Rep. Maxine Waters told 'Morning Joe' on Friday that she believes, without having seen any evidence, that Vladimir Putin's 'Kremlin Klan fed Trump talking points during the 2016 campaign, including 'Lock Her Up!' and 'Crooked Hillary.'



Asked at the end of the clip if there had been any evidence documented about this, she said: "No it has not been."



"I am talking about strategies that were developed, working with the Trump campaign. I really do believe that much of what you saw coming out of Trump's mouth was a play from Putin's playbook. I think that when you saw him, absolutely, calling Hillary 'Crooked,' 'Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!' I think that was developed strategically with people from the Kremlin, with Putin, and I think it is more than bank records," she said, mentioning "visits to Moscow" by Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.



"I think that there was a cooperation in developing strategy about how they could ensure that Hillary Clinton was not elected," she said.



"They need Trump," she said about the Russians. "Trump will be there to support lifting those sanctions. That's what they really want to happen. They want to drill in the Arctic. Tillerson has negotiated a multi-trillion dollar deal with Exxon to do that drilling, but they can't make it happen -- the equipment, the supplies, all that they need, until the sanctions are lifted."



"Not only will he support lifting those sanctions, he also will turn a blind eye to the expansion that Putin is trying to do... in Crimea. And he does not care whether this egomaniacally



'Morning Joe' regular Sam Stein interrupts to note that there is no evidence at all for this, and Waters agrees: "No it has not been. And I want you to know, every time I talked about impeachment, I said we've got to connect the dots... get the facts... do the investigation. And I also said Trump will lead us right there."