A recap of the days news. An admitted liar and is lying now to help the government. It doesnt behoove him to lie. It would hurt him. If he said this was done at the president s direction he better have proof, and if he doesnt, they say it in the plea agreement, the allocution, when the judge tells you, you know, the deal right before sentencing, if you want to say anything, he took that opportunity. If hes lying hes dying in terms what have this deal means. We both know Michael Cohen from the campaign and just from being a character, a person here in new york. Again, this is a total 180 for him. I cannot wait to hear him speak. I cannot wait to hear his side of the story. Boy, is that going to be amazing. I cant wait to seat proof. Lanny davis just said, i said do you think he knows more things about wrongdoing by the president or even any potential criminal behave i dont remember and he said yes, and he said well see what happens. He wants to Tell The Truth but, yes, i believe he knows things. If he can show what he knows, this could be very significant. Yeah. I have lanny on. You did a great job. Ill have lanny on as well as Michael Avenatti and other players in this. Chris, thank you. Noise job. Interviewed the interviews. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. Heres our breaking news. Only the best people. Donald trump promised you he would hire only the best people, and tonight two of those people hand picked by donald trump are facing years behind bars. One of the president s closest confidants pleading guilty to eight criminal counts in new york. At almost the same time, same moment that a jury in virginia finds his former Campaign Chairman guilty of eight counts of Financial Crimes, charges so serious that all together they carry a maximum sentence of 80 years in prison. First, theres Michael Cohen, the president s former fixer and keeper of secrets who at one time held a position of Deputy Finance Chair of the republican
A recap of the days news. Corruption prosecutor for the Southern District of new york. Good evening, thank you all for joining with us. Laura, ill start with you. Michael cohen pleading guilty to eight felonies and Paul Manafort guilty on eight counts. A dramatic and monumental day in u. S. History. It absolutely, is and if youre talking about this from the perspective everyone saying hold on. None of this says russian collusion happened. None of this is actually about russian collusion. Well, that is quite the distractor thats trying to fuel the narrative from the president. In reality, these cases all came out of the mandate that mueller had to probe russian collusion. The fact that he was able to sense out the dangers, the criminality and farm out one of the cases does not mean this is a witchhunt. What he did was showcase to the American People that there was solidity to his charges, credibility to his overall charge and campaign, and it also emboldened them going forward. There is a case still waiting to happen for Paul Manafort in washington, d. C. In a matter of
court today was incredibly dramatic, significant and will haunt the president in many ways for months to come. Here he said that he committed a violation of the law, that he did so at the direction of the president of the United States. He has identified the president as his coconspirator in that crime. That is a gigantic deal. As for the Paul Manafort case as laura said theres another case yet to come, but frankly i take real offense be at the idea that the president would on this day say Paul Manafort is a good man. A jury of a dozen Men And Women In The State Of Virginia found that Paul Manafort stole from his fellow citizens when he hid money and refused to pay taxes like all of them do and like everybody else in this country
does. He stole money from the American People and the United States government. That is not the conduct of a good man. Listen, you work for the Southern District in new york prosecuting corruption and fraud. This is an example that no one is above the law. You heard what jack said there, you know. He defraudled people, right . He broke the law, but no one is above the law, and this shows is. Absolutely. Thats absolutely right, and thats why these cases are so important. Thats why they have to be allowed to go to their logical course. Thats why they have to be prosecuted because if you have corruption Corruption Corrupts from the top it, and you need to have deterrents, and these cases are so important, and frank lit judges when they come to sentencing these men are going to take into account the fact that they were in these positions of power and that they
abused it and frankly, you know, i shudder to think what they will get in so far as sentences, but part of one of the very important factors of sentencing is deterrents effects and those are cases that youve got to make a statement about. Why do you say you shudder to think . Do you think they will get harsh sentences . They very well good. They very well could get harsh sentences. These judges are reasonable, but, you know, Michael Cohen has a guidelines calculation with what the parties, the government and his attorneys have agreed is, you know, the top of the guidelines here for his sentence is 63 months. The judge doesnt have to do that. Its up to the judge to figure out the sentence. Yeah. The judge has leeway to do what he wants. Michael, remember this investigation of Michael Cohen. It grew out of a referral from the Mueller Investigation. His team referred it to the Southern District of new york. You know, the president and his folks like to say its not connected to the president at
all, but thats important. Its all connected. Its all connected, and it was clearly not a good day for the president. Youve got to the remember there are two distinct investigations going on at this time. The Southern District of new york which received the investigation because of bob muellers referral. And mueller, i think was mindful of his authority under the memo and he was basically looking at all things russian. I think thats really today theres been a lot of talk on the news about the whole idea of whether or not cohen is going to cooperate with the government, and i would suggest to you that what it tells me tonight is that in fact this is well planned by bob mueller to not have a Cooperation Angle in the Southern District of new york, in fact, to keep the cases separate. That way nobody can come back at the end. Day and say bob mueller was really the Puppet Master up there pulling the strings in the Southern District of new york. He really didnt mean to refer it out. My guess is that youll see by cohen getting sentence it had, and under the Federal Rules Of Criminal Procedure theres rule
35 mostly that can be filed by the government at the end of the day which allows the government come back after a sentence and say, hey, you know, this guy came to us and talked to us about somebody, gave us information that was important in another criminal investigation and now we want you to come in and assist him and give him a credit toward his sentence and sentence reduction. Thats not happened yet and thats because mueller is a smart enough prosecutor to know to keep his hands clean, to let those investigations run their course, the cases run the separate tracks and then he can send somebody in at the end of the day and come In And Go Talk To Cohen and find out what cohen has to say. Theres no way that cohen walked into that courtroom and pled guilty and is looking at four and a half, five years of prison away from his family without at least some consideration that, you know, hes going to Tell The Truth, and i think lanny davis has basically told us that. I mean, he said without question hes going to turn over a new leaf. Hes coming forward. At a place in his life where he
wants to quit hiding and Tell The Truth. I think weve got to put some stock in that and we can expect to hear more from cohen and what he knows as the months progress. Unindicted coconspirator. Well discuss whether he is or isnt. Stick around everybody. Michael cohen implicated the president in his guilty plea today. Why is team trump claiming that he doesnt have anything damaging on the president . Well discuss that. Crabfest is back at red lobster,
with our largest variety of crab all year like new crabfest combo. Your one chance to have new Jumbo Snow Crab with tender dungeness crab. Or try crab lovers dream. But hurry in. cause crabfest ends september 2nd. Rewards me basically aeverywhere. Om so why am i sliding into this ski lodge with my mini horse . Because hotels. Com lets me do me. Sorry, the cold makes him a little horse. Hotels. Com. You do you and get rewarded. Pah thano, no, no, nah. K. A bulb of light . . Aha ha ha a Flying Machine . Impossible a personal computer . ha smart neighborhoods running on a microgrid. A stadium powered with solar. A hospital that doesnt lose power. Amazing. I like it. Never gonna happen. Jack, michael and khan. Laura has gotten herself a drink of water so shes doing fine. Been there. And when you get the tickle theres nothing you can do except take care of it. Thank you. Listen, i want to ask you about the ramifications about the president , laura, this unindicted coconspirator. With Michael Cohen implicating President Trump in these Campaign Finance charges, whats the danger to the president . Extremely high. The Campaign Finance laws are structured in a way that you have to report any contributions that are made and its a maxim cap on the amount that you can actually give, and you cant even use a loan system where somebody pays it for you and then you reimburse after an election because that would actually undermine the whole premise and reason you have Campaign Finance laws which is to have transparency and who is providing money to a campaign. So if you now have Michael Cohen, and if hes to be believed through his allocution in court, that he was directed and coordinated with the then candidate donald trump to
actually violate Campaign Finance lawyers and the important part he added to influence the election, well, what you have here is a Prosecutors Office that says to themselves is there anything to corroborate this statement, and youve got the president s own statement on the back of Air Force One. You had the tapes that were released by lanny davis on our own airwaves on cnn about a conversation between Michael Cohen and the president of the United States, then candidate, about the payment for not only Karen Mcdougal to ami, the own of National Enquirer but payments in the future for Stormy Daniels. You have all this corroboration coming into play. Its no wonder now why giuliani would have felt so compelled to go on a slanderous campaign to try to undermine the credibility and head off what Michael Cohen might have said. You found it today in one of the counts he pled guilty to. I was going to play it a little bit later, but since you mentioned, it lets play. This is Air Force One. I want to play what the president initially said on Air Force One when asked about the payment to Stormy Daniels. Here it is. Mr. President , did you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . No, no. Why would Michael Cohen make that to her . Youll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. Do you know where he got the money to pay her . No, no. Rudy giuliani said trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for the payment. Heres the question. Jack, are we in impeachment territory here . Sure. If by that you mean are the acts of which with which the president has been accused here, would they cons tuesdiconstitut
crimes and misdemeanors . Of course they would. Rudy giuliani has acknowledged in the past that the president directed Michael Cohen to make these payments. Right. Its not that he just knew about them after the fact and reimbursed them. At least davis says that donald trump directed cohen to make these payments, so hes tightly bound up in those. Look, im probably perhaps the only one on this panel who actually thinks that an indictment that its not a clear question whether a president can be indicted or not. Theres nothing in the constitution. Im glad you said that because that was my next question because everybody assumes because everybody said that. Is that true, can a sitting president not be indicted . Let me tell you why. Ive written a piece on this. Let me tell you in summary why i think thats the case. Number one, theres nothing in the constitution that says a president has immunity from prosecution. By contrast, there are provisions in the constitution that immunize members of
congress from prosecution in the speech and debate clause. The framers, therefore, knew, how to imnize people and they chose not to do that with respect to the president. The two documents that are relied on to make this argument that a president cant be indicted are memos of the office of Legal Counsel in the justice department. One was issued during the watergate era and another during the clinton scandals. The point i want to make here that as good as the lawyers are in the office of Legal Counsel, its important that we remember that they work for the president who was then the subject of the question whether or not the president can be indicted. So its hard to say that they were completely unbiased. The office of legal council, great lawyers, but they are not members of the Supreme Court. Khan, youre shaking your head when i ask you that question. Is it absolutely certain that a sitting president cant be indicted . Its not absolutely certain. Thats been the practice based on those membero, and as a
practical matter i think its already been said by mueller and by others that they are going to abide by that. Right. So whether or not anyone it could be litigated, and, of course, it can, like anyone is going to be. No one is going to test it in this station. This is a statement from trumps attorney ghoul ghoul. This reflects a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a period of time. Hes not saying that the president was implicated today in this crime. Im guessing that he gave the statement before he saw the Charging Documents and he would have seen trumps name appearing all over the document indicating a Candidate Running for president and complicity in the federal election law. Let me say this about the president being indicted. I think its an unsettled question. I think at the time our framers
expected the men at the time who were in the congress to have the fortitude to step forward and pull back a president who exceeded his authority. The problem is were at a point in history when the the members of congress dont have that statesman like courage, so were having to debate this question on whether or not a president can be indicted. I dont think our framers ever imagined a time when the congress would not keep the executive in check, and i think thats why we have checks and balances. I think thats why you have coequal branches of government, but were at a time when the republicans have decided to let this president run rogue and commentators like us get on here and talk about whether or not the law allows for a sitting president to be indicted so he can be removed from office. Thats really were talking about it because the members of congress have abdicated the duties to which they swore an oath. Thank you all. I appreciate your time. Much more to discuss. When we come back, my next guest says this is the First Time Since watergate that a president has been accused of being personally involved in a Campaign Finance violation. So what will that mean for President Trump . [announcer] e had the opportunity to speak with dozens of actually customers of the aarp Auto Insurance program from the hartford. My cars do make me proud, so when the accident did happen, time stopped. But i was able to use my choice of body shop. They couldnt have really done anything any better. [announcer] join the millions of customers 50 and over who trust the hartford. [woman] call the hartford at to get a nonobligation q