Page 21 - Core Question News Today

Of facts is simply that there was a direction to contact officials from foreign governments in december of 2016, well into the transition, including russia, to learn where each government stood on, in this example, the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution in connection with israel. >> isnt that when the sanctions or placed? >> sure, but i guess the question is, whats wrong with that? and even if you -- even if you have issues about one governme...

Of jared to try to influence it while president obama was still president obama. why are they always lying about it? thats the question that -- >> i think i can answer that one. >> youve got five seconds. if you can tell me in five seconds. if not, well have to wait. >> in five seconds, it was politically problematic to be acknowledging contacts with russian government officials. and i think what probably went on, which is the danger of every administration is lying because you think that its he...

Happen, the question is why was it during the campaign, after the campaign, in the transition, after the transition that they were trying to be nice to russia. >> all right. so then why? why? why would they lie about this, especially -- >> i think thats -- thats the part -- >> thats the core question. >> -- that looks fishy, which is they were trying to be uncharacteristically nice to russia of all countries in the world, and every time they forgot to mention the contacts on forms, they lied abo...

Things. does it stand to reason that the president had no knowledge of these conversations? and crucially, now that flynn is cooperating with the special counsel, is he prepared to say that the president told him to have these conversations? open question, we dont know. but a very reasonable question. >> when people lie so much, you dont know what to believe. but usually what you end up believing is none of it. so evan perez, walk us through this. what did flynn admit to exactly? >> he admitted ...

Time came for a decision about indictment versus impeachment, my trial team was pretty adamant that we should indict the president. >> fascinating. >> and thought that we had grounds for doing it. >> huh. >> but we also had someone saying impeachment is the right method, not indictment. there is now a ken starr memo that says you can indict a sitting president. so its an open question now whether you could or not indict the president. >> i mean, whats remarkable about this is just that, you know...

In the wake of the first guilty plea and criminal indictments in the russia probe last month, its clear the president still faces potential legal jeopardy on multiple fronts. there are his international bngs entangments, thanks -- the special counsel has already signalled hes not afraid of follow the money indicting paul manafort and manaforts deputy rick gates on fraud and money laundering charges. there was, of course, the presidents decision to fire fbi director james comey in the midst of th...

Thats a year earlier. there is a sense in which hes being cultivated, even before. and hes also central -- jill, the protecting -- protecting flynn is central to what the actions the president takes with respect to comey and then there is the question of sessions. i mean, there is an open question of whether he will take further action towards the department of justice, towards rosenstein or towards mueller to thwart the investigation if it starts getting even closer to him. >> absolutely. and h...

My trial team was pretty adamant that we should indict the president. >> fascinating. >> and thought that we had grounds for doing it. >> huh. >> but we also had someone saying impeachment is the right method, not indictment. there is now a ken starr memo that says you can indict a sitting president. so its an open question now whether you could or not indict the president. >> i mean, whats remarkable about this is just that, you know, we were talking about the smoking gun or the bridge, when yo...

Moving parts and a lot of missing pieces. the russians were trying a lot of different approaches, throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what would stick. im not sure its a beautiful one piece of pasta. >> who knows. we dont know what we dont know. to one -- to miriams point, it does seem to me there was enough in what we do know that the russians could conclude these people will play ball, donald trump will defend our interests in public and probably as president so wed like to see him elect...

Parking the money in there? how much do you have a sense that russian oligarchs who are doing that are sort of in contact with some greater political intelligence agenda? >> i think what you said is absolutely correct, that russians love to buy property in new york and miami and london to park their cash abroad and to have a place to flee. if you are successful in russia, if you reach a certain level of success then you have been blessed by the state. does that mean that you receive orders from ...