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Federal prosecutors started their day today with the cooperation of someone new, a russian operative at their disposal. maria butina admitted she sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with americans having power and influence over u.s. politics for the benefit of the russian federation. we should note, she was successful at that. vladimir putin distanced himself from her this week, said he asked around, nobody knew her. but today foreign minister sergey lavrov told russian media, quote, we will do everything to provide the rights of our citizen and enable her return home as soo...

Because they are not actually assets that could be quickly and easily identified as members of russian intelligence. and that's where i think it's successfu successful. >> jack, i have less than a minute. if she'd been the pro that you were, if she'd been a full immersion pro spy, can you imagine what she could have accomplished in this country? >> oh, yeah. very, very dangerous. i just want to say i agree wholeheartedly with the assessment that there's a whole lot more sort of contributors, unofficial folks that are not employees of espionage agencies that russia sends out these days. this di...

>> i agree with julia. she's not a spy. let me tell you something. a spy does not cooperate. this is the one thing -- this is a hard and fast rule of training when you go into espionage, particularly coming out of the the soviet union or russia. i was instructed that way. others that i know and trust were instructed that way. when you are caught, you provide nothing because we will get you out. and the russians and the softs had a phenomenal track record of doing that. this lady cooperates. i believe she'll have a hard time even when she gets back to russia because she eventually gets kicked o...

Possibly with loose connections to espionage svr or fsb. but not a trained spy >> a trained spy. >> look at it this way, look at the return on investment. she's just an entry level bargain basement agent, comes over here, climbs the ladder to the senior rank of the republican party, has the nra convinced that the right to bear arms is actually a thing where she's from in russia. she was covorting with the top leadership of the party and the campaign apparently. >> she was phenomenonly successful. i didn't get anywhere near these high level people. she did a great job but, you know, unfortunate...

35 years working in counterterrorism who rote wrote the book on this topic called the plot to destroy democracy. also we're happy to welcome jack barski back to the broadcast, a former kgb spy. he's now an american citizen. he quote the book "deep undercove undercover,". jack of the three of us you're the only former kgb spy in this conversation. does a number like 14, does that leave coincidence behind and become actual coordination in your mind? who thought we were such an easy mark? >> it's clearly a pattern, but,