A recap of the days news. Another cohenrelated problem out today, New York State tax authorities want to talk to Michael Cohen about the Trump Foundation. The states Attorney General sued the president and his three oldest children, accusing the charity and the trump family of sweeping violations of Campaign Finance laws, selfdealing and illegal coordination with the president ial campaign. No one knows where the next legal blow will land. Already facing many years in prison after yesterdays verdict, the former Campaign ManagerPaul Manafort heads to a second trial next month. And then this one, prosecutors are expected to bring even more evidence. Theres the matter of the president s legal team still in the dark over what don mcgahn told investigators in some 30 hours of testimony. The stakes for the upcoming midterms are under fire. Republicans will dodging the questions. That is a lot to get to in one
okay . Dan rather says, one has a sense of the gop Leaders Holding On to donald trump for political life have no idea where this wild horror show of a ride is heading. Can this get even worse . Undoubtedly. How bad can it get . No one save trump and likely muellers team really knows. Thats kind of forboding. I think thats the proper attitude to have. Always keeping in mind that mueller knows so much more than he has shown. If you think yesterday was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things mueller is working on, and sooner or later well find out what they are, make yesterday pale by comparison. Do you think so . The evidence abounds. Yesterday, the president s fixer and attorney implicated
and came back guilty verdicts. It is a reminder, president john adams once said youre that. Did you know the date on that . 1972, 1973, im not sure. This is october of 1973. Because you were, you tweeted about how things would undoubtedly get worse and this is a flash back to your reporting during watergate. The saturday night massacre, 1973, october. Here it is. Watch. In breath taking succession tonight, the following Historic Events occurred. The president of the United States demand that had the Attorney General fire Special Prosecutor archibald. Could. The Attorney GeneralElliott Richardson refused and resigned. The president then ordered the assistant Attorney General to fire the Special Prosecutor. He refused. The president immediately fired him. So solicitor general robert bork was quickly named acting Attorney General. He was ordered the fire Special Prosecutor cox. He did. We discussed your reporting then and your anchoring then before. You said it is surreal. But now were living through this. It is an indication that yeah, things can always get worse. Were in a kind of political theater of the absurd now. We expect things on get worse before they get better. Im sorry you played that clip. I had more hair. I was going to say, who was the guy all that hair . And a better color. [ laughter ] its always pleasure. Look at that hair. Do you see that . You havent changed a bit. The hair is a little grayer. You had bigger side burns. Welcome back. Belly fat the chili pepper sweatout. Not cool. Freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting . Now thats cool coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. And no surgery. Results and Patient Experience may vary. Some common side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort,and swelling. Ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting. Com today for your chance to win a free treatment. Electronic Dance Music
no, my exboyfriends wedding, hes confused. Jason mix and match airlines to save more. Lanny davis is saying that mueller has information between Trump Campaign and russia. Heres what he told me last night. Michael cohen has information that would be of interest to mr. Mueller in his probe of a conspiracy to Corrupt American Democracy very similar to the indictment of the russians. That i believe mr. Cohen would be able to provide information useful to the special counsel. I wont call it smoking gun information. Somebody else will have to judge that. I believe he has relevant information. So a couple questions here. How worried should the president
be about all of this . What could his former personal attorney and fixer possibly know about any alleged Campaign Coordination with russia to help trump win the election . From the reporting that weve seen so far, Michael Cohen could know something. In his own work on a man to build the Trump Tower In Moscow could reveal how much cohen knows. In october 2015, during the primaries for the 2016 election, Michael Cohen was working with the russian born businessman felix sader. This Isnt The First Time he worked with trump. He goes back to the a least 2005. He is also a mob linked felon and a former fbi informant. What did sater do for the moscow project . He told the New York Times that he lined up financing for the project from vtb bank. Thats a bank partially owned by
the kremlin and under u. S. Sanctions at the time. Sater bragged about his connections to the russian president , according to the New York Times, and an email seen by the washington post. Sater said that putin would say great things about trump if the deal for trump tower went through. Again, all of this happening during the primaries. One email between cohen and sater that was obtained by the New York Times dated november 3, 2015, offers one of the earliest publicly known signal thats russia could help trump win the 2016 election. He told cohen this. Our boy can become president of the United States and we can engineer it. I will get all of putins teem buy in on this. I will manage this process. Again, quote, we can engineer it. I will get putins team to buy in on this. So feel i can sater said that
they could work to make trump the president of the United States. He denied any effort he said that he didnt have connection to putins government but felt confident that he could find others who knew putin who could help. So cohen himself reached out directly. He said he sent a message to dmit dmit dmitri peskov. He said he received a message and didnt respond. They were clearly closely working together for more than a deck sxad cohens plea yesterday said they were so close that they worked together to pay off two women claiming to have affairs with trump. So what are the odds that he would have something that mueller would find interesting . Seems pretty high, no . Lets bring in april ryan, white house correspondent, and cnn
president ial historian douglas brinkley. Good evening. So they ended up not doing it and obviously Michael Cohen is denying that he knew anything about it. That it never came to fruition so there is no there, there. I want to play something that Sarah Sanders said today about Michael Cohen. Does the president feel betrayed by Michael Cohen . Is he concerned about what he might say to Robert Mueller . I dont think the president is concerned at all of he knows that he did nothing wrong and there was no collusion and well continue focusing on the things that Americans Care about and that we can have an impact on. So the white house says the president isnt concerned that what Michael Cohen might tell mueller but cohen might have a lot more to say. Of course he has a lot more to say. We keep calling him the fixer. For the a decade he was doing the dirty work on donald trump. That includes the russia deal, it includes that hes made tapes. Weve heard one of them and it has been very damming to it. Hes been there with the Trump Foundation where it is just potentially ripe with iillegali. When you have your closest Attorney Flip out like this, i dont know how donald trump sleeps at night. Then you have lanny davis, the lawyer famous for the clintons, orchestrating all of this. The president must be just horrified to find his white house paralyzed like this. April, Sarah Sanders stuck on her guns that the president didnt do anything wrong. Watch this. As the president stated many
times, he did nothing wrong. There are no charges against him and weve commented this extensively. I can tell you as the president has stated on numerous occasions, he nothing wrong. The president has done nothing wrong. The president has stated a number of times did he nothing wrong. There are no charges against him. He knows did he nothing wrong. What i can tell you about this. There are no charges against him. The president has done nothing wrong. There are no charges against him. Seven times she said did nothing wrong. And six times she said no charges against trump and no collusion. She wasnt really answering questions to this. My question, what is the white house definition of the president did nothing wrong . What does the president believe in his mind or what is his lawyer saying he did nothing
wrong to . Heres the issue. When you have someone like Michael Cohen in your camp, he has his hands in a lot of pots. He is that close to the president. Michael cohen dwelt the issue from what we heard from the tapes, that Michael Cohen played off this playboy playmate of the year. Also, he paid off this porn star. Now, also, years ago, Michael Cohen introduced the president to at least one black preacher. So Michael Cohen has his hands in a lot of pots. So it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Michael Cohen could have something to do with conversations with those who are close to the kremlin. So cnn is learning the president and his team want to discredit Michael Cohen as a liar. A noncredible witness. This is trump. A fox interview. And he is playing down that
relationship. Listen. He was a lawyer for me, one of many. A lawyer and then they like the add, the fixer. I dont know if he was a fixer. I dont know where that term came from. Hes been a lawyer for me. He didnt do big deals. He did small deals. Not somebody that was with me that much. They made it sound like you didnt live without him. I understood Michael Cohen very well. It turned out he wasnt a very good lawyer, frankly. But he was probably with me about ten years. And i would see him sometimes. So is that, will that strategy work . Downplaying their relationship . No. It wont work. The reason why Michael Cohen came into the picture is because donald Trump Organization, it was a family endeavour. When you pay off a prostitute or
a playmate, you wont have jared do it or don jr. Do it. He needed someone to do the dirty work for him. He found a lawyer who was scrappy and hungry to be successful. He was his lawyer for the past decade. So this will cause great consternation to donald trump. He doesnt know what else cohen might have. What other documents . What other Telephone Calls . I mean, the fact is one of the things donald trump is lucky, he is not an emailer. But the fact that his secret lawyer, his private guy that hes taping donald trump is a disaster for the sitting president. And then we have the omarosa possible tapes coming, too. So this is a president being screwed up, hung by his own frankensteins that he created
that are now turning on him. Im sure you have something to say about it. Will this strategy work . No, it wont work. I keep saying this. Sex, lies, videotape and audio tape. The proof is there. The proof is the proof. The problem is that this president likes to spin it his way and craft the narrative for his base to believe. Once you have someone in the inner circle who pleads guilty, and there are tapes, you cannot deny it. Theres a time of the president saying things on Air Force One that this cohen tape is showing totally different. The president can say what he wants. As long as there is tape, as long as there is video, and his voice speaking these truths that were hearing. He is in trouble. He is in trouble. And this is a wounded president. He is not operating out of a stance. He was a wounded president when
he was there today in that medals ceremony. Thank you. I appreciate it. Well be right back. Visit cancercenter. Com breast at booking. Com, we cant guarantee youll good at that water jet thingy. But we can guarantee the best price on this hotel. Or any accommodation, from homes to yurts. Booking. Com booking. Yeah steam live games every sunday afternoon with nfl sunday ticket. Tv. More for your thing. Thats our thing. Visit nflsundayticket. Tv does your Business Internet provider promise a lot . Lets see who delivers more. Comcast business gives you gigspeed in more places. The others dont. We offer up to 6 hours of 4g Wireless Network backup. Everyone else, no way. We let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. Them, not so much. We let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. The others . Nope for a limited time, when you get fast, reliable internet, you can add voice for just 24. 95 more per month. Call or go online today. Call or go on line today. So the president claiming that the charges Michael Cohen pleaded to are not crimes. Yes. They are. And he brushed off the hush money claims saying he paid for them. They didnt come out of the campaign and thats big. But its not even a campaign violation. So i want to bring in three cnn contributors now. A former white house ethics czar. Larry noble, a Campaign Finance law expert and former general counsel, and the author of the threat mate rich. Inside Robert Muellers fbi and the war on global terror. Today president says, since the money came from him, it is not a Campaign Finance violation but trump put 65 million of his own money into the campaign and his
own Justice Department along with the Southern District of new york ruled it is a crime. So does trumps argument hold up . No. First of all, it doesnt look like the money came from him in any legal sense. From what weve seen, it looks like the money came from the Trump Organization. What happened was that cohen paid Stormy Daniels and then was reimbursed from the Trump Organization by putting in falsified vouchers for payments. So if that happen, then you have a corporate contribution from the Trump Organization. The president may think of the Trump Organization and his family in the white house as all one big thing but its not. Thats an important difference. We have not yet seen any evidence that he paid the money. If he did, and he was paying back Michael Cohen for a loan Michael Cohen effectively made, it should have shown up in his ethics report. The more he speaks, the more
trouble hes getting into. So what about these reimbursements . Theyre saying it is a reimbursement mistake. Theyre saying it was not a big mistake. It was a business mistake. I dont think it was a mistake. I think they tried to figure out a way to hide these payments. So he makes the payments. He needs to get reimbursed for them so they put them through as legal fees to cohen and paying him back. And according to the information that the u. S. Attorney filed, they can what is called grossing up the payments to cover for his taxes. So it looks like a real scheme to try to get money to pay for Stormy Daniels, to pay her off and to do it in a way that hides it and keeps it away from the
campaign. It looks like they have trouble. Well, then, talk to me with that. In the court of public opinion, does it matter if it was Campaign Money or not . Well, don, the president is trying to fudge that. But there is no running away from the devastating impact of Michael Cohen standing up in court yesterday. Not only the Court Of Justice but the court of opinion, the words ringing out that he committed Campaign Finance crimes at the direction and control of a candidate. We all who know that is. The president of the United States. And i think youve seen