Other from controversial issues, from immigration issues, and theyre doing it again. Thats why we have to pass this bill so that you have clear information about whos paying for these ads and what they are. Its called the honest ads act, and its a bill im leading with senator mccain and senator warner. Senator, appreciate your time. Thank you very much. The news continues. I want to hand it over to chris. Cuomo prime time starts now. Thank you, anderson. I am chris cuomo. Welcome to prime time. Collusion is not a crime except when it is. And remember this isnt about words. Its about behavior. We have a lawmaker who is going to tell you the facts of what could be headed for anyone who did collude. He was also in that hearing today, and you will not believe what the government admitted about its plan to force families apart. Theres senator coons. Well be with him in a second. The Mueller Probe faces its first courtroom test today with
trumps former Campaign Chair on trial. Were going to give you the truth about what manafort might mean to the wider russia investigation. And with just hours to go, a judge blocked those blueprints for homemade, untraceable 3d guns before they were published. But guess what . Theyre already out there, and the ruling is only temporary. So we have the man who wants all of you to be able to make your own gun. Hes going to argue his case, and i am here to test it. I missed you, my friends. What do you say . Lets get after it. So today the president tweeted, collusion is not a crime. But that doesnt matter because there was no collusion except by Crooked Hillary and the democrats. Now, of course, the president has repeated his No Collusion Mantra many times. What matters in all this . Lets bring in democratic senator and member of the judiciary committee, senator chris coons. Good to see you, sir. Great to be with you again, chris. What do you make of the
confusion over collusion . Well, i think its perfectly clear in federal law, and in fact ive got the statute with me. Its title 52, section 30121, that says it is a crime to solicit or accept anything of value from a Foreign National in order to influence the outcome of a federal election. Its a longer section. Im taking a sentence here and there, but thats the outcome. Thats what it means. You cant accept or solicit a cash contribution or a thing of value from a Foreign National in any way related to a federal, state, or local election. Thats clearly a crime. And elsewhere in the criminal code, conspiring in order to commit a crime like that is also, itself, the crime of conspiracy. So while im not using the specific word collusion, ill remind you what the whole Mueller Investigation is about is whether or not the Trump Campaign worked with russian Intelligence Officers to solicit or accept a thing of significant
value. Thousands of hacked emails that might have been used in order to determine the outcome or influence the outcome of the federal president ial election. Now, while you started off there being a little narrow, right . You were being a little generous in terms of what collusion can yield as a crime. It actually starts to get very broad depending on your facts. Look at Paul Manafort. You got 30plus charges there. It can go lots of Different Directions depending on money, activity, and intent. So then you get to, whats your bar for mueller . I would argue that the Mueller Probe is supposed to be about what happened with russian interference, who helped, and what crimes arise in the pursuit thereof, right . Thats his mandate. If the bar is whether or not the president or any of his people were involved in those russian efforts, dont you think whoever wants that to be the bar is going to be disappointed based on what we know so far . Well, we dont know what the Mueller Investigation is ultimately going to produce in terms of clear, dispositive,
public proof. But it has certainly gotten closer and closer in recent months as the Mueller Investigation has produced indictments both of russian nationals, of specific gru military Intelligence Officers, and he has called out in great detail how they conspired, how they worked in order to undermine our election in 2016, and the Manafort Trial has already begun. Theres been a series of indictments for other related actions by senior members of the Trump Administration or the Trump Campaign team. Do you think manafort means anything to the wider russia probe . He may very well. Manafort, as you know, is in part being accused of failing to report and laundering millions of dollars from a kremlinsupported ukrainian president , a strong man, leader of ukraine who was closely allied with the kremlin. There may be ways in which that relationship and the ongoing payments that he received from
ukraine is connected. It might end up being independent. Thats really the challenge in front of special counsel mueller is to connect all the dots. Then you have this broader array of influence that we see in facebook today, them shutting down accounts that they are now identifying, which you could argue they could have been doing all along. The idea that they dont know whos doing what on their platform is denied by the reality that if you and i were on facebook right now talking about what type of bass rigs were using, all of a sudden i would get an ad for them popping up on my screen. Thats right. So they can know, yet you have the Vice President saying we know the russian interference didnt alter a single vote. No. We know there is no proof that any of the tabulation machines and the Voting Machines were affected by the hacking. But we dont know the impact of the propaganda. Its impossible to know. Are you concerned about where we are in the next election and what might happen from the same people . Im very concerned, chris. I worked hard in a bipartisan way to get 380 million in
Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. Tricky when something can be true and untrue at the same time, and yet both aspects of it matter, right . Were going to explain right now. Heres your premise. Collusion does not equal a crime. Heres what rudy giuliani, lawyer to president trump, said to cnn. Which i dont even know if thats a crime, colluding about russians. You start analyzing the crime. The hacking is the crime. The hacking is the crime. That certainly is the original crime. The president didnt hack. Of course not. He didnt pay them for hacking. Collusion is not a crime. Rudys right. Collusion is not a statutory crime under the federal code in this context. There will likely be no charge of simply collusion. Now, one fine point for you legal eagles out there. Yes, collusion is a crime for the sec and the ftc, proscribing certain antitrust behavior. But like i said, thats out of context, okay . What were dealing with here is a distinction, okay, without a
extension of acts of collusion. Aiding and abetting, okay . Now, Aiding And Abetting has its own section under the criminal code, okay . Why . Because it goes to all types of being too helpful to the wrong people in the wrong types of situations. All of that is in the family of collusion. All right. Now, what about money . Money takes us into a whole other universe of when collusion becomes criminal. How was any money used in an exchange . How was it sent . How was it accounted for . Bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of money. Many of muellers team are experts in these areas. Why did he pick them . So these laws, the statutes you saw, all stem from behavior that is collusion. So collusion is not a crime, sure, by name. But the behavior of collusion
can get you in a lot of deep water. Whats the conclusion . Keep your eye on the ball. Collusion isnt a specific crime, per se, but its not okay, and it leads to all of this mess and more depending on the facts and the proof. And thats where we must always stay focused. Thats why i was talking to coons about what the bar for the Mueller Probe is. What can they show that is the only thing that we will know . Thats the bar. Nothing else matters. So there you have it. So what rudy said, what the government admitted about tearing families apart today, catastrophes or nontroversies. It is a great debate, and it is upon us next. Fruits and veggies are essential to your health,
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david urban here. Dave, lets see if i can shortcut this. You saw the whiteboard. Admit that i am right about all of it, that this is just wordplay, and that the behavior of collusion at the end of the day can get you in plenty of poopoo. Chris, youre right. The behavior of collusion and the right set of circumstances obviously can, right . But as you pointed out correctly, its all about the facts. Its all about the facts, brother. Brother cuomo, right . We could hypothesize about a lot of things but lets wait and see what Director Mueller uncovers. Conspiracy is a pretty broad word, and as you point out correctly in this case thats being tried in chaalexandria against Paul Manafort and conspiracy there to defraud the government, theres an overt act. Its pretty easy to prove. It has nothing to do with the russians. So well wait and see. Well just have to wait and see. Its all about the facts. Well, we dont know that it has nothing to do with russians. Its just which group of
russians and what they were doing and whether it really has anything to do with the probe is what we dont think well see. No. Chris, in this case we do know because on july 10th, in response to a motion filed by Paul Manafort right. The government here, you know, Director Muellers probe, they replied in a response in their brief saying this has nothing to do with russians or collusion or russian interference. Right, in the election. Right. But that doesnt mean that no russians were involved with what happened with him no, no. Absolutely. Thats the distinction i was drawing. All right. Let me get you in here, Jennifer Granholm. The idea of what the president is tweeting about and whether or not it matters, matters to you why . Well, because we have a president who is constantly gaslighting the american public. He says that something is when it is absolutely not. I just its so its beyond words how horrible this
president has been to the truth. We all know that. So when he says, oh, theres no collusion, and he tries to get his followers to believe that the word collusion is not going to appear in an indictment when manafort issues one against somebody, well mueller. Excuse me. When mueller. Youre right. When mueller does. So maybe the word doesnt admit, but you had as professor cuomo up at the whiteboard a list of actual laws that could be broken if theres a conspiracy. Right. This is just engaged in semantic play. And when the president tries to pull the wool over americas eyes in so many ways, it just proves again and again that honestly, i can hardly wait till november comes so that we can give him at least the first taste of the back of our hand. In 2020, the rest. Dave urban, you see the back of the hand coming . Listen, unfortunately i do in these midterms, right . Midterms arent necessarily these are a snapshot as the governor knows and you know, chris. Look, congressional districts are very small, very insular Little Islands of the population. So, you know, the president s going to do poorly in places like new jersey, the new york suburbs, the philly suburbs. I dont think the president s going to do poorly in kind of the, you know, down in florida, in pennsylvania, in iowa, michigan. The president s not going to do poorly there. So the midterms are going to have an effect i dont know. Well, thats your. Well see. Look, all of this is speculative. Its all about turnout. Thats whats going to determine the midterms. It always does. Well, but its manifest intention of the reaction formation. I know those are all big words, but what we saw in 94 and 2010 is i know youre upset about whats in there right now. Heres what i want to offer you thats better. Now get out there and vote for me. Thats the equation, and we wont know until the polls open
and close wait, chris. Its very true. But lets be clear that when you see russian interference like we saw today through facebook, russian interference against Claire Mccaskill and russian interference writ large in 2016, getting out the vote is going to be super important, yes. But there was a poll out today that showed that there are some republicans who think that interference by the russians to help the republicans is not such a bad thing. Oh, come on, governor. Come on. Come on, governor. If youre going to blame the democrats for poor performance. You cant blame you have to accept some responsibility for not having a coherent message across your party. Theres a whole array of things. We dont have to relitigate this. You cant blame the russians for the democrats failing. Yes, i can blame the russians for interfering in this election. You can blame them for trying to interfere. They did interfere, and they
sent thousands and thousands of ads to social media in places like detroit, where they held up pictures of aziz ansari with a text saying, hey, avoid the lines. Text your support here. If thats not a Voter Suppression ad, i dont know what is. Oprah winfrey, photoshopped, holds up a sign let me just finish. When Oprah Winfrey holds up a sign that says, firsttime voter, you vote on wednesday. Those are Voter Suppression ads. Those were issued hugely in 2016 in michigan. Hillary clinton lost by 11,000 votes. The purpose of the russian intervention is to cause people to be not just divided but to cause them to stay home. Right. And you know what . Thats what happened. In the Obama Administration, the Democratic Barack Obama Administration should have shut those down. It would have been easier if mcconnell would have worked with them. So should the trump
administration. [ Overlapping Voices ] obama should have done more, but Mcconnell Shouldnt Have blocked his efforts. And now trump, its on him now to see what he does. Hes the president. Youre right. And today secretary of dhs, kirst Kirstjen Nielsen said we need to prepare for a category 5 event. What is he doing . So, governor hes been saying he doesnt believe there was a storm coming. Hes been doing that for a long time, dave, and now theyre starting to change their tune in the administration. Well see what they do. Can i just say i got to go. This is another case of classic incompetence. He had incompetence in puerto rico. He has incompetence incompetence in the Obama Administration and youre going to see another i hear you. Dave has a point to. Governor, incompetence of the Obama Administration . Dave has a point. My head explodes when i see James Clapper and all these former intelligence officials on this network complaining about russian interference when they were at the wheel when it all
happened. Were talking about 2018, dave. You cannot continue to look in the rearview mirror. If youre talking about the past election heres the thing. We got to end it here. But, chris, you can say dave urban has a point. I just did. I said it two points. You dont hear me because youre yapping. What im saying is this. It all is true. It started in 2016. The Obama Administration didnt do enough. Why . They didnt know as much as they eventually would know. They were worried about outcomes, and Mitch Mcconnell was pushing back on them. They werent going to get cooperation. It was going to be a partisan move. Then the Trump Administration had this ball in their hands a long time. Trump wanted to pretend it doesnt exist because he thinks its bad for him. And now the election is upon us, and well see how safe they can make us. We need to protect americans democracy. Well see. They got to do a lot more than theyve done. We can agree on that. Lets end on that. Thank you very much. Thanks, chris. Last minute, federal judge puts a block on print al
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