Playing well, theres concern about a potential recession. Stock market. Stock market. Thats when the people go wait a minute, im washing my hands of this guy. But when does donald trump ask him enough . When does that happen . Well, i have to say enough. I already stole a little bit of ari for a few minutes. Tom, mimi, frank, daniel, cornell, carol, the brady bunch. It does feel that way. Thank you all, well be back with more mpt daily. You know what sunday will be about. Meet the press on nbc. Ari melber picks up the coverage. Ari, good luck. Chuck, i want to hold you over if you have a second. Go for it, ill take it. Theres been talk about political synergy from this new mueller filing. We have new synergy and well pick whereupon youre leaving off. Thats my comment. My question is take a step back from the law. What do you think it means for america when you see a filing,
you see the news today out of new york, the feds are saying the president of the United States directed a campaignrelated crime by his lawyer . I think were going to learn in the next couple of weeks how much power the president has over this supposed 35 or 40 of the country. We know a good 30 to 40 of the country lives in another world, has an alternative reality at times of what facts are and what are alternative facts, to borrow a phrase. I will be curious. These are legal facts. These are done by a republican named bob mueller. Im curious to see how much it penetrates. Keep an eye, though, on some Senate Republicans here. The first ones to peel would be them. Keep an eye on folks like marco rubio in particular. Those would be sort of what i would call the center of the republican conference. If they start breaking from the president , watch out. Right. Well be watching all of that
and well watch you on sunday. Chuck todd nice to see you tonight. Thank you, sir. We have the breaking news that i was discussing with chuck. Bob mueller revealing Michael Cohens crimes as well as new details on his ties to russia with federal prosecutors in new york dropping the hammer and calling for substantial prison time. Lets get right to it. Two major Court Filings out tonight, one from bob mueller who said Michael Cohen has been helpful in his russia investigation and one from the prosecutors in new york who say cohen still deserves years in jail farce criminal mindset that allowed him to basically commit a host of crimes. All of this is a week before a judge sentences cohen for all the above. Lets look at the latest in the mueller filing which i was discussing with chuck todd. Bob mueller says hes not taking position on how much time Michael Cohen should serve but he does note that cohen first came into his office, to bob muellers investigators, and
lied to them. Not just about anything but lied specifically about money that cohen, trump, and we know Felix Sate Sater were trying to make in russia. Hes now saying that cohen has tried to mitigate those crimes and that he told the truth about russian attempts to reach the Trump Campaign dating back to 2015. Also russiarelated matters, as mueller puts it, that are, quote, core to his investigation. Mueller says cohen learned about all of these things because of his, quote, regular contact with Company Executives a tantalizing reference to unnamed people in the Trump Organization. It could be employees, it could be family members. While mueller says cohen has been helpful, these federal prosecutors in new york are not impressed. Moments ago and it is a thrashing. They say Michael Cohen only gave up basically at the end when he
had few other choices. They hammer him and they note he wasnt ever actually formally a cooperating witness, that he didnt do everything he could have done and new york prosecutors note he also committed four distinct federal crimes. They say in their version of the case that he was motivated by personal greed, that he used his own power and influence for deception and that his actions were all a larger pattern of deception that basically perm nated his entire professional life and they note where the law comes in, that federal guidelines would come for someone who committed the offenses about 63 months in prison and they say while he should get a little bit of credit for what he did do on cooperating, he shouldnt get much. They call for four years, what they call a substantial term of imprisonment. All of this as were learning about Michael Cohen, bob mueller, just now this hour, filing another big, big document you may have heard about. This is for paul manafort, the former Campaign Chair and the, quote, crimes and lies that mueller says justify them
exploding his entire plea deal. That document, i can tell you, has been filed under seal which means as of this hour we dont know whats inside it. But what we do know, its already a big day for bob mueller. I want to get to it with maya wily, a former counselor to the mayor of new york and a civil prosecutor in the same Southern District of new york. John flannery, a former federal prosecutor and as part of our Special Coverage, Nancy Gertner who served as a federal judge and brings that perspective to all of what were learning today. Shes a professor at harvard law school. Welcome to the panel. Maya wily, what do you think is most important in what mueller is choosing to say and why your former colleagues at sdny are coming down so hard on Michael Cohen and why they put in there that President Trump directed one of Michael CohensCampaign Crimes . I think you just said it, ari. I think whats relevant here is you have a one, you have a document that makes very clear that there have been significant
contact between those in trumps sphere and russia. We actually already knew that. What we see now is the reverse side of it, meaning we have a long history between George Papadopoulos beginning with George Papadopoulos in March Of 2016 who understand his job as connections to the russians and communicating with the Trump Campaign but we also learned that the Trump Tower Moscow deal was happening and in 2015 the russians were directly reaching out to the trump world. So we already knew that there was lots of contact with russia even before this document. What were seeing is theres more we didnt know about. That we also know theres going to be a continued investigation
and the fact the manafort filing has been redacted. In terms of the Southern District, its clear. What theyre saying quite frankly is, look, this guy didnt Do The Right Thing and by the way he was a lawyer. His obligation to Do The Right Thing was heightened and he came in, he was not really he didnt formulate a cooperation agreement, he didnt agree to talk to us about things that may be crimes that he was not already pleading guilty to and that should bring us right back around to the Trump Organization investigation that theyre still conducting. Nancy, im thrilled that we have the benefit of your expertise tonight because this is now going right into judge lane. How does a judge take these two very different recommendations, moou mueller saying he lied but he
helped, you figure it out and the sdny where where maya worked is saying this a bad dude, hes a liar, he deserved about four years. What does the judge do . The judge will have two alternatives. On the one hand this will be driven by this is a drain driven by the prosecution because its the mueller part that is the big question mark. If it were just the Sdny Part Cohen would get time and the question is how much. The mueller part is whats driving it. Now the fallacy of all that were talking about is even if cohen were sentenced tomorrow to, you know, four years, three years or whatever variation that is, hell continue to cooperate with the government. The government has the ability to file as you know whats called a rule 35 motion after the fact seeking a reduction in the sentence. So while this didnt happen in a very orderly fashion with him
being a cooperating witness, the rule 35 will continue to hang over him and would lead to an adjustment. Do you think a judge would give him years . You know, ive been speculating all day. I think a judge will give him years in the face of the in the face of the sdny recommendation. I dont think the judge will give him four years. Its before a very tough judge. This judge has not been lenient on white collar offenses and if you look only at the four corners of the sdny stuff, you would say, you know, because of the amount of money involved that this guy would get some years. But i say thats speculating because what will happen is the government can the court can impose a sentence and basically stay the sentence, he continues to cooperate with mueller and there can be a subsequent adjustment. Sure, but this is real stuff. This is not papadopoulos time,
john flannery, this is the contemplation of real crimes, real felonies. I just want to underscore, well cover this in a couple ways but i want to underscore its not normal, its not an everyday event to have prosecutors go into court and say we proved this campaign crime. This person admitted to it and it was done at the direction of the sitting president of the United States. Your view of that piece of this tonight . Well, thats significant. I mean, theres almost nothing comparable since watergate with this and to have a lawyer coming forward follows thapar electrical. But the thing thats interesting here is you have a good guy bad guy presentation versus the Southern District and the Southern District gave tough language. And i agree they can come back and revisit it, but they dont
want to reward somebody who sort of cabined off what he was prepared to do there. Now, on the other hand, we have the statement by the Special Counsel basically praising his cooperation despite his lices, despite who hessia is. How do we justify that as a Justice System . Well, they group together. Sounds like you dont know. I thought you had an answer, john, but then you said birds of a feather. Birds of a feather. I think of birds of a feather. Not eagles, perhaps, but birds of a better. Thats my answer and we see theres been if you look at his history of lawyers mr. Trump, we go from roy cohn and mr. Cohen and we dont have as good a lawyer as roy cohn to do the terrible and evil things he did in the past. I would revise your remarks and let you build on them. I think what you have is someone
who is as clearly criminal and deceptive as roy cohn but less effective in the sense of getting away with that. That goes to what i want to ask my prosecutors about. Fascinating narrative that goes beyond what we knew two hours ago and im reading from the documents. I hope folks will bear with me. The first time they talked to him was on august 7, quote, on cohens request and they said cohen provided relevant information to parts of the probe but then because they knew what they were doing when they sprung on him questions about the moscow project they write, quote, cohen provided false answers in what he later explained was an effort not to contradict his congressional testimony which we now know was perjury. John flannery, what does that tell you about the way they gathered and squeezed cohen and the way theyre revealing it now . I think theyre revealing it so we know what theyre dealing
with and that they have the advantage to press him to tell the truth by taking his Tape Recordings and his letters and emails and the other witnesses they had to talk about him and to confirm what he had to say. Also in there, they say, that we have by other means confirmed what hes telling us and that they were helpful and that he made some corrections even as he was taking to them about matter which gave him credibility as a cooperating witness and the Special Counsel investigation. So i think thats substantial. I think the real question is here is if we have barr, whats going to happen . And when we move from whitaker to barr we have a similar problem in that barr is the same person who when they had the irancontra investigation advised the president to pardon those people that might lead to bush. Youre talking about news that at any other night we would have mentioned but i literally havent yet which is for those just coming home from work on a friday, President Trump announcing a new pick for an
attorney, william barr, who served as Attorney General in a Republican Administration and is widely respected, maya, considered a mainstream conservative legal voice. You might say Matt Whitaker is about as low a bar as you can get when it comes to credentials so im not interested in leaning into that comparison but hes no Matt Whitaker although as john mentions, its possible that what interested donald trump most is the fact that he went along with a group of political pardons, clearly selfinterested in the bush administration. Well get to that later in the show but maya, i want you to weigh in on the same question as john which is why are we learning about the way cohen was brought into the Special Counsel probe tonight in your view . Were getting a very strong, very public signal that there is corroborating evidence. Thats the way i read it. We dont have to just rely on Michael Cohen. He walked in there the
mistake he made, which is not one that a very, very accomplished lawyer would make, by the way, is he walked in assuming he knew what the prosecutors knew and thats the thing you never want to do. He walked in, he was surprised, he wasnt expecting to be asked those questions about the Trump Tower Moscow. He then lied, which was dumb. After that lie and in the remaining six sessions that he had he came clean and thats the kind of complexity of the story were being told. Heres a guy whos a career liar cheat. He was perfectly willing to do it again but like any good solid Prosecutorial Team they had more information. They knew that they had some facts that he didnt know they had. That means they can prove it without him. That means even if his credibility is impugned, they have additional evidence. Which when you put it like that and we just got this so were just making sense of it what youre saying is a very elegant, implicit rebuttal to the donald trump claim that, well, Michael Cohen is saying anything to get out of trouble so he brought this seemingly bad stuff to mueller and theyre chewing on it. Youre saying this footnote elegantly shows no here is the timeline we had a bad stuff. One extra witness but not our primary one. And cooperate with us and youll be in a lot better position than if you dont because were going to get you. I want everyone to stay with me, john. Stay with me, everyone. Theres a whole other filing from Mueller Raurdi Iraurd r manafort. Kende delainian has that. The Special Counsel is saying manafort lied about his interactions with konstantin kilimnik. In previous filings it was said kilimnik had ties to russian intelligence. Theres an individuals name blacked out in the filing and the Special Counsel alleged manafort lied about that. Robert mueller alleged manafort lied about a Wire Transfer to a firm linked to manafort, about another separate Department Of Justice investigation that manafort offered information about and lastly the Special Counsel says manafort lied when he said he wasnt in contact with anyone from the Trump Administration, it turns out he was up until may of this year and because of all of that the Special Counsel has canceled manaforts Plea Agreement and hes facing 15 years in prison. When you look at that line
does that relate in your view or is it possible to say to obstruction or the potentially collusionrelated things since kilimnik is one of the potential russianlinked handlers here . To ken. Oh, sorry. I mean, i think sorry, ari, i thought you were talking to someone else. Im the anchor, im supposed to use names. Thats on me. But to ken dilanian, can you glean what part of the problem that hits . I think kilimnik has been a Mystery Figure in terms of collusion and we dont know his role and it goes to the question of manaforts role in any contacts with russians during the campaign and because of the redactions, we dont see the full picture here. And appreciate your precision. Bringing back nancy and our resident judge. I want to go to what more of mueller has said through the cohen filing because hes getting into the trump tower
de deal. The company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources. Nancy, do you view this as an indication that finances might be at the heart of bob muellers probe, money and not where it started publicly which was about email hacking . Well, i think thats how they got thats why they followed manafort. The litigation over whether or not the Special Prosecutor had a right to go after manafort. One of the things they said is they were following the money. Following the money of the ukraine source to manafort and following the money is what they are doing throughout. But getting back to the sentencing issue. I am reminded that john dean, for example, when he testified
before congress, i believe he did some time for his role in nixons obstruction of justice. So the motion that cohen would get some time, i think this is right, would make some sense. That was apropos of your other question. But be respect to the russian issue, we have to step back, its almost like we thought this case was about flynn, Michael Flynn lying about his contacts with the russians which, when if you recall, sally yates said that was an issue a concern about the russians might be willing to extort from donald trump or it was a way of influencing them because people were lying about russian contacts. So even a failed Trump Tower Project opens the opportunity opens the door to the russians basically exercising influence on all of the trump players because they were lying about
it. And the more significant the contacts are, the more significant and more substan usual the financial dealings were, the more the russians had on him and therefore that raises a whole host of other questions about russian sanctions, etc. So its weve now opened the door much broader to russian influence, not just by dint of lying but by dint of the financial transactions. John, you almost get the feeling that theyre good at this and people with more ethics or more Government Experience may have better resistance and this crew clearly didnt. I think thats true. And, you know, nothing can overcome the greed motive. Until the recent disclosures, i didnt appreciate how much that trump hoped to profit from lifting the sanctions as well as the russians, as well as putin. But because of his investment in this moscow project and because
he was being blocked by the same sanctions that were compromising the autocrats in russia, he had that, not just the white house he wanted to achieve but he had this question of the sanctions lift lifted it benefitted putin and himself. Its interesting to read the manafort document thats been produced and i only have a second to look at it but basically where they say he lied, that tells us what they have thats true and can be proven. And so that is interesting. They say on a couple occasions that he said something and when he was confronted with a fact he changed it and we cant ignore that he is at the same time sending information back to the trump team as to what hes being questioned about in this investigation. So you have him lying and you have option in cooperation with the west wings team representing trump. Thats significant. Thats significant because
theres been a lot of this thats boiled down to Black And White where people think, oh, well, do you go after a sitting president for obstruction or not if thats the only thing and where does that go . But, in fact, as you allude to, john, at a minimum, we now have as of tonight bob mueller putting into the record and into court the two key people, the Campaign Chair and the long time person lawyer both actively came in and lied to him. Now one of them got blown up over it, paul manafort, the other tried to dial it back in Michael Cohen but the question, then, any investigators question becomes what does that fit into at the white house. Who knew about that . Did others know about that . The Fraud Exception will come into play if you have employees of the white house or lawyers committing new criminal conspiracies and this is clearly implicated in here to say nothing of the Campaign Finance crime which is what i want to turn to next. I want to thank nancy for joining us. I want to thank maya, john, and
ken and i may come back to each of you in our rolling coverage so stay close to your cameras. Now i want to bring in neal katyal. A striking deal is that federal prosecutors as i mentioned in the Southern District bring up donald trump in these new filings tonight. They say Michael Cohen not only made illegal payments but they say he made them in coordination and at the direction of Individual One. That is donald trump. Im thrilled as part of our Special Coverage neal katyal joins us and he argues as a legal matter prosecutors have concluded donald trump is on the hook for that felony. Our viewers may recognize you. Theyve served in high parts of the Justice Department. I know when you speak about a felony, you dont do so lightly. To me the big news tonight is not about Michael Cohen, its not about paul manafort, its
about one person, donald trump, and this filing that you just started to highlight that was made today in the Michael Cohen case really does for the first time you have federal prosecutors essentially saying that donald trump committed a felony. This is not a document by mueller. That filed by trumps own Justice Department, by the Southern District prosecutors in new york and there are three pieces to the claim. The first piece is the one you just read which is from page 11 of the filing which says that cohen made these Campaign Finance payments at the Direction Of Trump and were talking about payments made for two women for having alleged affairs with trump and they were going to go public and what happened was cohen paid those folks and did so in a time when youre only supposed to give 2700 to a campaign and thats it for a very important reason. Congress said we dont want rich people buying elections, we want
transparency in our election process so in page 11 the Southern District prosecutors say no, that was done at the Direction Of Trump. Then page 12 prosecutors say the agreements principle purpose was to suppress this womans story so as to prevent the story from influence the election so theyre taking away the Trump Defense which was in the edwards case, i was doing it to protect my private life. Theyre saying no this was done with the purpose of influencing the election then page 23, a long description by the prosecutors of how serious this violation of the Campaign Finance laws are. How it strikes a blow to our democracy. Theres some pretty soaring language in there. You put those three things togeth together, the Southern District federal prosecutors are alleging the president committed a
felony. Theyre not indicting him. He has any number of defenses available to him but thats a document i havent seen in my lifetime. What youre speaking to is the language of direction, youre saying legally makes donald trump in the eyes of these prosecutors culpable for criminal Campaign FinanceViolation Cohen has admitted to . Krekts. Sr. Th correct. Do they do more with that . This is separate from the mueller probe. The idea that trump directed this criminal Campaign Activity . If this were any ordinary individual, prosecutors would be entitled to bring a case. What theyve said here, theyre saying that we have reasonable grounds to believe this and so presumably they have evidence besides Michael Cohens own statement. They have some corroborating
evidence to suggest this happened and they could under those circumstances indict an ordinary person. The Justice Department in two opinions has said you may not be able to indict and try a sitting president. Now there are some disputes about that and maybe indictment, bringing the charges is different so theres one question about what can mueller and the Southern District do in terms of can they indict the president. Then theres a Precedent Realm in terms of what happens in terms of impeachment. The standard is high crimes and misdemeanors. I want to pause on that piece of your analysis because some of this gets into uncharted territory. Are you basically telling us tonight, neal, that if donald trump had lost the election, this is the kind of thing that as a citizen he would be indicted for along with Michael Cohen and its because he won the election which this new filing argues was part of what Michael Cohen thought would help
him win the election was this crime that theres a reward . A bonus . Exactly. Those three statements that i isolated from the prosecutors memo taken together established a federal felony and we have a principle in america that know person is above the law and at this point right now the thing is protecting the president from indictment appears to be not that he is law abiding person, theres a lot here to suggest there is a crime that has been committed and the only get out of jail free card he seems to be holding is the one that says well, im a president , you cant indict me, go home. So youre saying thats a huge deal, it jumped out to me as well in this filing in terms of journalistic rigor and fairness i want to make sure we explore the other side because this is an explosive thing. Were talking about a filing that talks directly to court
about the president being an unindicted coconspirator not just in concept but what Michael Cohen has confessed to, which makes it worse for the president. But on the flip side of the constitutional arguments about indicting, isnt there a defense of the president that he may have been dealing with someone who was overzealous and did this the wrong way . That even if he directed the underlying activity hey, deal with this problem he didnt direct, quote unquote, the criminal intent, meaning hide it, mislead the fec, that kind of stuff to a degree that it became a crime. Sure, the president will be able to try to Say Something like i didnt intend it for Campaign Finance violations, i intended it to protect my family and personal life and this and that. And im saying what the allegations are in the filing of page 12 they say the principle purpose of the agreement was for Campaign Finance violations. If thats true it knocks out that defense. Now its going to be proven in a court, just like any indictment has to be proven in court, but what were looking at is something that very seriously implicates the president directly in federal felonies. And i would ask you how the president might understand this but ill go ahead and share and spoiler alert its not much but hes posting tonight totally clears the president. Thank you. Neal . Yeah, im not sure hes read the filing. So i think if you read three pages of the filing, its a pretty damning document and no one i know would want to be cleared in this way. I have to tell control room someone is holding down the button so im not hearing neal. The audience is getting more of you than i am, neal. Say Something Else or give more
analysis. Now i can hear you. Okay great. I think what the president is, like many people, willfully reading things that hes seeing and saying, oh, you know, this isnt a big deal, im cleared but the words are the words and the words are really darn damning right now and if im the president i am beside myself and frightened. I know the president has capacity for selfdelusion but this is a hard one. Those words are Black And White on the paper. And then while i have you, the other big news is william barr appointed to be the new Attorney General taking over from whitaker. You are in a position to know him and around him and know how doj works. What is your view of that appointment . Its a relief. We have right now a fake Attorney General, someone i dont believe is constitutionally empowered to do the job so anyone the president nominates and gets through
senate confirmation is a step up from what we have right now. Number two, bar is an enormously distinguished qualified person who served as a great Attorney General a while ago, two decades ago. The question to me is not what did he do a long time ago at Attorney General, what are his views now . And hes taken views some have found troubling about the uranium investigation, calling for the president s targets to be investigated and the like. We have to see and figure out whether or not he has changed. Donald trump himself used to be a democrat so people change in two decades and its his Current Record that we have to evaluate and i think on the Special Counsel stuff i can tell you that back in 1999 when we were drafting the regulations, i think he saw eye to eye with the way we saw it which was the independent counsel act, that old statute after watergate was too strong a medicine and had dangerous constitutional
ramifications and that the Special Counsel regulations struck the right balance because they allowed for an independent prosecutor and he testified on the hill and celebrated that idea of an nypd prosecutor sometimes when you have a politically sensitive investigation so at least if his old views are still his views today, thats a heartening step. Its not like what Matthew Whitaker said about the Special Counsel so, you know, my judgment is kind of reserved because i want to see what he said today but his old views were good. Thats very interesting coming from you, particularly at a time when there is a rush, i think, with some reason to criticize what this president does no matter what. Youre looking into the depth of this individual, his record on these issues and hell go through a Confirmation Process which as we all know you often learn new things. Neal, stay with our rolling coverage but i want to show the audience something that goes into the russia part of this. There are key parts of this cohen filing that, as weve been discussing, go into not only how the Trump Tower Project in moscow was being developed and the idea of it being sold but why it was such import to donald trump and his company. Mueller writing in court, new tonight, that it was a, quote, lucrative Business Opportunity that sought and likely required the assistance of the russian government and saying cohen was approached to set up a meeting between Individual One thats trump and, yes, vladimir putin. According to the filing cohen was told this meeting would have a, quote, phenomenal impact not only in political but business dimensions as well and there was no bigger warranty than any project and the concept of, yes, that would be putin. Heres cohen in 2015 talking about a trump putin meeting. Theres a betterthanlikely chance trump may meet with putin when he comes here for the united nations. People want to meet donald
trum trump. Yes, they do. Bringing in u. S. Ambassador to russia, Michael Mcfaul who we asked to call in. Neal katyal still with me for the law and ken dill ly dilania. Ambassador mcfaul, this is a peek into the National Security and counterintelligence premises of the powell is probe. Do they check snout whats your wider reaction to what youre learning . Were Learning Cohen wants to get rich after the elections. And he had been focused on thato get rich after the elections. And he had been focused on that. He had been getting guidance about how to do that. I would concur that if youre trying to do a Big Business Deal in russia, its good to have President Putin as your partner. And its important to remember
that they didnt think they were going to win this election when all these contacts and conversations were happening and Michael Cohen probably never thought he was going to go to the white house. He was always looking to cash in on his personal relationship with the president to do this big deal in russia. I wonder if you would build on that ambassador. You have a sense of how normal government and officials and diplomats run and Michael Cohen was anything but. This was a man who didnt think donald trump was likely to win the campaign although he took acts on trumps behalf and didnt think he was going to end up in jail based on the reckless conduct and yet in a way both those things are on the table. Prosecutors recommending four years, how does that contrast to say the way its supposed to be done when people that might be in your position or are advising president s and campaigns get into this murky world of
becoming targets or becoming of interest to foreign officials. Well, you know, i worked on Barack Obamas 2008 campaign. Lets be clear. You said normal, right . To the best of my knowledge nobody was trying to do Business Deals with foreign governments during that campaign. Thats crazy. Its absurd, nobody would ever do that. And number two lets be clear. We need to learn more but it sounds like the candidate himself was also involved in this, in these deliberations and that would be consistent with other negotiations he had. And number three i want to keep reminding people, ari, you talked about it before, lets remember, the same interlocutors they have in talking about doing what theyre calling in these documents the moscow project are
the same people who are the ones arranging the meeting in june, 2016, to help trump win, allegedly, lets keep adding that adverb, providing some kind of kompromat on secretary clinton to help him owin. Its the same group of russians. Ken dilanian, your view . Just to build on this, the reason that special Counsel Robert Mueller has said that they were satisfied with Michael Cohens cooperation whereas the Southern District was not satisfied is because cohen kooptd cooperated extensively with the russian collusion indictment. And the document says he cooperated about contacts within and around the white house, the Trump White House in 2017 and this year and thats the first mention of the Mueller Investigation reaching into the modern Trump White House as opposed to the campaign. This document makes clear that donald trump lied and i dont use that lightly when he said in his first News Conference as president that he had no contacts with any russians during the campaign. We had a hint of that with the Trump Tower Moscow project but this document says that in september, 2015, trump personally conferred with cohen about reaching out to the russian government and it seems to be related to the Trump Tower Project it seems to be the same individual who offered the Campaign Political synergy and synergy on a government level. Now we dont know from this document what was said, what donald trump said, what cohen said but it looks like cohen was a target of recruitment here by the russians who are trying to infiltrate the Trump Campaign. And the last thing cohen said is he was talking about the circumstances of how he lied to congress and the circumstances of how he gave false testimony to congress. The implication is that it wasnt just Michael Cohens decision to tell those lies. I think theres more to come on that. Thats where the cohen and manafort filings both have clues about the notion that other people have been involved in these things. Other people involved in obstruction conspiracies. Neal, im curious about what you think of this odd use of the word synergy. People think of a meaningless word that is sometimes thrown around in Corporation Meetings like well all be synergistic. Im not aware of it as a huge legal signifier. It seems like bob mueller went out of his way in that filing to refer to an alliance, a synergy between russia and Trump Officials without using the word collusion. Do you read it that way or differently . Thats fair. I dont think this is like mckinzie consulting speak. I think theres something important going on here. Its three things i would look to. Number one, the trump tower meeting in june of 2016 which there have been so many shifting
stories about and today it was reported that at least former mayor giuliani is saying that mueller believes that manafort lied about trumps knowledge and trump had knowledge of that meeting before it took place. That was there on june 30. That was contacted by the russians and fed is this information is what you say it is, i love it and the claim by some has been that trump has said i never knew anything about this, we dont know what he told mueller in his Statement Last week but thats one thing to think about. The second thing is this report that evidently there was going to be a 50 million penthouse for putin that was going to be paid for by trump and so on which would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and as ambassador mcfaul was saying, why is everyone lying about this . Theres so many different lies,
lies from cohen, lies from paurt, lies from people all o r over. This is people who were these are Campaign Officials and trumps personal lawyer dealing with the russians and then lying about it. Not just ordinary russians, but the russian government, the kremlin itself. The American People should have known that before the election and this was hidden. That goes into the Connective Tissue which is Southern District prosecutors say things were hiddfrom the american publy Michael Cohens criminal act which is were Campaign Crimes, no one can replay that and make a difference. Certainly incriminating information about Donald Trumps lifestyle, if you want to call it that, was out there. Then the manafort filing which we are just digesting and some of it i will hold up because it will remind viewers of something weve been doing all week which is some of the hottest stuff
redacted but whats not reacted for your analysis, neal, and i know youre doing this live, is that theres an idea that theres a Construction Conspiracy between kilimnik and manafort. Manafort lies about more than one thing. That he provided, quote, information about a different doj investigation so we see mueller saying heres a trump witness who will be saying Something Else but then that manafort changed his story with that and finally and i wonder if you think what the legal significance of this is whats not redacted is mueller saying that manafort initially claimed he didnt have any type of communication with anyone in the Trump Administration and he never asked anyone to try to communicate a message with anyone in the Trump Administration on any matter. That, of course, is contradicted by Rudy Giuliani and others boasting about their communications and then this in, again, im reading from the new filing, a Text Exchange from may 26, 2018 of this year, manafort authorized a person to speak
with an Administration Official on manaforts behalf. Wopt to i dont want to speculate on. That i want to read it before i have views. Appreciate your precision. Ken and john flannery, if youre still in the chair, were going live with no breaks here, ill put the same question out which is bob mueller to put in the Plain English is saying, john, manafort lied to us and he was in touch. The plot continues, i would say ditto. The thing about the obstruction here is so strong. Everybody is talking about what are they . Theyre consciousness of guilt. We cover it up to the last minute. Even when we pretend to
cooperate, we lie and run away. It is the fox is going to ground and mueller is as close as he could be to ramming speed. I dont know that were going to have a seasonal present but he looks ready to me. And the question is will this be a family plan or the monies they have or will we look at the old gang . Will we have manafort again with his former partner roger stone . The possibilities all seem reasonable and will they all be together. I think this will be a third fact a threepart act. One, heres the equipment we put in place, two, this is how we dispense it and three these are the americans who betrayed their country and compromised us and Foreign Policy is these guys can fulfill their inclinations. John, a lot of it goes to what ambassador mcfaul and others mention which is why are you lying. Manafort is saying he has no contact with anyone in the administration about anything. Thats a far broader claim than you need to make. You can be a defendant and you can talk to a friend who is in government about baseball or policy even if that is your passion and i wont go where your lawyers are talking about so he makes this sweeping denial and mueller busts him and says, no, you were doing in the writing. The arrogance, a text message in may to the administration and then says and im sure that theres going to be nervous people in the white house it says manafort said hed been in communication with a, quote, senior Administration Official through february, 2018 and review of documents demonstrates additional contacts with, quote, Administration Officials. Who are they . Did they ever lie . Well, this is the trojan horse approach. Everything else, he was in a corner. Hes facing a big prosecution in d. C. And he makes a false agreement and a plea at the end of this trail if he does it right hell get a pardon from a questionable source and so he cooperates, he lies when he can and he conveys the information back to the trump people so they can prepare a defense and an attack on the investigation now i cant remember seeing a trojan horse strategy like this certainly in a president ial level. Certainly in such a visible place but the reason we can get at these guys is because theyre not that good at it. They talk publicly all the time, they talk inconsistently. They have strategies Kids In The Street Wouldnt Have and because of it luckily the republic may be saved and maybe some republican senator will find the Backbone Baker found during the watergate thing. Not to make light of it but you only have to get through the first few episodes of season one of the wire to know not to send text messages. John, stay with me. Theres a whole other piece to it. Were not taking breaks, with were in breaking coverage but when you look at the filing on the Southern District of new york, it hammers Michael Cohen for doing the opposite of what he claimed that he was, quote, cooperating but in the new filing we have, prosecutors say he wasnt cooperating enough and thus they represent he should get substantial prison time for extensive delivered in substantial criminal conduct. They detail that. Illegal Campaign Contributions and of course false statements to congress. The prosecutors also rebuke cohen for what they call a criminal mindset that at his own option he is above the laws of the United States. We have our experts back for this. I want to go to maya who has
basically worked in that office. This looks to a lot of people like a stronger rebuke than you might have expected from the federal prosecutors there and they also go out of their way to say their way to sate wasnt full cooperation, maya. I think its an understandable rebuke, quite frankly. As i said earlier, number one, this is an attorney. This is one who took an oath when he passed his bar exam that said he was going to uphold the laws and that he was going to hold the highest level of ethics as someone who was charged with the law. Now what he also did was walked in, as weve said, and he didnt walk in and cooperate. He plead guilty and then started trying to cut a deal for himself that would help him out. There was some indication in some news reports that suggested that he was in fact holding out for a pardon and then kind of felt like he was getting thrown under the bus, so maybe it was
in his best interest to paint a different picture of himself. I think what youre hearing from prosecutors is look, we dont like people who violate the law, particularly when they do it over a course of years, and then come in and try to play us. And i guess the dmx argument on sentencing didnt fly so well with them. They actually make a reference essentially to that argument that somehow he hasnt done anything as bad as some others, and then finally, finally, i think theyre making quite clear while he has cooperated, it really does seem like hes done it in a way that was really about his best interests. Let me just say one other thing about why it was in his best interests. Because the District Attorney of manhattan, as well as the state Attorney General are also investigating what were calling Campaign Finance law violations. Theyre looking at as state tax felonies and possibly misdemeanor crime in falsifying Business Records at the city
level. So what that is really saying is youre not going to get a pardon if they find reason to indict you in this at the level of the city or at the level of the state. Sure. Look, maya, we discussed the dmx defense earlier on the broadcast. It says where my dogs at no it doesnt say that but it does say neal katyal that other Celebrity Types and prominent people have been delinquent on their taxes and some have avoided jail time. Maybe Michael Cohen should get that light a sentence, that light a slap on the wrist. And as maya alludes to, that was wholly rejected in this filing today, starting with the fact that they really lay out that this was not a choice of full cooperation. He was dragged to it by his decreasingly optimistic outlook of what he could get away with. I totally agree with maya,
who is a great Southern District prosecutor and who has done this before. But i think id add one thing to what she said and what youre asking about which is prosecutors today went out of their way to say this Campaign Finance violation is really severe. They didnt have to use all the soaring language they used about the threat to democracy and things like that. So its pretty powerful language. And to me it suggests that they are really steeling themselves and laying down a foundation to say these Campaign Finance violations of which there were two people involved, it was two to tango, Michael Cohen and donald trump are very, very serious. And so i think there is a second piece, a second move on the chessboard thats going on when you look at this filing today. And, again, its not a filing by mueller. Its a filing by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of new york thats extraordinarily significant. And i want to bring in
jennifer rubin and also go to a broader point. Jennifer is a Washington Post columnist and a conservative and a critic of donald trump. I dont want to wax too poetic here, but i wonder if we could begin by noting, jennifer, this is a president who has taken extraordinary measures identified by his own lawyers, some of them as potentially impeachable to try to shut down and undermine the doj and prosecutors and rule of law. I wonder if having gone through a lot of the details tonight, its fitting to turn to you and look at what is working. Career prosecutors doing their job, Career Prosecutors identifying Individual One for directing this, because thats what the facts show. Apparently theyre not afraid of what that means or that donald trump will get in there. They dont have the same buffers that the Mueller Prosecution Team does. And that i should note is the Southern District of new york where donald trump famously invited then u. S. Attorney preet
bharara to trump tower for the very rare and unusual step of having a meeting with the person who is the prosecutor for his jurisdiction, trying to cultivate him, when it didnt work out, firing him. Preet bharara has gone on to detail all of that. Gosh, it looks pretty different now that we know that that is the office that was going to go forward and give a fouryear recommended Jail Sentence to trumps then lawyer cohen and say that trump directed it, jennifer. Right. I think there are about four or five key reassuring things that we can draw from the events over the last few hours. The first is that facts matter, and the facts in this case do not turn on the credibility of a single individual, whether its cohen, whether its manafort. Obviously, the Special Prosecutor as a wealth of information. The Southern District has a wealth of information, documentary, other witnesses, emails, texts. And so facts do matter. Weve gotten so use to saying well, nothing matters because trump makes stuff up. That doesnt work in court
because finally we have the facts that are presented to a court. A judge is going to rule on sentencing. This is the real show. So facts do matter. Secondly, you have a slight difference of opinion here, which Show House Independent that Southern District of new york is. Remember, the Southern District of new york is only involved with cohen on the issue of the Campaign Finance issues. Mueller with everything else. He has perhaps been more helpful with mueller, which is why mueller is willing to be more lenient, but he really hasnt given enough or in the opinion of the Southern District enough to justify a significant reduction in penalty. And so you see these two branches of the Justice Department, which are all under the executive branch, taking slightly different positions. Thats not bad. Thats reassuring. Thats saying people are exercising their independent judgment based upon the specific case before them, which is different, and based upon the facts before them, which is different. So that should be reassuring,
that all this bullying of the Justice Department has really amounted to nothing because people are doing their job and proceeding. I think the third point we should have is that it is going to be impossible i think at this point to either withhold a final report if we ever have a final report and or fire mueller, because what he is doing and what the Southern District is doing are now creating a parallel report, if you will, in the Public Domain through the courts, through these filings. So we are getting to know in realtime the extent of that information. You cant put the genie back in the bottle. You cant put the Toothpaste Back in the tube once thats out there. So in some ways theyve created some protection for themselves. And i think the final thing we should keep in mind is knees people who have been enabling trump, whether its rudolph giuliani, whether its people in the white house who think its fine to lie for this guy, its fine to lie to the public, you can do whatever you want because
your only client, your only responsibility is to trump, those people are in a heck of a lot of trouble, because those people may now be involved in actions which cute obstruction of justice. The Fraud Exception will make it impossible for lawyers to hide behind the Attorney Client privilege. And this should be a warning to people who work in government and to lawyers that you must conduct yourself within the confines of the law. Right. That you have ethical and legal obligations. Exactly. I want to do a Lightning Round with my large mueller friday Brady Bunch Panel here. Yes or no, Lightning Round, yes or no, do the events and filings of today increase the legal exposure of Individual One, donald trump . Yes or no. John . Absolutely, yes. Nancy . Absolutely, yes. Maya . Oh, yeah. Neal katyal . 100 . Jennifer . Oh, yes. Ken dilanian . The answer is yes because this has been the most consequential day yet of the Mueller Investigation. That is quite a Statement Given how many days there have been. I want to give a special thanks to our entire panel and the legal analysis here. And if you are joining us right now, youve been watching The Beat With Ari Melber on a day when bob mueller spoke through speaking indictments and the Southern District of new york spoke. And what we heard were two different stories that intersect with Criminal Activity confessed as well as alleged in the case of confessed and alleged with manafort and obstruction by people tied to the president of the United States. Individual one, donald trump, identified for the first time for directing a campaignrelated felony, a big day indeed. Thank you for watching our coverage. And dont go anywhere because there is a lot more going on and a lot of news developing over the course of tonight. And Chris Matthews has you covered