Putin. Well see about today. Were looking for the United States to improve this computer glitch. That does it for us. Well see you right back here tomorrow. In the meantime, Stephanie Ruhle picks up the coverage. Good morning, everyone. Im Stephanie Ruhle with a lot to cover today. Starting with answers, emails and calls. Some of President Trumps response to Robert Muellers questions now revealed has new details on the investigation emerged. Latenight phone calls between donald trump and his associate roger stone and the president dangling a pardon for, guess who, Paul Manafort. Emission failure. The va says it will not reimburse all veterans who were paid less due to a technical glitch. Taking stock. Markets surge after the fed chair suggests interest rate
increases might slow down. Now an expected meeting between trump and the leader xi jinping over the weekend. Theres a possibility a deal can be made. Having said that, some caveats as always. We begin with some of the very fest details about what the president told special Counsel Robert Mueller about wikileaks in 2016. Trump says he knew nothing about it. But does the evidence back it up . I have a great team to break it down. First, i want to explain what we know. Two sources familiar with the matter tell nbc that the president s written answers to the Special Counsel included two critical denials regarding key evidence. The one, he says he did not know about the Trump Tower Meeting with russias ahead of time. Number two, he says his longtime friend roger stone did not tell
him about wikileaks. I want to stop and talk about wikileaks because it is a critical part of the Mueller Investigation. Mueller is looking into any indication that then Candidate Trump knew about russias efforts to influence the 2016 election, if he can draw that line that is potential evidence of conspiracy. Russia used ricky leaks to publicize emails stolen from the dnc and candidate Hillary Clinton and new emails suggest roger stone and the Conspiracy Theorist Corsi communicated with wikileaks because they appear to have known when wikileaks was going to expose the stolen material. This morn, the Washington Post is reporting right around the same time stone was in regular contact with, guess who, then Candidate Trump. One of those conversations reportedly came the day after emails indication that corsi told stone that wikileaks was planning a major release of,
quote, very damaging material. But stone says he doesnt talk to trump about it. I can honestly say that Candidate Trump, donald trump and i have never discussed the wikileaks disclosures before, during or after. You never had a single discussion about Hillary Clinton emails with him at all . That is correct. And that has been his story all along. Wikileaks says it never collaborated with stone. Stone diminished the importance of any Phone Records saying unless mueller has Tape Recordings of the phone calls, what would that prove . Corsi and stone say they didnt have advance knowledge about the wikileaks email revelations. All of this is still very much an open question for mueller, even if the president says its a whole lot of nothing. I want to go right to the white
house where Kristen Welker is standing by. You spoke to the president about those written answers. I talked to two sources familiar with the investigation, with the president s legal team, and they told me that the president answered the Special Counsels questions to the best of his recollection. They say those questions were all about the russia investigation. Just to recap those two key points, were learning that President Trump told the Special Counsel that he didnt know about that Infamous Trump tower meeting from 2016 between don jr. And the russian lawyer and roger stone never told him about the wikileaks before they happened. All of this comes as speculation is announcing that President Trump may be considering a pardon for Paul Manafort. The Plea Agreement between manafort and mueller fell apart. With Mueller Accusing Manafort of lying to investigators. An allegation manafort denies. The president about to leave for argentina for that g20 summit. Hes tweeting about russia. Let me read you his tweets. Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime . At the same time mueller and the angry democrats airport looking at the atrocious and pervasive crimes committed by crooked Hillary Clinton and the democrats, a total disgrace. Second one, when will this illegal Joseph Mccarthy style witch hunt, that has shattered so many innocent lives, ever end . After wasting more than 40 million, is that possible, it has proven one thing, no collusion with russia, so ridiculous. Now of course the investigation isnt over. We dont know what the investigation determined. In terms of President Trump, he departs for argentina in just about an hour from now. A lot of Critical Issues are going to be on the table. Hes also going to be meeting with the president of china to discuss trade. This will be looming over all of it. Were hoping to get a few questions before he departs. I want to bring in my panel. Karen, a National Reporter for the Washington Post. Glen kirsner, former federal president. And my friend eddie glaude, professor. Karen, You Are The One who wrote about these latenight calls. Do we know if mueller knows what these calls were about or they happened . We dont know everything mueller knows. I wish we did. Clearly what we know, i would call it a draft indictment, but its really a draft Plea Agreement, what we know is mueller believes this call is critical or these series of calls between corsi emailing
roger stone in august, early august, about wikileaks is going to be dumping some very damaging information. Amazing for jerome corsi to know that. And mueller focusing on what happened next. August 3, according to roger stone, he has a Phone Conversation with then Candidate Trump. And not many days later, then Candidate Trump makes an announcement about some very unflattering things that are going to be coming out about hillary. Its a strong set of circumstances. Could mueller know exactly what they discussed . I doubt it. Unless stone told someone else or trump told someone else. Glen, how significant is wikileaks in terms of the overall investigation . If there is a conspiracy, is this the most likely place for
it to come from . I think its one of the likely places. Wiki leagues is arguably central to the Mueller Investigation in their attempts to see if there was a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and russia. But lets not forget, the Trump Tower Meeting is another area that is ripe for potential c conspiratorial conduct of those who attended the meeting. The folks from the campaign include ed manafort, kushner an don jr. It is not obviously related to wikileaks but, you know, perhaps most importantly steph, how many times have we heard, its not the crime but its the coverup. Boy, there sure looks like theres strong evidence theres a conspiracy to cover this up, which would also be a conspiracy to obstruct justice. I think there are multiple conspiracies in play here. It sure looks like that. Then you look at a lot of senior members of the gop who remain silent on all of this. Matt, stone says you would need tapes to prove he did anything wrong. Is he right . What would it take to convince the public and congress here. Weird thing to say. Think about that. Thats a great point. Unless there are tapes of this you dont really say that, do you . You dont volunteer that bit of information . Its important to note in all of of this that most of the reporting has said Robert Mueller is not going to bring charges against a sitting president. So and then its up to congress. So that makes a lot of these questions about and judgments about the behavior less criminal and more political. In that context, trump has tweeted about this nine times in the last three days. Look at the story lines. They spent 30 million. Its now 40 million. In the last day, yesterday he said it was 30 million. Today, i mean, the fact Robert Mueller dropped 10 million bucks on it, please. He said in the interview, oh, i have these fisa documents i could unseal that really hurt the democrats but im just waiting until after they go after me. That doesnt make any sense. You would have are you saying youre abetting a cover up . Except for the fact there are people around the country who do not challenge the person in the oval office and they bleach it. So roger stone may be direct. Unless you have tapes with my voice, this dont matter. It matters in a sense, by throwing everything against the wall forever, for the last 12 months on this stuff, and having the House Republicans follow him down that road, its made them less credible and made them less
electable. Now democrats run the house. President trump does not have a consistent believable story line about the Mueller Investigation. Hes just saying mccarthyism and Hillary Clinton and maybe fusion gps. Hes creating more chaos which only confuses people at home and actually gets them to tune out. Why should this matter to the average person at home . They dont know who jerome corsi if i held up a picture, my mom would say, i dont know, the guy in line ahead of me at the deli. Right. Matters if it turns out that donald trump stole the election. He conspired to undermine our democracy. Each my mother, retired woman on the coast of mississippi, right, who is losing faith in the very base, the various institutions of democracy. If she finds out the person who was the leader of the free world cole lulded with russia, it
would matter to her. It has implications for our everyday life. This is important because people just around sellish. Did not just preoccupy with their own selfinterest. I want to believe they care about the country broadly. Okay, is the future of our democracy hanging on these two dudes . I mean, Lets Talk About who they are. A known conspiracy theory. At best, roger stone, a political trickster. Neither credible. You raise an excellent point. Like why is everything hanging on a series of people who have given very inconsistent and thats charitable statements about what happened and also to your point. Most americans have no however, whats important, in august, theres an email from jerome corsi, professor you probably dont know and couldnt
recognize on the street who basically says wikileaks is going to dump something. What people dont recognize is he references this is what the hackers are up to now. This is the hackers game now. The president has said repetedly, hey, look, we didnt know russia was trying to help us except for the email that said this is part of the russian governors efforts to help you. This one, again, in corsis email, there is this reference to the hackers. The president has said we didnt know russia was trying to get these emails and wikileaks was using the fruits of a crime to interfere in the election. Corsi seemed to know that on august 2nd, days before Candidate Trump basically telegraphed to all of his supporters that is whats happening. I think, you know, here your
panel is right, these little bit players, who cares, but the larger issue was did this campaign know russia was trying to help . Is that why the president currently is so friendly to Vladimir Putin when everyone else is in recoil at some of his actions . These joint Defense Agreements. You wrote about manafort sharing information with trump. Corsi says hes been doing the same thing. To me, that sounds insane. How can mueller clearly build a case, asuing every single thing he is discussing with these people is going straight back to the president whos been poisoning the well via twitter . Mueller will build the case. Hes going to do with that respect to all of the remaining grifters that need to be swept up in this like corsi and stone. Ive never seen anything like this. You have the president and
manafort entering into this Information Sharing Agreement. They keep the agreement in place. Now, mind you, thats not up ethical. Its really problematic. We can see the reason manafort did it is because hes trying to keep one foot in the mueller camp, one foot in the i hope President Trump will pardon me camp and i think its going to blow up on manafort. Why . Because, look why do you think it Doesnt Blow Up on mueller . This is stunning all these guys are allowed to talk to one another. To me this almost looked like trump and that whole squad is outfoxing them. I dont think it was helpful if, particularly in all those interviews with manafort, he gave Information Mueller really would like to use in court. Mueller probably lost the
opportunity to use in court. Why is this allowed . Its unusual but its allowed. Manaforts lawyers are there to do the best job they can for manafort. They apparently concluded that the best job they could do was to keep both of their options open. Look, he was already sunk in connect with being convicted in virginia, facing another trial in which he was surely going to be convicted in d. C. So his lawyers decided theyre going to keep this Information Sharing Agreement in place so that he can still go back to the president hoping for a pardon. And that may be working. All of a sudden manafort is back in the news in the last 24 hours. His Plea Deal Looks like its getting blown up by mueller. As im flipping through page six, reading new york gossip, oh, president of the United States has an interview with the New York Post and throws out there a pardon may not be off
the table. Isnt that exactly what manafort wants . Of course. Jerome corsi was on ari melbers show last night. Theyre doing a little advertising, please pardon me. That communication between manaforts legal team and trumps legal team after he had supposedly flipped towards mueller, that stuff is not protected by Attorney Client privilege. If mueller wants to go after that communication, he can. Then its a question of, Will Whitaker let him go that far. Second thing about all of this is tomorrow were going to see a lot more of what mueller has because manaforts going to, in front of a judge, or his legal team is, be sentenced. Hes going to have to spell out why we know he lied. If were worried if anyones worried about the Mueller Investigation, somehow going to be surprised by whitaker, by
whoever, well see some of the Mueller Investigation i believe tomorrow. Hanging out there regarding whitaker, over two weeks ago, he used to have conversations about his potential conflicts of interest. Thus far, havent answered a single question about that. Quickly fact check. The president in the last 24 hours keeps making this comparison to mccarthy. I would love for someone to say that. Explain to me, sir, how and why, because i bet he doesnt even know. Walk us through this. Makes no sense. Its a classic case of Freudian Projection. If you think about what trump has been doing. He doesnt talk about Freudian Projection much. Hes been claiming about what he claims about The Deep State. Whos infiltrated The Deep State. Makes his claim about his influence on the country, hes
directing it towards the state department. Hes claiming that The Deep State has been compromised by comb nichts in interesting sorts of ways. Then creating this broad culture of suspicious. All those folks being accused leads to folk in hollywood being accused. Lead to folk being neo cons. Leads to all this stuff with democracy, is literally thrown into the trash bin. Then this one moment when mccarthy in 1954 accuses a lawyer whos defending the army. He says, you have been you have communist ties and joseph welch says to him, have you no sense of decency . It seems to me the way we should respond to this tweet of donald trump is have you no sense of decency or shame because you m
damn sure dont know anything about history. After that, we have to drop the mic. Up next, nancy pelosi is overwhelmingly elected the next speaker of the house. Encapsulating the moment with a quote from the wire. If you come at the king, or in this case, the queen, you best not miss. So a tree falls on your brandnew car and totals it. And as if that wasnt bad enough, 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 regret that. With new car replacement, if your brandnew car gets totaled, Liberty Mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. With lower Expense Ratios than comparable vanguard funds. And were now offering zero Expense Ratio index funds. Thats value youll only find at fidelity. One thing leads another thats value youll only find at fidelity. We really pride ourselvesglass, on making it easy to get your windshield fixed. With safelite, you can see exactly when well be there. Saving you time for what you love most. Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace unstopand its strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. Which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. Well almost anything. Leave no room behind with xfi pods. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Click or visit a retail store today. We busted out of this commercial because we have breaking news. New york times correspondent Michael Schmidt on the phone. What is happening there . Michael cohen, the president s longtime personal lawyer, is going to plead guilty to a new charge, new criminal charge this morning. In connection with Robert Muellers investigation. Hell be Pleading Guilty,
agreeing to cooperate with muellers investigators. This is nothing new we heard of before . This is separate from everything that Michael Cohen has been involved with or been reported on until this morning, correct . Correct. This is different. The last time we saw Michael Cohen, he was going into court to plead guilty to charges stemming from payments he made to women during the campaign for done nald trump, to keep the wo silent. This is related directly to mueller, to mueller, whos looking at questions of collusion. Well have a better idea today as cohen is in court right now in new york and well have a better idea about the extent of what he is leading to and what the charges are. What he had pled to previously is eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and Campaign Finance violations back
in august. So i know you only have limited information. He lied to congress. When, in what termed . We havent seen the Court Document yet so we dont know the extent. Cohen, theres been questions about cohens tries to russia for some time. Questions about whether he was truthful to congress. If youre looking at the ties between campaign and russia and you are trying to understand, cohen was a very important person to talk to. You would not want to close the investigation without talking to him. There were allegations in the dossier that had been given to mueller, the federal government, by the former british spy who looked at russia. There were a lot of different questions for that. For mueller to wrap things up,
he needed to talk to cohen. It looks like this deal was put into place to make sure that happened. It was not muellers team that was involved with Michael Cohen months ago, it was completely separate, correct . Correct. That was different. Prosecutors from the u. S. Attorneys office in new york who had been investigating the payments that have been made to these women during the campaign. That was a Campaign Finance investigation that looked at also wrapped into other fraud charges that cohen had committed. This is mueller. This is related to the russia investigation. Thats what its centered on. I want to bring back glen r kirshner, former freederal prosecutor. This could be big. Heres why. Cohen we know in august pled guilty to eight counts. Two of them directly implicated
the president as what i will say a de facto. Unindicted coconspirator in these Campaign Finance violations for paying off a porn star and a playboy playmate. We already know Michael Cohen has implicated the president directly in court under oath when he entered his plea. This now coming in a separate case where hes going to go in and plead guilty again. Its not just a Southern District of new york case. That suggests to me, i think we can infer, this could very well be a conspiracy obstruction piece. Sounds like well know soon when those Court Documents drop. I have a feeling this could spell some real trouble on the russian front for his family and associates. I still have eddie. So much has happened this week after the president turned in his questions. When the president delivers his homework, Suddenly Mueller has a lot of Fact Checking to do and tools at his disposal. Because he already knows the answers . Maybe he doesnt but maybe he knows people who might have the answers. And can subpoena them because he has a lot of power. Michael, what do you think about that . Do you think a lot of this has happened because remember, it was five days ago, seven days ago, the president and his team handed in the written answers to Robert Mueller, you think that set this into motion . No, my guess is theyve been working on this for a long time. Cohelp had been in to meet with investigators for many hours in the last few months and mueller has a lot of different Irons In The Fire and working on a lot of
different things. Not sure it has anything to do with the responses. Im not sure exactly how they would connect. Theres a lot of movement, a lot of things that mueller is moving forward with. These are investigators that have been looking at these questions now since may of 201. The fbi for even longer than that. And there, you know, have been a lot of different threads they have pulled on and, you know, its interesting in the case of cohen because when cohen went in to plead guilty over the summer, it was not sort of a global agreement with the Justice Department. It was just on one of the investigations. Investigated really the president s payments to these women during the campaign, the Campaign Finance part of it. Cohen is in a position where hes trying to prove to the Justice Department he can be a cooperator. He can be someone that can help them with their investigations. He doesnt want to go to prison. The more he can show the Justice Department he can help them, the more cooperation he can provide, willing to go to judges and say hey, you shouldnt put Michael Cohen in jail for many years. Michael cohen is not 1 of the 32 who has a joint Defense Agreement with President Trumps legal team. Theyre not off to the side in the background. I dont know that. I dont know whether my guess is cohens lawyers were not in coordination with trumps lawyers on this. Cohen has been adverse to trump in this since this summer. There was this unusual arrangement between Paul Manafort, the president s former Campaign Chairman and the president s voters in which they were getting sort of realtime updates in whats going on. I dont know about the extent of
what agreements there were between cohen and the president. My guess is knowing how the relationship between the two of them deteriorated. The way the president has criticized cohen. The type of lawyer that was represented Michael Cohen, a longtime experienced new york prosecutor. I dont think he would have been working with the president s lawyers but we dont know that. Lets reset for our audience. The man you were just seeing on the screen, Michael Cohen, President Trumps former attorney, former fixer. The man who repeatedly said he puts President Trump and his familys interest before his own. Until just a few minutes ago when he pled guilty to eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and Campaign Finance violations back in august. Well, new charges this morning
tied to the Mueller Probe that Michael Cohen may have lied to congress. I want to bring carol back. Just moments ago, the ap is reporting this is tied to a potential deal in russia. So what we know is this trump Business Deal in russia was extremely important to him. Now its been reported that cohen is confessing essentially he lied to congress about what he really what his role was in this moscow deal. Remember Candidate Trump and former Business Developer trump was pursuing with great excitement a Trump Tower In Moscow. We should remind our audience, we later found out he was pursuing a Trump Tower In Moscow but it was a long period where he said that wasnt the case. Thats true. In july 2016, he insisted i have zero investments in russia but
actually he wash Business Associate they had named felix sader. Its interesting because remember, there were amazing emails that came out between them that said can you believe two guys from brooklyn are going to get a guy elected president and putins going to help us put it all together . It was a pretty striking boast which seemed crazy at the time. If Michael Cohen has some new insites for Robert Mueller about what they really meant back then, when they were promising trump a trump power in moscow and boechting they were going to get a guy elected president. If theres a connect there, thats going to be fascinating. Its not a stretch to call all of these guys a human pack of liars. It sounds like he was still of the mindset i will take a bullet for donald trump and now and you dont lie to congress about trumps Business Dealings in russia unless you know its going to get you, cohen in criminal trouble, or its going to get trump in a lot of criminal trouble. It sounds like Michael Cohen has now gone from taking a bullet for the president and lying to congress about the president s potential Business Dealings in russia when he was a candidate to maybe not being on the Receiving End of those bull leslest bullets anymore. There was a lawyer connected to all this who, when cohen came out many months ago and said he would take a bullet for the president , said that it is often those who talk the toughest that are the quickest to flip. Here we are now the second time
Michael Cohen is accepting a Plea Agreement and agreeing to cooperate with the government in two separate investigations involving the president. That steele dossier is bec e becoming more interesting by the minute. Ive always found it interesting. Seems as if the bridge between russia and the u. S. Is almost complete. What will be the American Connections . Seems hike day in, day out, were seeing hes about to open that bad boy and see what the connections actually are. What do you think . I dont know. Weve had a day that the collusion part of this was always one that seemed the most farfetched, hardest to prove at various points. This morning has built more of a
case for a Collusion Argument than weve seen in a very long time. Its fascinating. Even though Michael Cohen was President Trumps fixer, said he would take a bullet for him for years, hes quite different, at least in the last few months, than stone and corsi. Implicated as the unindicted coconspirator. But in the last few months, hes on social media, complimenting Michelle Obamas book, trying to put forward that hes turned over a new leaf. And President Trump has turned on Michael Cohen. Minimizing him as he was a business guy, i knew him a little bit. So Michael Cohen has a very different relationship today and different hopes than maybe some of these other gentleman who
still seem to be standing by the president. If we think back to the fourth of july, perhaps not coincidenceally, he declared his independence from donald trump. And, you know, i think we all look at that with a little bit of skepticism. Now youre going to do right, now that all the heats coming down on you. But unlike roger stone and unlike jerome corsi, Michael Cohen has had such inside access for so many years to the president , that he can give the president up hard i suspect. Let me go back to the stones and the corsis. Both of these men are on as saying, yes, ill probably be indicted. Ive never had an innocent person come out and say i suspect ill be indicted. Even if they turn down plea indictment plea offers which is what we saw in the case of corsi and the documents, he turned
over, they may very well accept post indictment plea offers once theyre both indicted and have a bunch of charges. Holy cow, right now on your screen, that is the federal courthouse in downtown, man had manhatt manhattan. Michael cohen made his way inside and thats where his guilty plea is taking place. Walk us through we just lost carol. Shes continuing to report on this story at this moment. Matt, i do want to dig into the how well Michael Cohen knows President Trump. While they really have gone through separate ways, remember, you can find a clip after clip of Michael Cohen, one of President Trumps most agreesive defenders on the Campaign Trail truly who put that family before all else. Its always interesting to watch when and where the fire wall happens. Theres a point i believe this spring where America Media and
the National Inquirer suddenly said Michael Cohen, hes just a fraud. We have to remind our audience, owned by david pecker who also owns the national enquirer. A longtime friend of trump. Trump was a source for his news outlets for years and years. He also has been tied up in all of this. Don jr. , kushner, all Know David Pecker very well. Almost even before he flipped, as if they knew it was going to happen sooner or later. He certainly knows a lot of things about donald trump. He knows embarrassing things about donald trump because donald trump has behaved in embarrassing ways his entire public life. Theres no chance hes not going to caught trouble with the prosecutor getting him in there. There have been other fire walls too. Mannen for t m mannafort. Why do these people if you want to speak to the president , you cant call 1800white house. You go on cable news. He said manafort, hes a congenital liar. He didnt have that much to do with the campaign. Lets remind our audience, he was the campaign chairperson. Specifically at the Republican National convention. When trump secured the nomination. So dont let anyone ever tell you that Paul Manafort was a shortterm volunteer on the campaign. When the walls are closing in this way and some of these people are turning on each other. Corsi was kind of turning on roger stone yesterday here. We know theres a bunch of people who are kind of clisters
out there, dlisters, who is going to behave badly. Theyre going to get larry claimant to defend them. Tell us who that is. Hes the ahead of Judicial Watch which has done important work getting information from administrations and that kind of stuff. But you dont get a protrump guy to be your criminal defense attorney. You hire him to send a message to the president. When all these people turn on each other, thats one thing. Theyve been longterm kind of political hatchet men. Michael cohen has been there with donald trump forever and knows a whole lot of things including about ordeals we havent yet been looked at as far as we know by the Special Counsel so that is a source of much more worry i believe for the president than most anything else. Okay, so glen, put yourself in Rudy Giulianis shoes. Hes had a lot to say to the
media. Hes kind of laughing things off, saying mueller is a joke, defending the fact that he and manaforts team has been defending themselves all along. When i found out he was legally allowed to talk to manaforts team, i thought it was pretty clever too. Today this moment, what is Rudy Giuliani thinking . Because Michael Cohen actually knows more than rudy does about what really goes on in the house of trump. Mueller will not respond publicly. Hell respond in court by dropping ironclad indictments and charges on people that are close to the president and who can give the president up. I think mueller is not the type to laugh but figuratively speaking, hes going to get the last laugh. I wouldnt be so quick to sell him short on the fact that manafort was twotiming with the president s team because it could be that manafort told the
Mueller Investigation, look, the president didnt know anything in advance of the Trump Tower Meeting. Then what happened . Manaforts attorneys go and report that to trump. Then trump says, oh, yeah, thats right, i didnt know anything about the Trump Tower Meeting in advance of that meeting. If mueller can prove thats false, you know what hes just done, he has caught manafort and trump and i hate to say potentially their legal teams in yet another conspiracy to cover up and on stress justice. So i wouldnt sell mueller short on manaforts shenanigans. Day in, day out, people keep asking the question, whiy the president is so kind, only says positive things about putin, when the president is willing to take swings at absolutely everyone. There remains question after question, what are his business or financial ties to russia or
russia oligarchs . As big as his portfolio has been over the years, he has been doing business with no u. S. Banks. No u. S. Commercial bank willing to take on President Trump and his business as a client. He was doing some business with Deutsche Bank that has lower lending standards than those other banks. I know that, i worked there for eight years. Deutsche bank, the one bank that stayed in russia after their crew sis. Crisis. What we learned this morning is he has pled guilty to lying to Congress Related to statements he made about a potential project to build a Trump Tower In Moscow. Me lied about the scope and length in his involvement in such a deal. We know that deal never came to fruition. The fact that for many, many months the president and his team said we have absolutely no deal in russia, we have no financial ties. There was never any plans. Then they change their story after it was reported maybe there was some tuck of it but it was really dismissed as sort of this Pie In The Sky idea that never turned into anything. Well, it sounds like here, given what Michael Cohen is now agreeing to or Pleading Guilty to, he, in fact, lies about what those plans were. This is pretty big. This is huge. Im trying to put it all together, these various pieces. We were trying to wrap our minds around the report about manafort and his connection to wikileaks and assange next what door, questioning the sources. Now we have to wrap our mines around corsi tom winter is on the phone with a special report. Aloe cuted and pled guilty to a single count on making a
false statement. Those false statements regarded the moscow project. I believe that is the project that involves a possible hotel to be built in moscow. Cohen told the court he made false statements about the project. The timing of the project. He told the court he did not travel to moscow. He also said he made false statements regarding discussions with people in the trump administration. In the allocution, if this individual one is donald j. Trump, he said his false statements had to do with russia contacts. With this project. He said there had been statements made, discussions for the moscow project ended prior
to the iowa caucuses. He said that is not correct. Additional said he took steps to discuss travel to russia with the president. In addition, Michael Cohen said he made these statements out of consistent political messaging and out of loyalty to trump. He said he spoke to somebody in the press secretarys office in the kremlin. The first time here donald j. Trumps name has been named in open court, and this all had to do with the moscow project. One of the major headlines is discussions about that project continued into 2017. We dont know if this was in the transition or after the president had been inaugurated. We learn more about not only cohens statements to congress but in addition to that, Michael Cohens involvement in this moscow project and those
discussions continued into 2017. Holy cannoli. I want to bring in ken dilanian. What tom just walked us through was stunning. The fact that Michael Cohen is now saying that discussions had between cohen, the Trump Organization and russia about a potential project to build a Trump Tower In Moscow didnt end prior to the campaign but continued into 2017. Did i hear that correctly . You did. That is really incredible. This trump tower project, i feel like it gets forgotten among the torrent of news. Slow it down and remind us. This was a project that was undisclosed during the campaign. That the organization were
proposing to build a Trump Tower In Moscow. Enlisting the support of the putin government. Emails where saders talking about getting Putin On Board and building a relationship between trump and russia through this project. None of this was disclosed at the time. Before, we had thought it was only going on during the republican primaries. Now we know it was ongoing well beyond that and people were lying about it. This is a dramatic development, does not portend well for the president. I realize this sounds absurd but im putting myself in team trumps camp. That what happened in they response with, listen, the president was new to politics. It was a long shot he was going to win. There was a parallel strategy going on all along that had he not won, he was going to continue with his Real Estate Business. Then what . Well, of course, theres nothing illegal about continuing with a Real Estate Business. First of all, donald trump denied during the campaign that he had any business ties to meanwhile this project was ongoing and being proposed. Secondly it remains to be seen where this figures in the dealings between russia and the trump team, if any, the outreach and the election interference. Thats an unknown. It stands to reason that mueller knows and that Michael Cohen is having a lot to say about that right now. But that is an unanswered question that i think is very important. Ken, i want you to stay there. I want you to bring tom winter back in. Tom, you just broke that down in your special report. Im stunned. Im stunned by the fact that Michael Cohen is now admitting that he and team trump were lying about communications they had. He specifically names donald trump about information he had regarding this potential project to develop a trump tower in
moscow and the fact that these conversations continued through 2017. Are we going to learn why they lied . Because if they were to make the argument President Trumps personal business, his Real Estate Business was in one side of the building and him running for office was on the other side of the building, they would have to explain why they lied about it. Youre right, stephanie. At the moment, i dont know if were going to get that. We havent seen the criminal information, which is the document that Michael Cohen pled guilty to. We only know specific points today and those are the points you heard me bring up. So at this point, we dont know kind of the backstory, which is what i think youre referring to, as to why these discussions continued and why discussions, Michael Cohen said that discussions that he had with somebody in the press office in 2016, that that discussion was not either brought up or false statements were made about it. Hopefully, we will get court
paperwork, when that Court Paperwork comes out, the person listed in there is individual one. We know that is the president of the United States. Thats the first time, really although Michael Cohen directly implicated the president in his earlier crimes and guilty plea here in new york this past summer in august, this is a new development in him specifically naming the president and now we see the president referred to not by name but we see the president referred to in federal Court Documents. I think thats a significant development. I think another thing here, stephanie, is that this case is brought by the Special Counsels office. The Special Counsels office team was here. And i understand that Michael Cohen tom, we see him walking out now. Its a little windy down here i want you to walk over there tom. Stop talking to me, take your microphone and try to speak to Michael Cohen and see what he says. The reporters are surrounding him. Lets listen in to see if hes answering questions. Reporter michael, how are you feeling today . Not answering any questions. I want to bring carol back in from the Washington Post. Take us back in time and give us a bit of a history lesson. President trump said in 2015, 2016. I remember when he sat down with lester holt and said i have no financial ties with russia. Im not investing any money there. The game is that the russians have the dough, you have the brand. So the president was very, in his mind, carefully or cleverly wordsmithing it, that he was not ever investing in russia. But he was also alluding to the point that there was never any deal to happen. Now, that has changed. Why does it matter so much . I think the reason that this is such a big deal, that Michael Cohen is pleading to lying in the mueller case and lying to congress about this is that if Michael Cohen says i lied when i said we didnt have a Business Deal going, then that means that President Trump was lying. Remember President Trump said i have zero investments in russia. When you put together the pieces of this crazy mosaic, cohen and sadr were pushing hard on a moscow trump tower. Of course, the Trump Organization, the way they do this, they just license it. They dont put a lot of money in. But the branding is important and valuable to trump. He gets millions of dollars for every one of these licenses. So its valuable to him. In 2015, these two people, cohen
and sader are discussing, how can we get putin to say nice things about donald trump, the candidate . Its like an intertwining of his business and his candidacy. And if he if cohen is saying he lied, then that means trump lied. And thats how business gets done. We have to remind our audience, Vladimir Putin isnt just a government leader. He is one of the richest men in the world. In places like russia, oligarchs are very closely tied, intertwined with the government. Ha Vladimir Putin wouldnt be that wealthy if he wasnt in the position that he is. When President Trump went bankrupt four times it wasnt just because he was licensing his name. Licensing his name is when he figured out the gold because he wasnt actually taking any risk. When he was actually putting his money into developing projects, thats when they went belly up. When he figured out the value of his brand, and thats from being a reality star and a known
personality for 30 years, that brand is what made him the money. And he wasnt really taking the risk. Those who are developing the projects and putting the money behind it were taking the real risks. I want to bring Danny Cevallas in on this. You havent weighed in yet. Michael cohen testifying before congress, but one thing these people often lie about are finances. They feel if they dont reveal the full story or give half truths, no one can find out where their money is parked, wherever it may be. It seems thats what were looking at here. Not only where their money is parked but who they owe money to. Who they are financially involved with, especially donald trump still is in debt Deutsche Bank has a loan out to him to the tune of 300 million. Thats Jared Kushners banker. Its not just where they have their money parked but who they owe money to. Thats right and you look at
the mandate of Special Counsel mueller. First time muellers team has brought charges against Michael Cohen. The prior charges were brought in the Southern District of new york by the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District, charging crimes related to Campaign Finance. But the mere implication of these russians has a very Significant Impact because it tells us that this is within Special Counsel muellers mandate. It may not be directly related to collusion or conspiracy to commit computer fraud, whatever the case may be, but it does relate to the mandate, which is investigate anything arising out of Russia Collusion and prosecute anything that you find therein. And that seems like it fits nicely within the mandate. Nicely or as a complete disaster, depending on which way you look at it. As a defendant, a disaster. As a defendant, certainly a disaster. I want to bring hans nichols in
at the white house. Hans, the president is set to department for argentina for the g20 meeting any moment. No doubt he will be surrounded by you and other reporters. Do we think hes going to say anything . I mean, he has to have some reaction to whats going on. Reporter the president before he gets on a long flight like this typically does talk to the cameras. I just heard marine one. It went quiet on the south lawn which means the president could be walking out and talking to reporters at any moment. Really the challenge for him is how does he put distance between himself and the man that was his righthand man for so often. We all remember that Air Force One comment when he was asked about one of those payments, i believe, to Karen Mcdougle and said you would have to check with michael about that. That was michaels deal and Michael Cohen later sharing the tapes in september of this year where trump was clearly aware of that payment. In the past, i believe in april, the president said cohen just did a tiny bit of legal work with him. That right there, doesnt this change the characterization of President Trumps relationship with Michael Cohen . He has tried to downplay it and minimize it. He did a little bit of business with me. Michael cohen is changing that narrative in a big way. I doubt there will be emails because President Trump doesnt use email but cohen is telling a different story and hes naming the president. The president makes a pattern of trying to distance himself with former aides who are cooperating or pled guilty. You remember what he said about Paul Manafort, he was briefly involved when, in fact, he was Campaign Chairman for almost a year. The idea that the president is going to put some space, its something he does. I am going to leave you for this hour. What an hour this has been. Michael cohen has now left the federal courthouse in Downtown Manhattan and arrived at 9 00 a. M. This morning where he pled guilty to lying to lying to congress