Page 1406 - Leverage News Today

Campaign period and until recently, because they knew that he was lying. they knew that he had major business dealings or that cohen on his behalf had major business dealings in moscow during the campaign and that he was lying about that. there may be other things that they know that give them leverage. one question has always been why was the president so obsequious to putin from the beginning of the campaign up to the present day. it may be that its because the kremlin has leverage over the pr...

Mueller exactly whether that leverage was put to use. on tuesday we are due to get a sentencing memorandum about michael flynn who has pled guilty to lying about conversations with sanctions. could shows sanctions have been connected to the business deal, the trump tower business deal that michael cohen and felix sater were pursuing. mueller knows, we dont. well wait until he lays his cards on the table. >> and you said the trump legal team was trying to distance themselves from that deal in mos...

I met with the trump family when i was mayor about building a tower in charlotte, north carolina, including ivanka trump and eric trump an donald junior. this is a typical thing where you have a major developer trying to meet with the leaders of whoever the government is. in moscow, its not against the law for mcdonalds, for pepsi cola, for ford motor company, even for kentucky fried chicken to invest in russia. were making it sound like it was against the law to invest in russia and it was not....

Innocuous leverage. >> the question lied to the american public. he said that he, quote, stayed away from russia, had no business deals with them. well, we now know they didnt stay away. he signed a letter of intent with his name to do business with russia and he had his personal fixture, his lawyer, deal with not just russia, with putins own office. peskov is the right hand to vladimir putin. you go to him, its like going to the white house chief of staff over here. they went to peskov and said...

Not itself illegal, the business dealing, which is yet to be investigated. >> thats right, i think by lie together american public, as he did, and by the fact that the russians knew he was lying, had this never come to light, this would be a classic case of what the russians call compromat. and some call it to what we call opposition research here. but in fact, opposition research is carried out to weaken an opponent. russian does this sort of thing to gain leverage. and that is what they would ...

Arabia. i couldnt care less. i have no dealings with russia. no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia, because weve stayed away. i have nothing to do with russia. i have no investments in russia. none whatsoever. i dont have property in russia. there would have been nothing wrong if i do it. if i did do it, there would have been nothing wrong. >> its kind of hard sometimes to kind of like -- i see you guys both shaking your heads because its like flip-flop. let me ask this...

For us with peskov. nadler actually weighed in on whether trump knew cohen was lying about the trump tower moscow project. watch what he had to say about the president. ill get your reactions after. >> the time when he can get away with lying to the american people all the time and evading accountability is coming to an end. the fact that he was lying to the american people about doing business in russia and that the kremlin knew he was lying gave the kremlin a hold over him. one question we hav...

There was some speculation, kwig as it was, that we would see a return to normal order. that seems like its a done thing. does it provide any leverage? >> here is a reality. the new reality is funding by short term resolutions. we havent had a budget passed in probably a decade. well get to the brink and everyone comes in and comes to some three month extension to carry it in. i think, you know, you guys are right. no incentive to give trump anything. they will not give him a border wall funding...

Kremlin. we dont find out about it until now. is that -- do you have any concerns at all that if the russians knew -- basically we now know they might have had leverage over this president. they knew information that we in the public did not know. they confirm it over the weekend. is that not cause for concern? >> the president is an international businessman. im not surprised he was doing international business. cohen is in trouble for lying to congress, not anything related to the campaign or ...

Describing here which would make this compromise it would seem to be primarily is the lying and conduct of trump and cohen, not the fact that at some point in time someone who is in business sought more business. >> thats correct. and it isnt a traditional compromise in the sense that russians often carry this out which is usually through doctored videos and so forth and so on. it comes about when you end up taking something you shouldnt take, information, sex, money, those are classic russian c...