Iran Confirms Arrest of U.S. Citizen Michael White; New Manafort Revelations Hint at Collusion with Russians
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Breaking news, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman has confirmed the arrest of a U.S. Navy veteran, Michael White. CNN senior diplomatic correspondent, Michelle Kosinski, has details. What else do we know, Michelle?</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brianna. Most of what we know comes from his mother, who CNN spoke to just yesterday. The case really wasn't known until this circulated widely yesterday. She says Michael White, who is a Navy veteran, and a counselor on job training in southern California, is 46 years old. He has, for years, had a girlfriend that he communicated with online who lives in Iran. He's been there to visit her several times. She said this time he left in early July. About two weeks later, though, he seemed to disappear. He stopped answering messages from home. And it was only three weeks ago, his mother tells CNN, that she found out from the State Department that he had been in an Iranian prison. It has been now nearly six months that he's been in prison. There's no word on why he was arrested, on what his charges are. Only today -- again this is one day after news of this hit the public -- is the foreign ministry in Iran saying, yes, we have him. And they're not saying anything about the case, only that he's not being mistreated and that details of his arrest will be made public in due time. So Michael White is now one of at least four Americans we know of who are being held in Iran. One, who has been held the longest, has been held there three years. The other three have been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran. The family is extremely worried, not only because of the circumstances here and because of his other cases, but also because they say Michael White had just finished cancer treatments right before he went on this trip. He also suffers from asthma, so they're extremely concerned about his health as well -- Brianna?</s>KEILAR: Michelle Kosinski, thank you so much. We'll monitor that story. And we have just gotten the clearest public evidence yet of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. This is all in a court filing in which the Trump former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is accused of sharing internal polling data -- this is sensitive stuff -- sharing that with an alleged Russian agent. Amid that revelation, here's a reminder of how targeted Russia's interference was in the 2016 election. Reports cited by the Senate Intel Committee say Russians separated Americans into key interest groups. They focused on conservative messaging on gun rights and immigration. And when it came to left-leaning voters, Russians led a suppression campaign. They specifically spread false information to African-Americans in a clear effort to get them not to even vote. They even targeted key demographic groups in the critical swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan. I want to bring in senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations and CNN global affairs analyst, Max Boot, and former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, Laura Coates, with us. One of the things we wondered, Max, as we've looked at how tailored the Russian approach here was, how did they know? How were they so savvy? We knew there had been a will and effort to do this, but the fact that they did it with such precision, could this be the answer?</s>MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It certainly seems like it. It's hard to figure out why the suspected intelligence agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, would need American polling data. And according to what the "New York Times" said, Paul Manafort asked him to pass the data on to Oleg Deripaska, who is a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. Why do they need polling data for an American election? The only thing that makes sense is they need the polling data in order to target this Kremlin social media campaign that they are running to elect Donald Trump. So this is another piece of the puzzle that suggests that, yes, there was collusion between the president's campaign and the Kremlin. This is quite possibly the biggest political scandal in American history, which is coming into focus right here.</s>KEILAR: What does this say, this fact that Max just pointed out, that "The Times" said he wanted this passed on to the Russian oligarch to which he owed millions of dollars. What does that say when it speaks to the intent of Manafort's actions?</s>LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: At the very least, it answers the question of why he would have offered his services for free to the campaign. He had this debt that he needed to pay and it would be a valuable quid-pro-quo sort of payment, data for the polling information that could be linked to your Russian troll farms, talking about the very issue of sowing division that we spoke of, Brianna. This is the clearest example we've had yet. And by the way, it's not speculation. His attorneys, by their failure to error to redact, has admitted to doing just this. We learned about it because they have admitted to doing this very thing. It's not speculative. So you have Manafort saying, listen, I was passing on information not just to someone like Kilimnik with the hopes of getting it right to the Kremlin. There's only one explanation and it's not a benign one. It's one that is far more sinister. And the idea of the intent of Manafort, well, I fail to understand some benign explanation as to why you would want to pass on value campaign information to someone not related to an American campaign but rather to go right to the Russian Kremlin or at least the link to it. It's not valuable to the Russian oligarch, in and of itself. It's only valuable to the person he is beholden to, Vladimir Putin.</s>KEILAR: Should Paul Manafort have known that, or do you think he would have known that, Max?</s>BOOT: Of course, Paul Manafort knew exactly what was going on here. He's spent decades in politics. He knows exactly how valuable internal polling data is. He knows how this works. And Paul Manafort has a long history of representing Russian interests. He was a de facto operative on behalf of the Russian state with very close links to a Russian intelligence operative. This is not a normal situation. We need to stop talking about was there evidence of collusion, was there proof of collusion. This is the collusion right here. The only question now is, what did the president know and when did he know it? Can we link Donald Trump personally to the actions of Paul Manafort? And that's something we can't do yet. But clearly Donald Trump's campaign was, in fact, colluding with the Russians and that's a massive, massive scandal.</s>KEILAR: That's a question from the Watergate era, right, from the hearings of the Watergate era: What did the president know and when did he know it? This is what the Mueller investigation will want to know. Do you think that there's evidence that will tell them the answer do to that question?</s>COATES: I think they already have the information. The idea of being able to call Manafort a liar means that they already knew the truth. The reason this is even in the light right now is because they had to respond to Mueller's team, saying this person has briefed a plea bargain by giving us false information in five separate categories. If you're going to call someone a liar, you already know the truth, you already have evidentiary evidence about it. Also, circumstantially, remember, and this is the idea of polling data. He also had a discussion about a Ukrainian peace plan. And lo and behold, at the time that he was the head of the campaign and the main surrogate leading to getting delegates for the RNC. There's a --</s>KEILAR: The convention.</s>COATES: The convention. Does it change the tide about the Ukrainian mission and the Ukrainian viewpoint?</s>KEILAR: Key information left out, Max. Would you -- I mean, is it possible to -- this just raises the question, you can't necessarily draw the connection, but it is very curious.</s>BOOT: Well, it's clear that there was an attempt for a quid pro quo here because we know that, previously, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's attorney, along with Felix Sater, Donald Trump's business associate, they were floating a peace plan for Ukraine that was very pro-Russian, that would recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, that would lift sanctions. They were trying to sell this to Michael Flynn when he was national security adviser. And it seems, from what we're learning here, Paul Manafort was involved in doing something very similar. So this was the quid pro quo that I believe Vladimir Putin was looking for in return for helping to elect Donald Trump. He wanted those sanctions lifted, he wanted Russian aggression in Ukraine recognized, and clearly Manafort was a key part of that because he is someone who has been close to the Russian state for a long time.</s>KEILAR: Max Boot, Laura Coates, thank you to both of you.</s>BOOT: Thank you.</s>KEILAR: This just in to CNN. We are getting new details about a law firm involved in that mysterious grand jury subpoena related to the Mueller investigation. It's a case that's progressed all of the way to the Supreme Court under extreme secrecy. Stay right here.