The latest news from around the world with host Brooke Baldwin. Its not an order. Its the president s opinion. Its ridiculous all the corruption and dishonesty thats gone on with the launching of the witch hunt, the president has watched this process play out. He also wants to see it come to an end, as he stated many times. We look forward to that happening. Hes fighting back. He stated his opinion clearly. Hes certainly expressing the frustration he has with the level of corruption weve seen from people like jim comey, peter strzok. Theres a reason the president is angry and frankly most of america is angry as well. Theres no reason he shouldnt be able to voice that opinion. Once again, as i said earlier, the president stating his opinion. Its not an order but hes been, i think, Crystal Clear about how he feels about this investigation from the beginning. You said a moment ago the investigation itself is corrupt, the Mueller Investigation. You mentioned comey and
could that tweet in and of itself be obstruction. It could. I did a trial we convicted someone of Obstruction Of Justice because he tried to get one witness to change one fact of her testimony. The bar thats it. Thats it. The bar for Obstruction Of Justice is low. You dont have to do much. To say lets just burn the whole thing down, which is essentially what the president is saying, is way beyond that. How do you, david, skplap Whats Going On with the white house, what Rudy Giuliani is saying, First Amendment rights, trump can say what he wants on twitter. This isnt an order. Its almost like this white house is trying to manipulate america but america isnt stupid. I agree with that. Theres something going on here that i dont think we fully understand. Something deeper. Something going on inside the white house. I dont know whether they have gotten some new information about the mueller team about what they know. They changed their whole story. First, no conclusion, no conclusion. Now the story is, hey, if there was conclusion, its not a
crime. Similarly, they are overreacting to the manafort case. Normally in a situation like this the white house goes quiet, the president stands back. He doesnt want to get engaged with a former why would he react to the manafort trial and say hes being treated unfavorably. By saying treated unfavorably hes giving himself a pass for the pardon. Hes laying the groundwork for possible pardon. Im not saying hes going to do it but he wants all his options open. If trump this made this request, what were going back, ellie to the tweet, if he made the request in private, Wouldnt Mueller be investigating every single witness who might have heard it, any sort of anything, just like they had had those conversations with regard to comey and flynn and what was said and who heard it. Whats unusual, the president is doing it out loud. Thats why mueller is looking at the tweets. People asked, is that fair game . Absolutely. Its a bedrock rule of courtroom procedure. You can use the defendants own statements against them. Twitter is nothing but the president s own unvarnished statements. The key in any Obstruction Case is intent, what is in the persons mind. One of the things judges tell juries in Divining Intent Science has not given us to look into someones mind. Twitter is close. Unusual to do it open but doesnt mean its not being done. Its worth remembering mueller, if they find a crime they are not going to indict. This is not going to a court of law. If theres a question of obstruction as its played out, its going to be within the impeachment proceeding. That is going to be a power play. The democrats who by then may be in control of the house, can define obstruction the way they want to and shift and said today
hes seeing it as obstruction. I dont think the kousht of law but within the politics of impeachment. April, can we go back to how sarah stands up there today and says the entire investigation is based off this dossier when that is entirely false. Not true. Yeah. You know, thinking about that press briefing, sarah was through the te flustered. She called on a reporter twice. She realized we werent buying it. The sad piece is they understand they can say these things and 70 to 90 of those who support President Trump believe it. They are not actually looking at the issues of the rule of law or issues on the table, they are saying some are believing it. The problem is we have to continue to come back and talk about how russia hacked into the dnc, how russia hacked into the pillar of our democracy. How russia is hacking, current day. Active verb. Which she did not mention. The president depending on the day is or is not doing. So at issue is they are trying to play this in the court of Public Opinion by spinning it or even im going to use the word and i dont like it, lying to the American Public so they can have people believe them and not believe the facts that are on the table from this or Justice Department or administration before. This is the real issue. It is not a witch hunt, russia started going into our process, sacred process, our elections process. Not the dossier. Yeah, theres a dossier but started with russian hacking that continues today. David gergen, put your self in the shoes of the Attorney General on the Receiving End of this tweet. Listen, theres a heck of a lot of things the president has said about them that hes been like hes ignored. Do you ignore i know the
president s attorneys are saying it wasnt an order. I dont know if you can have orders over twitter. Were in new space. What does sessions do. Theres not a lot he can do. First of all, he doesnt have authority. He recused himself from the case. He took himself out. For him to shut it down would be in violation of his own voluntary recusal. Does he understand that . He acts as if he doesnt. I think what sessions if youre in that situation he wants to save his job whatever pressure the president brings on. Is there a way we can hasten the conclusion here. Can we get to that point more quickly. Hes got to be careful because he cant Consult Rosenstein on this as far as i can tell. If hes recused, hes recused. People have asked is there such a thing as unrecusal . Not that ive heard of. Jeff sessions its incredible to
see the president in the course of two tweets, peter strzok sent tests, should have recused himself but Jeff Sessions who dealt with russian directly, part of the campaign, he should unrecuse himself some who you. Good point. Thank you. We have more on this coming up. Day two of Paul Manafort trial. Already a huge surprise. The Prosecutions Star Witness Rick Gates may not testify. Hear why. And a cnn exclusive Robert Mueller handing off several of his cases to new york federal prosecutors. What this could say about the Russia Investigation. And President Trump escalates the trade war saying u. S. Farmers hit by tariffs, quote, can take it. Well talk to an iowa Soybean Farmer coming up. Youre watching cnn, im brooke baldwin. Ive taken that advice to heart. And im using that advice to change our company. Moving forward, were taking into consideration whats good for our driver partners, our riders, and the cities that we operate in. And its going to make us a much, much better service. Back to cnn. Paul manafort day two, accused of hiding millions of dollars to fund his extravagant lifestyle. The trial a test for special counsel Robert Muellers team facing a jury for the first time. Prosecutors a little manafort committed bank and tax fraud, millions rallying for politicians in ukraine. He said he spent it on lavish items like a custom 15,000 jacket made from an ostrich, a 21,000 watch. And Court Documents indicate manafort spent nearly 850,000 at one Mens Clothing store in manhattan over this sixyear period. Manaforts defense team unveiling strategy, shift the
blame to rick gates, manaforts longtime associate and prosecutions star witness. Lets get to Jessica Schneider covering the trial for us. Lets start with rick gates. They talk about him in Opening Statements and now he might not testify. Thats the Possibility Prosecutors put out there earlier today. Really its probably not sitting well with manaforts defense team. As you mentioned, the strategy they laid out on day one of the trial it pins it largely on rick gates. They called him an embezzler. They said he flipped on manafort to save himself. Here is how it went down and interpret it how you will. The prosecutor was actually questioning an fbi agent who is part of that raid on manaforts condo last summer. The agent referenced a document found inside the home. It was called gates agenda. The judge, t. S. Ellis, who has been very involved in this stopped the proceedings and said if youre going to call mr. Gates, this is a waste of time. Obviously it said gates agenda. It gets interesting. The prosecutor responded, he may testify in this case, he may t not. That sent a shock wave through the courtroom. It is the prosecutors prerogative who they call in this case. The defense team, they may have showed their hand too soon saying they plan to lay the blame on gates. Even though he is one of the witnesses of 35 people on the prosecution, the prosecution is not bound to call everyone on the list. Who knows, they may decide not to call him. The big question, will they or wont they. Thats a question mark. What about the whole notion the judge today, we ran through extravagant items manafort bought like this ostrich jacket. The judge said mr. Manafort is not on trial for having a lavish lifestyle. Explain the judges decision making. T. S. Ellis is cracking the whip in court. The prosecution want to exemplify Paul Manaforts lifestyle. They want to do it in large part by showing some of the pictures of his clothing, showing the watch he bought, showing all of his expensive suits. The judge is trying it restrict some of the evidence here. Hes not letting in some of these photographs. Brooke, what the prosecution is doing right now on the stand as we speak is 29yearold maximilian katzmann, he works at his fathers highend Clothing Store in new york city, they are using him to talk about manaforts lavish lifestyle. They say manafort was one of their top five clients in this store. We know from prosecutors he spent hundreds of thousands on luxury clothing. Perhaps without some of these pictures, which might be more interesting for the jury, they are looking to get the evidence in through the latest witness, the 29yearold who is going to talk about how much manafort spent. Jessica, thank you so much. On the Manafort Trial Today Turning now to another development in the Russia Investigation, cnn has learned that Robert Mueller has handed off several cases to new york federal prosecutors according to people familiar with the matter. Prosecutors are looking at several highprofile american lobbyists and operatives to determine if they failed to register their work as foreign agents. With me, erica with the scoop, she has the story. Erica, tell me about the referrals. Sure. We know the referrals happened in the spring by Robert Mueller, u. S. Attorneys office for Southern District of new york. Looking at whether longtime lobbyist tony podesta and his firm, the Podesta Group as well as former congressman ben webber and his firm Mercury Public Affairs and greg craig, who is the former Obama White House counsel and also formally with this law firm performed work on
behalf of the Ukrainian Government without registering as foreign agents, which is a step thats required by federal law. Tell me why this is so significant. Sure. I should note that some of them have said that they did not form that registration because they were misled by intermedaries who were involved in the work. The significance of the referrals is that theres been an expectation as the Mueller Investigation has progressed that if mueller or the Special Counsel Team came across work or investigative threads that Werent Central to the question of whether Trump Campaign colluded with the russian government that he would then the Special Council Team might then farm them out or refer those cases out in part to protect against the idea they had gone beyond the scope of what they had been assigned to do or why the Special Counsel Team was convened. Big news. Erica, thank you for breaking
that with us. Just in as the rhetoric escalates between u. S. And iran, we are now learning about activity picking up in the persian gulf over the next 48 hours. Well take you live to the pentagon for that. Also more on our breaking news, the president calling on the Attorney General to end the Russia Investigation. But now his lawyers are saying, hang on a second, they are playing clean up here over questions whether or not it is, in fact, obstruction via tweet. At crowne plaza, we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. A bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Which is what we do. Crowne plaza. Were all business, mostly. But how do i know if im im getting a good deal . I tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices
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