A recap of the days news. A recap of the days news. As part of his plea deal he agreed to cooperate with muellers investigation, and then theres dutch lawyer Alex Van Der Zwaan Who pled guilty to lying to investigators about his discussions with gates. He served 30 days in prison and was deported to the netherlands in june. Richard pinedo pled guilty to Election Fraud running a business selling dummy Bank Accounts to shadowy buyers including russians to sew discord in american politics. His lawyer said he didnt know the identity of his customers. He cooperated with muellers investigation as well. Fired Trump National security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador to the u. S. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and hes been cooperating with the special counsel investigation. His Sentencing Hearing was delayed for the fourth time today. Former Trump Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pled guilty to making a false statement to
the fbi after he lied about his interactions with foreign officials close to the russian government. Mueller last week told a judge that papadopoulos lied repeatedly and caused damage to the investigation. The special counsel has recommended that papadopoulos be sentenced up to six months in prison. This is no witchhunt. These are not the best people. A lot of lying going on there. A lot of russian connections. These are facts, and another fact the president wont like, meullers investigation is far from over. Lets discuss. Laura coates is here, a legal
analyst. Jack quinn is one as well. Also, former u. S. Attorney Michael Moore and the former 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
weeks, so the notion that this is an attack on simply Robert Mueller and the president wants to fuel that narrative is simply belied by the statements. Finally, you know, Michael Cohen said he was willing to take a bullet for the president. He never contemplated that perhaps through Rudy Giuliani it was trump who would hold that gun and when the gun was put to his head, guess what he did, selfpreservation. You had been saying that all along. Most people many of you have been saying all along its going to be about selfpreservation and here we are. You were the white House Counsel under president clinton. If youre the white House Counsel tonight, what are you thinking . Im thinking that this was the worst day since ive been on the job. You know, this was really a doublebarreled assault on the white house on the white house it was really on the president. Lets face it. Michael cohens statement in 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 defrauded 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 frankly 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 of the 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. Erywhere. 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. And im the founder of ugmonk. Before shipstation it was crazy. Its great when you see a hundred orders come in, a hundred orders come in, but then you realize ive got a hundred orders i have to ship out. Shipstation streamlined that wh the order data, the weights of , everything is seamlessly put into shipstation, so when we print the shipping ll everythings pretty much done. Its so much easier so now, were ready, bring on t. Shipstation. The number one ch
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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 toStormy 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 constitute high 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 immunize 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 memos, 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 Rudy Giuliani. 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 do