A news and interview program, anchored by Erin Burnett. Latest offer for an interview in the Russia Investigation. And tonight the Washington Post is reporting muellers most recent offer would cut the number of questions to the president in the interview about Obstruction Of Justice by nearly half. Cutting it by nearly half is not good enough for the president. Obstruction in any form is Something Team trump has been very clear is a nonstarter. You said what the president would be willing to sit down sort of figure out in the area of collusion, not obstruction. Meaning he would answer questions about collusion, not obstruction or vice versa . No, collusion, not obstruction. So, very clear, right . Not obstruction. Collusion okay, not obstruction. The fact that obstruction is still part of the interview appears to be setting the president off. He tweeted, this is a terrible situation and attorney Jeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it stnz to stain our country any further. Stop the investigation. Must jeff zeleny is out front live at the white house. Jeff, i dont know weve had semantics play such an Important Role in a white house as we are now. What more can you tell us about the president s thinking as these mueller investigations go on and obstruction, you know, obviously is still on the table from muellers side . Erin, its clear Semantics Led by the president , led by his messages on social media In The Morning on twitter, In The Morning 3d morning lead to a strategy. The strategy comes after the tweets. You saw an hour and a half or so after the president urged or called on his Attorney General to stop the Russia Investigation. Suddenly Rudy Giuliani, jay sekulow, other lawyers were saying, no, no, this is an opinion. I was wanting to know if the white house was going do adopt the same line. Usually they refer questions to them. This time the reverse, we heard from the president s lawyers then echoed by the white house secretary at the podium. It is interesting to know where does the president ial opinion again, a president ial directive
end, we dont know the answer to that. Erin, we do know all this is coming during the second day of the trial of Paul Manafort. Yes, the president did not directly involved, but boy, as we reported last evening, he is watching this very carefully. He proved that today by talking about all of this. He also is getting closer, of course, we heard Sarah Sanders talk about its time to wrap this up. Its time to get this going. One of the things to point out one of the reasons they are still going is they are waiting on the interview with the president whether hell do it or not. The president consumed by this Russia Investigation is pretty much all the white house was talking about today. Erin. Jeff zeleny, thank you. And i want to go now to the democratic congressman of new york jerry nadler. Congressman, i appreciate your time. We are reporting tonight President Trump is in a fit of rage over these negotiations. The fact that Obstruction Of Justice is still on the table. The Washington Post saying mueller is agreeing to cut the number of questions about the
topic down, but that topic is still right there, Obstruction Of Justice is important here. Why do you think the president is so upset about it . I think hes upset about it because he knows hes very vulnerable to an Obstruction Of Justice charge. You know, he said that when he said in his tweet that the Attorney General should do something, when someone tells a subordinate officer you should do something, it normally is considered an instruction, when henry iii said if only someone would rid me of this meddlesome priest. The president has tried to intimidate the Special Prosecutor repeatedly. This tweet is another example of that. The tweet itself is probably more evidence of an ongoing Obstruction Of Justice. So if Obstruction Of Justice is the issue as you point out, the tweet today does rise in more significance. Attorney general Jeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now. Thats the words the president used this morning. Do you, congressman, see this as Obstruction Of Justice . That tweet in and of itself with
obstruction. So, can i just point giulianis excuse One More Time for the tweet . I think this is significant what he tried to do here. Here it is, congressman. He used the word should, he didnt use the word must. And there was no president ial directive that followed it. Is that smart or is that desperate . Its desperate. Normally when someone says a subordinate should do something, thats considered a directive. Yes. To do it. It is. Thats normally how the english language is used. And theres a long history here. And you put it together with all the other attempts by the president and the people around him, even the republicans in congress to pressure the Special Prosecutor, it makes up, i think, a very clear case. It increases the severity the amount of evidence of Obstruction Of Justice. Let me say one other thing. The Special Prosecutor has every right to subpoena the president
under the nixon precedent and nixon versus paula jones precedent. The Special Prosecutor has every right to subpoena him and get his testimony whether he likes it or not. He shouldnt be in the position of negotiating with the president as to the subjects that he will discuss. And yet hes entitled to every mans evidence. When you hear, though, that collusion is not a topic, at least that we understand, obviously the negotiations are going on. But theyre willing to talk about collusion, the president is. Collusion conspiracy, russia, hes willing to talk about all that. Does that make you think its less likely that hes guilty or anything to do with russia, that this really is just an Obstruction Of Justice issue . No. I think theres a lot of evidence in the Public Domain about conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to violate our laws in conjunction with russia. Whats not yet in the Public Domain is information, although some has been suggested, that would tie the president personally. Remember the history here. First there were ample denials nobody ever met with the russians. Then they admitted plenty people met with the russians. We now know of 80, 80 contacts with russian officials during the campaign and during the transition. Then they said, well, they may have met with the russian officials, but they werent talking about help for the campaign. Now we know that at least in sometimes they were talking about russian help for the trump campaign. We dont yet have public evidence tying the president directly to this, but that remains to be seen and im sure that the Special Counsel knows a lot more than we do publicly. Absolutely. On the issue of obstruction, which obviously could become so poor, giuliani did raise a key pointed to i wanted to give you a chance to respond to, congressman. Let me play it for you. The best proof is in the pudding. He didnt obstruct the investigation. Its been going on for a year and a half. Theyve talked to every witness they want to. We havent asserted executive privilege. And theyve gotten every single last document. Congressman, does he have a point . This investigation has been
going on for 441 days. The president may say a whole lot of things, but its still going on. Does giuliani have a point . Well, no, i dont, no, i dont think so. First, 441 days is not a long time for an investigation like this. He keeps calling it a witch hunt. If its a witch hunt theyve caught a lot of wishes. Theyve issued over 30 indictments. They have five guilty please including people close to the president in his campaign and his administration. Remember the Benghazi Investigation went on for 2 1 2 years. Iran contra investigation for four years. And this, for an investigation of such complexity and breadth seems to be moving, judging from the guilty pleas and the indictments very rapidly. And the fact that they havent shut it down simply shows that they think there would be a saturday night massacre, 1973 firestorm if they did. And i think they would. All right. Congressman, i appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And next prosecutors laying
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lavish lifestyle. We heard from home renovateers, we heard from the mercedes dealer, real estate agents. People who were furnishing these expensive high end mens clothing. We caught up with one of the witnesses after he testified. Take a listen to what he had to say. You said in your testimony there that mr. Manafort was not the only client who sent Wire InternationalWire Transfers. I cant go into client privacy issues. But was he an important client to your business . As i stated, he was a very good customer. Thats all i can do now. Thank you. Reporter and that was one of the managers for the house of bijan, a very exclusive store in Beverley Hills that calls itself the most Expensive Store in the world. And really the judge kind of knee capped the government a little bit today, erin, reminding them that Paul Manaforts wealth and his lavish
lifestyle were not on trial today. But he allowed them to continue drawing this road map showing how this money kept coming from these offshore accounts to fund this lavish lifestyle here in the United States. And somehow that money was not showing up on Paul Manaforts tax returns. Erin . All right, thank you very much, evan. I want to go to john dean, nixons white House Counsel during watergate, and r gloria borger, our chief political analyst. John, describing in painful detail, put it that way, paid for by Wire Transfer from cyprus, International Accounts. How important is this . Well, i think its very important. It has a couple of facts. First of all, it shows his expenditure of funds, but also it has sort of a negative impact on the jury often. Im sure thats why the judge cut it down to at least what they thought he felt was a fair bare minimum to show because jurors dont like people who are filthy rich and just
spend their money at will like this. So i think that was one of the drives. Especially i suppose obviously if they are being accused of shirking their taxes. Right. Exactly. The Defense Strategy has been to blame this on rick gates. Rick gates did it, rick gates did it. And obviously the prosecution knew this. The Witnesses Today kept coming out and saying they never dealt with gates. A builder told the court in an email manafort said, quote, on matters of contract and budget you will deal with me. The neighbor who sold manafort a home paid for with money from cyprus n part, said manafort orchestrated the transaction. Right. Theyre going right at the heart of that blame it on my number two argument. Right, because they know that the number two has been cooperating with the government. So what theyre trying to do is discredit him and say, look, if you think im a bad guy, this is the guy who really ran everything. I wasnt the bad guy. He was the bad guy. I mean, you kind of would expect him to do it. I think the big question now is
whether gates is actually going to end up testifying. There was a hint today that perhaps he wouldnt, and then, of course, they can, they can change any time. And then the defense can also try and tear apart rick gates if they want to. But its kind of not surprising that they would say, you know, it wasnt us. This was the guy that was in charge of my financial situation, so he was the bad guy. John, as gloria points out it was a big moment when prosecutors said rick gates may not testify because he is the star here. That was news to everyone, including the judge. And as gloria said, it could change. But what does it tell you that theyre trying to put that in question . Well, if you look at the transcript, what it said is the government was actually on both sides of this issue. He said he may or may not testify. They would monitor this as the trial went along. But what it would say if he does not testify is that they think they can put their case on without him and spare him from being attacked. But, however, the defense could also call him as a witness and put him on as a hostile witness and would give them the right to just crossexamine him. The government, anybody they put on, they vouch for. That way the government also wouldnt have to vouch for him if the defense called him. So this can get to be a real chess game. So, i have to say there was a list of exhibits, right, as you both know. It was all the pictures of the extravagant spending. The judge was getting a little testy. This is a judge, right, who said in may to the prosecution, you guys are out to get bob mueller. Hes been critical of him before im sorry, bob mueller is out to get donald trump. And today he said told prosecutors to hurry up or move along. He wouldnt allow the pictures to be shown in the courtroom. Guess what, guys . They have come out and that means the ostrich coat is now available for everyone to see. This is what a 15,000 ostrich coat can get you. Gloria, this might be one of the uglyest things i have ever seen. Im not sure i would buy it. Would you buy that . Would you buy that for your hubby . I dont think so. But n