Page 5 - Con Manafort News Today

Senator richard bloomenthal live on manafort and the other big story, democrats saying theyre making progress on holding brett kavanaugh accountable. were back in 30. brett kavanaugh accountable. were back in 30 welcome back, the other big story tonight, abc news reporting, and this is for the first time, former trump campaign chair paul manafort has reached a plea with special counsel bob mueller. as i mentioned nbc news has not confirmed this report yet. its all unfolding right now.

>> well, we live in the united states of america. youre presumed innocent until proven guilty. we believe the government cannot meet that burden. >> source close to the defense told fox news that they want to keep the focus on manaforts former business partner, rick gates. this is the governments star witness and they want the focus to be on questions about gates credibility as a star witness for the government rather than on their client and as a final note, manafort faces a second prosecution ...

They used money from from cypress. those facts are really relevant to the overall question of russian influence on manafort and gates if not trump campaign directly. so those are the things that i would really pay attention to. this isnt just about a bunch of grifters running around the international consulting scene. this is about russian money and being deeply in debt to russian figures some who were connected allegedly with russian intelligence. >> every time the prosecution tries to introduc...

Joining me "washington post" national security reporter develin barrett. he is the author of that piece in "the post." back with us, former u.s. attorney joyce vance. what should we expect this week? >> i think this is going to be where both sides go pretty hard at each other. the prosecutors, because they think rick gates really puts all of the blame for this on manafort, and the defense because they think that rick gates is a weak enough witness, a witness who brings so many problems to the ta...

Week of robert muellers star witness is set to take the stand. we are talking about rick gates, manaforts right hand man. hes expected to testify before his former boss. his testimony is expected to focus on square ly on manafort business practices. gates stayed on the trump campaign even after manafort was pushed out through the election and during the early days of the trump presidency. ken dilanian is joining me now back home. lets talk about rick gates here, what we think hes going to say? >...

Conspiracy and manaforts lawyers have already worried that he cant be trusted. looking back on history, who was treated worse? alfonse capone, legendary mob boss and killer public enemy number one? or paul manafort? where is the russian collusion? the white house wont weigh in on manaforts innocence or guilt. >> i dont believe thats the presidents role to play, he believes he is treated unfairly. >> jurors just heard the word trump for the first time, when a contractor mentioned his place in tru...

Ofar things about hillary. >> laura: the headlines, cnn, don, jr., admits he was looking for dirt on hillary. >> and they werent looking for dirto. on donald trump? there is nothing illegal about that. even if it comes from a russian or german, doesnt matter. and they never used it is the main thing. they rejected it. if there was collusion with the russians, they would have used it. >> laura: do you think in the end when you look at all the main flash points, trump tower meeting, stormy daniels...

Probe even start? very important question. even going up into the special counsel, rosenstein writes in a pointing order appointing mueller, it is defective on its face.ef what is he due in august? s he writes a secret addendum, a new appointing order, and they redacted most of it. they would not show the federal judge. >> sean: after they rated the manaforts home. the timing is backwards and that shows corruption. rosenstein also signing off on that ridiculous fisa application renewal, as did s...

Heres what he said. >> when you look at the flash points, the trump tower meeting, the stormy daniels payment, the raid on manafort, the rain on cohen, is there one part of that that concerns the other parts? >> yeah, their inability to reach a conclusion that is obvious and inwillingness to recognize the damage this does to our country. this was engineered by comey. >> sean: well have more on this with joe and lauras fill interview with rudy that airs after this program. on the foreign policy f...

Hillary. i believe almost anything about hillary. i say get rid of them. >> laura: the cnn headlines said they were looking for dirt on hillary clinton? >> and they were not looking for dirt on donald trump. when i ran, they were looking for dirt on me every day. thats what you do. maybe you should not. but you do it. there is nothing illegal about that. even if it comes from a russian or a german or an american, it doesnt matter. they never used it. thats the main thing. they rejected it. if th...