Form of premeditated collaboration or attempted collaboration with a hostile foreign power in the middle of its attack on american democracy. Youll remember the meeting was in june of 2016, but we didnt learn about it until the following summer. The Campaign Never spoke of it nor the participants nor the Transition Team nor later the white house or the president. No one said anything until the New York Times broke the story last july. And when people did talk, the First Response was to be misleading about what was discussed and to loudly make the claim thats being disputed tonight that the president knew nothing about it before, after, and even a year after the fact. Did you tell your father anything about this . It was such a nothing, there was nothing to tell. Look, here is what happened. Donald trump jr. Put it all out today. Its all out. Did you know at the time they had the meeting . No i didnt know anything about the meeting. Lets focus on what the president was aware of. Nothing. He was not aware of the meeting. It must have been a very unimportant meeting because i never even heard about it. Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Recollection and his understanding of it. And what jay did was he immediately corrected it. And even had been under oath, he would call that recanting. And its jay, not the president. So thats the wisdom of not having a president testify. Its one thing to do it with a lawyer. Its another thing to do it with your client. Got it . Make sense now . The president s defenders cant seem to keep their story straight about the bogus story the president concocted about the meeting that they were misleading about after concealing for a year. Thats one side. On the other side, the president s Turncoat Attorney who might or might not be telling truth about his serially less than honest client. Thats where we are tonight. And so is this. A few years to the day stood up and said this to the country he is now accused of colluding with. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be
rewarded mightily by our press. As we said, the president left town without answering questions about this or Anything Else, which does not mean there was no news at the white house today, just the opposite. Cnns Abbey Phillip joins us now. Has the white house any official responsible this Trump Tower Meeting . They have not. The white house has not offered anything in the way of clarification about many of the comments you played there made from the podium by the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee sanders. And the president , as you just mentioned, left town without making any statements at all, leaving this as simply his word against his former lawyers. But the president tried this morning in a tweet to preempt questions from reporters by saying, denying the storying, saying he did not know anything about this meeting with don jr. And those russians. But he does not want, clearly, to answer any questions from reporters about it at all, and that is not really how this works. The white house wont submit to any sort of inquiries at all from white house reporters about and abbie, do i have my math right . Are we on day three now without any answers about lies exposed by the cohen tape . Thats exactly right. Three days of the president not saying anything about it, being asked about it. The white house also being asked about it, referring questions to the president s outside lawyers, and also, i should note, anderson, not having any White House Press briefings to answer any Press Briefings at all. Sarah sanders last briefing on monday. The white house has only had three Press Briefings all month. This is the white house retreating from inquiries about all of these controversies swirling around this president. They dont want to talk about it, and theyre not giving reporters opportunities to do it. When they are pressed on it, they are lashing out at reporters, as weve seen this week. The white house is really leaving this out in the open, allowing these questions to continue to swirl around this president. Three Press Briefings in a month, wow. Abbey philips, wow. The damage he could do and some of the other evidence he we can look to determine who is telling the truth here. Carl bernstein, who shares the bylines from the scoop and has been there before. And maggie haberman, and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. I mean, maggie, its, again, this odd situation where this is a story involving two people who are not known for their truth telling. Right. I think its interesting looking at that cascade of things, statements from Rudy Giuliani, who is the president s current lawyer. People who get around donald trump tend to take on his personality. This has been a habit that we have seen through the campaign. We have seen it through his career in business. I think when Michael Cohen was working for donald trump, he said things that were not true. I think you see Rudy Giuliani now saying things that are not true. Giuliani told us of that tape of Michael Cohen and donald trump, that it was, quote unquote, exculpatory. He described a series of events on this tape that did not quite play out once you heard the
audio. And so i think that you are seeing giuliani try to pit trumps credibility against Michael Cohens and suggest that trump will win. You cant there is a problem, and this was the issue for them during the campaign. The corrosive lying and the Corrosive Distorting and the corrosive lack of telling the truth, it does have an impact at a certain point. Right. And you cant just keep saying to people youre not hearing what youre hearing. Now, look, Michael Cohen contradicted himself, i think. I think he said something a little different to congress about the Trump Tower Meeting and he will have to deal with that if he gets called by Robert Muellers investors. I do think when you look at aggregate what this white house has said, the myriad of things. I never get over jay sekulow saying the president was involved in drafting the report. He may not have been told the truth. But this is the problem we hear over and over again. Well, this is the president saying author is this client saying. Then quit or dont parrot it if you dont believe it. We will see what gets said to
federal investigators. It is a crime to lie to them. Michael cohen has not yet been contacted by them as far as we know. How that plays out remains to be seen. Jeff, donald trump, the president has never under oath about this meeting. So there is no law he would have broken. If he is lying, he is just lying to the American Public and reporters. Correct. Although donald trump jr. May have a problem because he under oath to Congressional Committee said he did not discuss this with his father in advance. So if Michael Cohen is telling the truth, donald trump jr. May have a problem. But its also important to remember why this issue is important. This isnt just some random meeting. This is a meeting between the representatives of the russian government giving dirt, so the Trump Campaign thought, to the leaderses of the Trump Campaign. So every time the president says there was no collusion, i had nothing to do with any russians,
this meeting, if in fact he knew about it at the time, shows that all of those statements, every time he said no collusion, is a lie. So its not just sort of a random lie about the size of the inauguration crowd. Its lying about his involvement with the russian government in the campaign. And carl, if a meeting was squeaky clean with nothing improper, why have there been so many iterations to, you know, to who is there, who knew about it, what exactly took place, what the whole purpose was . Lets be clear about this meeting. This meeting was convened for the purposes of colluding. That was the invitation that was extended to donald trump jr. By mr. Goldstone on behalf of russian representatives to bring dirt to a meeting about Hillary Clinton at the behest of the russian government. It said in the letter of introduction, as it were. So this meeting is unique. It is hugely important, and thus far, from the moment we have learned about it, absolutely every aspect of it has been attempted to be covered up by donald trump and those around him. He has been truthful about nothing having to do with this meeting. Why . Because, indeed, its indicative of collusion. Now, is this the one time perhaps now that mr. Cohen has said this that donald trump is telling the truth about this meeting and that he did not know of it in advance where he has lied about every other aspect of it almost . Its possible, i suppose. But you and others have run through the chronology of what occurred and what he said three days after the invitation was extended and his son knew about it. Yeah. Its very strange, all these coincidences. And its going to get sorted out. And i think thats one of the reasons were seeing donald
trump, according to people around him in the white house, acting so desperately and unhinged in his fury. Maggie, the thing i keep coming back to about this meeting, and probably will repeat this several times tonight is if were if they were to be believed, donald trump jr. Is informed that the kremlin is supporting his fathers campaign, and he chooses and even if Paul Manafort is in that meeting and kushner is in that meeting, he chooses not to tell his fatherer either in advance or after that meeting, this pretty stunning idea, true or not, that the kremlin is supporting your campaign. For such a small organization, a Small Campaign at that point, its pretty hard to imagine. What im not clear so there is a couple of things i would say about that. Its not clear to me what whether cohen is going to say or is prepared to say or has told people that donald trump sr. Was briefed after this meeting or before this meeting took place. And there is a distinction in and heres why. I could see a world as knowing
how people are around donald trump and afraid of incurring his wrath or accused of not being competent or any number of things he says to his nearest and dearest. If you go and tell him that actually this thing did not result in anything, this didnt happen, you are going to get dismissed. So its possible that he was not briefed after. The question was whether he was briefed before. To me that is the big question mark, and i dont know the answer. I think that generally speaking, in that campaign, people did not do things without donald trump knowing. Not everything, but most times. But there is another very important fact that plays into what people knew when, which is Donald Trumps announcement that hes going give a big speech about Hillary Clintons misdeeds involving russia, among other countries. He gives that announcement of the speech when in the leadup to this meeting. Right. The meeting turns out to be a bust, and donald trump never gives this promised speech. How does donald trump decide to gave big speech on this subject without knowing that the Trump Tower Meeting is taking place . And how does he decide to cancel the speech without knowing that the meeting is a bust . Thats a chronology thats very hard to explain. And certainly, carl, what we have seen of this president is hes not great about keeping his cards close to the chest. He does like to promo something. He does like to promote something in advance. Watch for some big things, revelation coming up or big news on a summit or whatever it may be. To jeffs point, its entirely possible that he knew about this meeting and decided to kind of give a little promo. Well, thats what it certainly would look like and appears a perfectly reasonable assumption from what he said. Let me add one more piece of information that i learned in the last few days, not from any source connected to cohen or
cohens attorneys, but this is that there was a weekly Family Meeting convened by donald trump at which he presided over through the whole campaign at which almost everything from what i gather of importance in the campaign was discussed. Now whether or not the meeting mr. Cohen is referring to, assuming that it existed in the way he is talking about it is a Family Meeting, i dont know. But there is a part of the whole Campaign Process in which the family was fully briefed and interacted with one another on all the major happenings in the campaign. Perhaps donald trump kept some things from his children. Thats possible, and from his soninlaw and vice versa. I suppose thats possible too. But we now have a picture of the Family Involvement around this one meeting thats starting to
coalesce in a way that is very distressing. Okay. To Donald Trumps legal team and the people around him. Donald trump sr. Did not attend those meetings. It was always the children. The children just meeting with each other . Correct. And with some of the campaign you mean the Family Meeting . Correct. Thats an important distinction. If were talking about the history of the campaign, that is how that but it was a regular Family Meeting of just the kids . Just the kids and sometimes some campaign aides. I think its also worth mentioning another part of carls story that he wrote with jim sciutto yesterday on cnn. Com. According to cohen, there are other people present at the meeting where he found out that donald trump sr. Knew about the Trump Tower Meeting. Their testimony may be more important than anyone elses, because maybe their credibility is better than Donald Trumps or Michael Cohens. Corroboration is always indispensable when it comes to these swearing contests. Are there emails . Are there texts . Are there tapes or other witnesses who can confirm or refute what Michael Cohen says about this meeting . That may be more important than cohens testimony itself, because his credibility is so damaged. There are a lot of wins for the president , for his Administration Just this week. North korea returning what seemed to be has to be confirmed, remains of u. S. Service members. Certainly economic numbers on gdp growth. All things are good for him, but also this week the cfo of the Trump Organization is subpoenaed and this tape emerged which seems to prove that the president lied about his knowledge about karen macdougals lie. The white house cannot tell a consistent story not just about these issues, but about their own accomplishments. So that is one thing because the president will then tweet Something Like he did this morning. Its not these are distractions and i dont want to talk about this, the way weve seen other politicians do. But we have not talked about the Allen Weisselberg appearance
before the grand jury that is pend, and this is related to the cohen case in the Southern District of new york, and that is a huge deal. Because he knows everything . Everything. He is synonymous with trumps money. So if you are looking at trying to unravel things that could be problematic for donald trump over decades, this is not just over the last year. He was working for Donald Trumps father . He worked for Donald Trumps father. He was involved in the trump foundation. He is involved in the Trump Organization. He is involved in trumps personal trust, the money that was moved over after he became president. And he reviewed the campaigns books at various points. He literally knows everything. I feel like that was the that is getting overshadowed about this talk about what cohen may or may not say. And in reality, the Allen Weisselberg call to a grand jury is an enormous deal. Maggie haberman, carl bernstein, jeff toobin, thanks. Ahead, American Politics and policy, Lieutenant Colonel ralph
peters will have plenty to say about that when we come back. And later two, attorneys, each with skin in the game, clash. Michael avenatti and Alan Dershowitz tonight on 360. Fruits and veggies are essential to your health,
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