and black americans against white americans, is that fundamentally about changing the results of the 2018 midterms . Or is that simply about trying to rip apart American Society . If it is the latter, im not sure the Justice System is going to be the vehicle to address it. Mike mcfall is it an article of faith that putin knew about, or just plain ordered this . Well, i dont know that for sure. So i cant call it an article of faith. But i would very surprised if he didnt. It is the same organization, the Internet Research agency, after all, that did the same thing in 2016. A dozen of them were indicted. That indictment was handed over, right before the helsinki summit. And yet, president pu putin a his proxies are continuing. That is because President Trump has not made them pay a price. He continues to deny it. He embraces putin and gets nothing back. And i think until we push back, until we try to deter this kind of behavior, of course we should expect people like putin and other actors, but putin first and foremost, to continue to intervene in our elections, and in our democratic society. Mimi reporta, i am holding in my hand, as they say, this complaint. It is voluminous. A couple of things to know about it. It was filed september 28. We just learned about it today. It was filed in the Eastern District of virginia. So that is question one. Why that jurisdiction . Question two is, why not . Well, the why now question is intriguing. So first of all, it is not just why now. It was, as you said, sworn out, this affidavit, and the complaint on september 28, a couple of weeks later, it gets unsealed. That was enough time for them to go to the grand jury and get an indictment. Usually prosecutor does a complaint, which is what this document, when they are sort of in a hurry, you know, they dont quite have time yet to go through the indictment process, which is more laborious lengthy process. But the fact that this was done on the 28th and unsealed now, i dont have a great answer yet. But it tells me that we may find out more. There might be more to this timing that we might find out in the coming days or weeks. Because there was something specific that happened, where they got it sworn out, but they decided to hold it until today, and we may never know, but we could know and it could be very enlightening. It could have something to do with her, this woman, why this woman now, and she is the accountant, she seems to be in charge of the money, making sure everyone gets paid. That is an Important Role for sure, in this organization, which this is the same organization, essentially, as several of the other guests have said, that was involved in 2016. It is just continuing. And so you know, but why this woman in particular now . And we may see more about that in the coming days. Okay, the counselor just teed that up for you, julia. What are you expecting in the coming days . Gosh, well, you know, we arent supposed to hear a lot from mueller. We know he is quiet, presumably, heading into the midterm elections. But we may continue to hear this drumbeat of the Public Service announcements from the department of Homeland Security, and others, who want to ensure the election infrastructure. Another thing they want to do, brian, is to make sure that while people are maybe taking a second look at some of the ads, some of the memes, they are seeing online, making sure they know who is purchasing those and how they are being influenced, they dont want them to also lose faith when they go to the ballot box in november. They want everyone to know and it was clear in this report today, that the election infrastructure, what is actually in place, to make sure that that vote that you cast, it remains unchanged, they say that is not under threat. That they have not seen clear evidence of that. That is something that i have heard the department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeat again and again. It is kind of enlightening. Im like mimi, i want to pick this over and figure out why this woman, why today. One thing i heard about the jurisdiction, somehow in the Eastern District of virginia, there may be mini Internet Companies that are crossing through that. It is hard to know. She is not an american citizen. It is not like they picked where she lives. There is something very interesting about the fact that it is Eastern District of virginia, this woman, so close to the midterms. There seems to be a message that theyre sending. I just want to know what it is. Josh, lets go down that rabbit hole. This document, it explains the weird item that your aunt fanny sent you from her facebook feed about families being separated at the border. Theyre hoping it doesnt explain any shenanigans. We have 435 congressional races in 18 days. Weve got local elections. State houses. U. S. Senate. And we better not see any numbers that, as they come in, dont make sense to us. So is there any chance this document is a civic warning . I think that is primarily its function here. I mean there is some chance they are going to be able to pick this woman up somewhere, maybe she is traveling somewhere, or had a plan to go to europe, although frankly i dont even know if you can be extradited on these types of charges from most countries. So i do think the primary role here was to get this out, in advance of the election, as a reminder, to people, that this russian operation is not a thing of the past. It is ongoing. But i think there frankly is supposed to be a little bit of a reassurance here for President Trump, that this is not officially a mueller charge. As we were just discussing, it was brought by prosecutors, in alexandria, virginia, and it suggests that this project of trying to rein in the russian, at least you can do it through the legal system, going to be taken on by the rank and file, bread and butter prosecutors of the Justice Department, and that Mueller Probe will eventually come to a conclusion. So michael mcfall, just to put a finer point thon for our viewers point on this for our viewers who may not get the mechanism here. Some of it was to criticize marco rubio. And some of it was to call the late senator john mccain an old geeser. Some is race ifts. Some is racist. Some are antilgbt. What is the goal since they seem to be disparate topics. You cannot polarize unless there is polarization already there. So lets be clear. The basis has to be there first. At stanford, there are social scientists studying this. I would like to dig deep near. It im not so sure it is just about polarization. It could be more partisan. But there is a bigger issue here, brian. We have not actually figured out where the lips are. You quoted my former colleague mike hayden saying, well, an ad, an insert in the newspaper, thats what the chinese do, that is above the line. Is it . Why is it . When sputnik tweets crooked hillary as they did repeatedly in 2016, that is freedom of speech . Is that the russian government . Is that okay . When the saudis pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobbyists to stop legislation, thats a is that a violation of our sovereignty . Is that just the political system . And i think we as america, we really havent come to grips with where those lines need to be, especially when it is so easy to do. Because of these social media platforms. And i do believe it is just the beginning of this conversation, not just, you know, a little howdy doody before the 2018 election. And to any aunt fannies out there, i meant no disrespect. To ambassador michael mcfall, to mimi, our thanks, our discussion continues. Coming up, an apparently ailing Paul Manafort gets welled into court to hear his sentencing date. And later, the president supporters cheer on his most outrageous statements as the red meat gets redder out on the road. The 11th hour, just Getting Started on this friday night. avo life doesnt give you many second chances. But a subaru can. You guys ok . You alright . Wow. avo eyesight with precollision braking. Standard on the subaru ascent. Presenting the allnew threerow subaru ascent. Love is now bigger than ever. They work togetherf doing important stuff. The hitch . Like you, your cells get hungry. Feed them. With centrum micronutrients. Restoring your awesome, daily. Centrum. Feed your cells. Thats gillette clear gel. It goes on clear and keeps you fresh all day. And it doesnt leave white marks on your shirt. Gillette clear gel antiperspirant. And as if that wasnt badur brand new enough, totals it. Now your insurance wont replace it outright because of depreciation. If your insurance wont replace your car, what good is it . Youd be better off just taking your money and throwing it right into the harbor. Im gonna regret that. With new car replacement, if your brand new car gets totaled, Liberty Mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Weve hadfor a long time. Is in San Francisco