Page 14 - Tad Devine News Today

President Biden is seeking to push forward on multiple fronts right away, even as he grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.

Hillary clinton. >> and that is what is significant. they came upon the crimes through the investigation and whats being done here is 23409 about partisanship. tad devine worked for al gore and bernie sanders. it just shows the underbelly of whats done in political lobbying work and campaign work internationally but you have two players here, you have a campaign manager who has these ties and his deputy rick gates who worked on the trump campaign who is now separated himself from manafort becaus...

We expect on the stand today among others daniel rayban. the first witness was another democratic political consultant, tad devine, the chief strategist for the democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders. also on the stand, an fbi agent who is expected to go through the nuts and bolts of what the fbi learned. >> the rocket docket. another big day. joining me now, crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz and former federal prosecutor in new yorks

Presidents judgment that this is among the people he relied upon for advice, including michael flynn and others in the campaign, none of that will be brought into this trial. i sat through a trial of judge ellis in northern virginia and hes a tough guy. prosecutors are not going to make those arguments about the judgment of the president having manafort around because its not relevant to what theyre trying to prove here. >> absolutely. and there is a reason why alexandria, virginia, is called th...

Gates is all to blame here. theyre saying he is the one who stole and embezzled money. theyre saying hes the one who lied. and now theyre trying flip this on the government. rick gates will be the governments star witness, but the defense team is saying how can he be your star witness? rick gates is an admitted liar and he is now cooperating with the government. >> whats next for the trial? what happens tomorrow? >> just day one, weve already seen a lot. but day two were expecting that the prose...

Called, what does it tell you about how this trial is going to proceed? >> its going to be two weeks rather than three weeks. i just have no doubt this trial will go faster than expected. thats how it always works in the eastern district of virginia. and its a place where prosecutors win almost all the time. it is known as a very pro-prosecution jurisdiction, and given the facts of this case, i think manafort is just in a world of trouble. >> but jeff, the judges want prosecutors the steer clear...

Anything russia-related. that -- is it the elephant in the room there for the jurors? or can they do that? >> i have a lot of confidence in jurors in matters like this. the real problem for paul manafort here is there doesnt appear to be any evidence that he paid his taxes. i mean, he got all this money. it was stashed in these foreign bank accounts, and the taxes werent paid. now like most people who are accused of a crime with a cooperating witness, hes going try to put all the blame on the co...

It rarely works, but it sometimes does. and -- you know, but its just going to be difficult to persuade the jury that somehow rick gates is responsible for the fact that paul manafort made millions upon millions of dollars and didnt pay his taxes. >> jennifer, do you agree that that defense strategy, trying to pin it all on rick gates, who is a cooperating witness, thats basically the kind of defense 101? >> it is. it is exactly. the problem here is that rick gates, of course, was not cooperatin...

So hes got a really bad card to play, yet he is still playing it. it all begs the question, why. why is he not trying to get some bigger deal done with robert muellers team. and i dont know if there are great answer to this other than he is waiting for potentially a pardon down the road. >> and josh, weve already had the first strange bedfellow in the first witness. tad devine, he of the liberal left, he of the kerry campaign, the bernie sanders campaign, what was he doing testifying in this tri...

Their way to keep trump out of the trial. abc news reports that prosecutors have been coaching their witnesses not to mention trumps name or even that manafort lives in trump tower. the judge in the case has warned that bringing up manaforts ties to trump could unduly influence jurors. there is at least one thing about this trial that is important to the relationship between paul manafort and donald trump. the first witness today was tad devine, chief strategist for bernie sanders an presidentia...