Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. 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 prosecution will be calling two more witnesses. We expect another democratic consultant who worked with Paul Manafort. Were also expecting to hear from an fbi agent. The prosecution here says that they have a witness list of 35 people that they plan to call, but this trial is really only expected to go three weeks. We saw just how fast this trial moved just in the first day here. So who knows. It could wrap up even sooner. But yes, 35 witnesses of the prosecution is expecting to call. Anderson . Im amazed how fast it moved today. Jessica schneider, thank you so much. We have new reporting now from cnns jeff zeleny, more on the
anything russiarelated. 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 cooperating witness that is a standard strategy. It rarely works. But it sometimes does. And but its just going to be difficult for 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 exactly. The problem here is that rick
gates, of course, was not cooperating until after the charges were filed. They were prepared to proceed without rick gates on board. They have all the documentary evidence. Like jeff just said, these are individual income taxes that Paul Manafort lied about, not to mention some properties on which there was mortgage fraud, had nothing to do with rick gates in the hamptons and in brooklyn. He is going to have a really hard time ping all of this on rick gates, for sure. The push from the president s allies arguing that Paul Manafort was nobody on their campaign, he only worked there for four months, i think the president said 49 days at one point. They can try to put all the distance they want between him and the president , but he wasnt the coffee boy. He was the campaign chairman. I think the smarter tactic here is to remind people over and over these charges have absolutely nothing to do with the campaign. And even the witnesses being put forward have nothing to do with the campaign at all with the exception of the one sidekick that followed Paul Manafort over the last 20 plus years or so of his career. Problems. Those are not donald trump problems. Its harder to blow it out of proportion, jeff, if your title is chairman of the campaign. It seems like a pretty big time. Absolutely. And remember whats charged with. He is charged with taking millions upon millions of dollars from Victor Yanukovych who was the pro putin politician in the ukraine. Ukraine. So its not that this is completely unrelated to the whole russia situation. Remember too that during the convention, they changed the platform toe make the ukrainian section more proputin. So the entire thrust of the trump campaign, which the issue of a conspiracy with the russian interests remains the heart of the investigation, manaforts presence in the campaign is evidence of sympathy to putin in and of itself. So in that respect, its not the criminal charges, but who paul
manafort is, is highly relevant to this investigation. But jeffrey, if i could just jump in real quick, is there some sort of crime that youre accusing the president of . No. Here . No. Im not. But when you are asking why the president had this fixation with Vladimir Putin, which apparently continues to this day, and why Vladimir Putin was so desperate to see donald trump win and Hillary Clinton lose, and why donald trump was asking russians to hack emails, which they did the same day, all of it is relevant evidence to what happened in this campaign. Jennifer, at some Point Rick Gates himself will have to testify. Do you think hell find anything out about will we find anything out about the larger Mueller Investigation from that . You know, the one way that we could is that when a cooperator testifies, the defense is entitled to crossexamine him or
her about all Impeachment Material. So if rick gates did things during the campaign that were illegal or go to his credibility, then prosecutors could raise that and the defense could crossexamine on it. You know, it seems from some of the pretrial motions in litigation that the word russia i guess one of the prosecutors said probably wont even be uttered. So it sounds like they dont have that kind of Impeachment Material that they need to front and that manaforts lawyers will cross on. So im suspecting not. But if there is anything like that, that would be the context in which it would be raised. Jason, President Trump has said on more than one occasion about only hiring the best. If thats true, shouldnt the campaign have done its Due Diligence when it came the Paul Manafort and figured out if manafort had been operating aboveboard or not . This is a pretty, you know, sleazy track record that the prosecutors certainly have laid out. Well, absolutely. But there is no such thing as a time machine. And so the fact of the matter is that Paul Manafort was on board for as i said before, a
relatively shorter amount of time, and he was not the person who ultimately was the Campaign Manager that took us across the finish line. That was kellyanne, as you know along with steve bannon and a whole host of other folks who were on board. But look, Paul Manafort, we primarily focused on the Convention Phase of this, did have a long track record of working with conventions and things like that. But i think one of the other things that i think kind of a little jumbled up in the media is that President Trump and manafort werent particularly close. I dont think that President Trump really knew much all about Paul Manaforts background. These were not two men who would hang out, grab dinner or lunch or chat. But to the point the president constantly saying he hires the best, that seems to imply he knows who hes hiring. Your argument is he didnt really know this guy even though he went on tv multiple times and talked about what a great guy he was. Well, he got a mulligan in this one. But whats the one thing donald trump knew about Paul Manafort, which was that he worked for Victor Yanukovych. That was basically his only client for years. And the fact that he worked for yanukovych, the pro putin politician in ukraine was good enough for donald trump. That tells you something in and of itself, no . But i think the one thing that President Trump knew is that Paul Manafort had convention experience. In the 80s. In the 80s. 30 years ago. But its been a long time since there was a real convention fight. Keep in mind it had been rite lit rally decades since there was a real Convention Battle within Republican Party politics. He wasnt being brought on for any Policy Matters or any grand strategic vision. He is someone who was going to manage the convention. That was the value he was demonstrating at that particular time. All right, jason miller, jeff toobin, jennifer rodgers, thanks very much. Up next, the president s trip to florida and his flight from any tough questions or any place he might encounter any tough questions. Were keeping him honest on that. Also, breaking news. In the fight over firearms that you can make at home with a
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all on the network you deserve. Well, it is july 31st and that give us an opportunity to point something else. The white house has only held three Press Briefings all month. These things used to be common enough that they were called the Daily White House briefing, which meant daily. Now you can call them nearly extinct, which makes what youre to be hear fairly odd. Give a listen and ask yourself, does this sound like a promise . Were here. Were taking questions. Were doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the American People, and there is a responsibility by you guys to provide accurate information, and were going to continue to try to work with you. Well, she said that may 9th. That entire month, there were nine White House Press briefings. In june, just five. This month, only three. So tell us what was that again . Were here. Were taking questions. Were doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the American People. Everything they can do to provide regular and constant information. Everything they can do. See, for a minute there, it sounded like Sarah Sanders was actually promising to provide regular and constant information to the American People. Her why they promised the people one thing and is doing the polar opposite, but we havent had the chance because there have only been three briefings this sara sanders about her promise, take a number. If you want to see the president challenged about why the white house lied about the president not being involved with wanting to buy Karen Mcdougals size after audiotape shows he actually was, sorry, you are out of luck. And the same goes for false and
misleading statements like this one just yesterday. The president tweeting a highly respected federal judge today stated that the Trump Administration gets great credit for reuniting legal families. Thank you, and please look at the previous administrations record. Not good. The president neglected to point out that the judge essentially admonished him for essentially making orphans out of kids. You can omit, you can rephrase, you can make stuff up. Whatever you want, and no one can challenge you. Last year anthony scaramucci, the new White House Communications director for those ten glorious days, or was it 11, refused to commit to regular white house briefings. The following may the president threatened to replace them with written handouts he said In The Name Of accuracy. That didnt happen. But it sure likes the idea of reducing transparency and accountability is actually gaining traction at the white house today. President trump, for example, left for his trip to florida this afternoon without saying a word to reporters. And in case youre wondering, that is par for the course. Alongside italys Prime Minister yesterday, the president refused to answer questions 16 times in just the last six days. Thank you, thanks, guys. Thank you. Mr. President , sir, is Michael Cohen lying . Did Michael Cohen betray you . Mr. President , did Michael Cohen debev tray you, sir . Mr. President , why did you cancel the meeting with Vladimir Putin, sir . Well, thats what were seeing more and more of, Unanswered Questions and fewer chances to ask them. And in the meantime, the president reportedly is itching for more occasions like he just finished up at tonight, rallies where he can say whatever he wants and hear nothing in return but applause. Our jim acosta is in tampa tonight, joins us. This lack of transparency. Is there any other reason theyre doing this other than the fact they dont want to answer questions about why the president lied and why the white
house, why the campaign i should say, lied about the president not knowing anything about Karen Mcdougal and ami and the deal . Anderson, i think the only thing you can conclude, and youre going to hear some folks here, i think, letting their feelings be known at this rally here in tampa, about how they feel about cnn. But anderson, i think the honest answer to your question is that this white house is obviously hiding from the press. Theyre hiding the president from the press. They are hiding the Press Secretary from the press. Thats the only conclusion you can come to when theyve only had five Press Briefings in the last month of june, and only three Press Briefings this month. I mean, that is historically at a very low level. Now, one thing we should point out, anderson, at this rally tonight, the president went after what he calls fake news. He even talked about fake polls, even though he touted a poll that he said that he had seen saying he was the most popular republican president ever. Its hard to understand how you can have fake polls but also out the polls show you being popular. But anderson, despite the president going after the press, he just hadnt given us opportunities to ask him very many questions. And i think there really is no other reasonable conclusion other than they just dont like the questions that are going to be asked right now. You know, ive been trying to talk to white house aides about this, and one of the things you hear, and theyve said this before in the past is that, well, when the president has a speech, or when he has an event, they dont want to step on the message of the day. Well, the president had a speech tonight, and so there was no Press Briefing today. It is possible they could have one tomorrow, anderson, but we just dont know at this point. So there is no idea when the next one might be held . Say that again . There is no idea, its not a schedule when the next one might be held . You know, i think it is possible. Im pushing these earpieces in my ear just to hear you, anderson. I think its possible they could hold one per