Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. Allegations in the u. S. So we talked about this sort of circumventing the american tax system. Overseas payments and overseas Bank Accounts and never reported which is what is alleged. What is the bank fraud part of the case. It is the prosecutors allege that after 2014, when the spigot of cash was turned off, he needed to fund his lavish lifestyle. What he had was Real Estate Holdings that he purchased through the bogus loans. What he did, was he began overstating the value of these property. Faking a profit and loss statement for his company. Showing cash that he didnt have for bankers including while he was chairman of the campaign. They call it bank c and that is
the kind of fraud that they are alleging. Prosecutors are going to show that in fact it was false. Zoe, tad davine was there. He was a partner with manafort in his work in ukraine, what did he have to say . So tad talked about being brought in starting in 2005 to head Media Strategy for the pro Russia Ukraine political party, the party of regions that manafort worked for. Davine talked about emails he exchanged with manafort detailing the extent of his work, the contract that he signed. And some of this evidence was evidence that manafort asked the judge to keep out of the trial, argued that getting too much into yanukovych might prejudice the jury. There is no agreement between the parties about how manafort made his money. How much money he made, where it came from. So this was relevant. And davines Testimony Illustrated what appeared to be central tension. Exactly how hands on manafort was in his business. Whether he was the daytoday, he knew everything that was going on. The questions from prosecutors tried to get at this idea of manafort as very handson. Very involved in every aspect of his busy, trying to counter perhaps the Defense Narrative that manafort was high level and entrusted his financial dealings with his associates like rick gates and he thought even was going to do what they were supposed to with his finances and no intent to mislead any u. S. Officials. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Learned a lot. Possible legal repercussions lets bring in jill winebanks, and legal analyst mimi roach. You got a case like this. And in some ways a boring case insofar as a lot of paper and money trails. So a little bit of spice. They talked about a 15,000 ostrich jacket. What is the approach here. It is a good point. You have to keep the jurys interest a little bit. Sometimes dwelling on the extravagant purchases. You know, really what the strategy here is going to be
showing and it sounds like the prosecutor was cut off a little bit in the opening on this. But showing how much manafort loved his money. The ostrich jacket is not just quirky interesting fact, who buys that. And you could spend your money on a lot of things, there are a lot of objects to put that kind of money in, but an ostrich jacket is bought by somebody who is flamboyant and wants to sort of really relish and wear their money. Someone who has been spending too much time around the oligarchs former Soviet Republic possibly. Exactly. But it is going to make a defense that he wasnt involved in his business is very hard. So jill, we got to first look
at the defense, and talk about rick gates who is a central witness here. The defense Opening Statement focused on rick gates who is Paul Manaforts deputy. And look, it was all this guy, the guy who is cooperating who is going to be testifying against our client, he is the guy in this. You cant trust him. It is often the approach of defendants where it is always someone elses fault. It seldom works especially in a case like this where the evidence will be visible to the jurors. They will see how much money came in, how much money was reported. And they will see the signatures on all of the Bank Accounts overseas. They will see who had the foreign Bank Accounts and who didnt. And i think this wont ultimately be successful. And it is exactly what donald trump is doing too. It is not me, it is someone else. Always someone elses fault. This is an expensive defense. Do we know how he is paying for it . We dont. The government is entitled to ask that. Usually you get a vague response. I dont know, i havent heard that they have done that in this case. Maybe they, you know, hard to know why they wouldnt have done that here, i suppose in some ways they want him to be able to mount whatever defense he is going to mount because they have a strong case and if he is going to be convicted, they want everyone to know he has a fair trial. A strong case and if he is going to be convicted, they want everyone to know he has a fair trial. All of the people that i have been talking to, surprising it is going to trial. Not going to plead, not going to
cooperate. A lot of people feel like in similar situations, a case like this would have been pled out by now. I was surprised that it didnt plead much earlier, but at a certain point, he had spent so much money on the defense, that it makes no sense for him to Start Talking about cooperating at that point. But also very interesting if he is blaming his partner rick gates, rick gates pled out in part because he had no money. So now you have manafort saying he stole my money, embezzled money from me. How come rick gates doesnt have money to defend himself and you do. That would be my question. So that under cuts the argument that rick gates took the money. This courtroom which is sealed. At a time when it is the president s campaign manager. And the stuff that they are
talking about he was doing, reporting to work by day to get donald trump elected and then filing false forms allegedly with banks . This artificial universe. Presumably in Jury Selection the extremes are weeded out. Many problems who dont follow this as closely as a lot of people do. God bless them. Probably saner than we are right now. Nonetheless, trials when this happens, jurors bring biases and things that they know to trials that happen every day. They hate cops, they never are going to believe a cop. All defendants that are charged must be guilty. Those kind of people weeded out. I think that once you are in
that courtroom, there is something about the judge, especially a judge like this who is keeping everyone so focused that they are able to get the jurors to focus on the law and the facts. And he seems to want to move this along quickly. Thank you so much. Next, the prosecutors star witness, what rick gates knows that could have trump world worried in two minutes. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . Then you need xfinity xfi. A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. Today during Opening Statement, Paul Manaforts lawyer said manafort is in gates became partners with Manafort Consulting and lobbying for ukrainian politicians and oligarchs. When manafort 20 to trump campaign, gates went with him. Rick gates stayed on the campaign and worked as liaison. He then stayed with trump after
trump won as well working on the president s inaugural committee. And after that trump boosting America First policies. And after he was pushed out of the nonprofit, gates was hired by tom barrett. Gates was rolled up alongside manafort. By february of this year, gates had A Change Of Heart and he announced he was cooperating with muellers team and now he centraled this team. He knows a lot. For more on how central rick gates is, joined by daniel goldman. How central is rick gates here . By february of this year, gates had A Change Of Heart and he
announced he was cooperating with muellers team and now he centraled this team. He knows a lot. For more on how central rick gates is, joined by daniel goldman. How central is rick gates here . Very central to this trial and central to anything involving Paul Manafort. What is more interesting than whether or not Paul Manafort evaded taxes or committed loan fraud which are serious crimes is what does rick gates know beyond Paul Manafort and his financial dealings from his life before the campaign . And as you just recited, he has been Paul Manaforts right hand man for decades. He knows a lot about what Paul Manafort knows and so that is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the collusion
investigation ramps up. Thats the key to me. The thing i keep coming back to is that transition period where there was so much strange stuff going on. Kislyak getting shuttled to trump tower. Michael flynn lying to who he is talking to. He is there for that transition period too. That is a guy who presumably been talking to federal investigators and prosecutors for months now. It is timely that this is happening now and not at all surprising that Rudy Giuliani went on his circular tour of Circular Reasoning yesterday. Right when Paul Manaforts lawyers would have received all of the notes and memos about Everything Rick Gates has told mueller and his team. Not just about the Manafort Trial but everything. Is that the way it works . Thats the way it works. They are obligated to turn over prior statements so they can be used for pros examination. The notes of that. Turned over on the eve of trial for discovery. Exactly. That is what they will use. You testified to x and you said y earlier. They will use that to try to trip him up. It is not a surprise that Rudy Giuliani is the first person to raise the notion of a pre meeting meeting. And one of the people he says in that meeting is rick gates. This idea that giuliani dropping these hints. Here is what he had to say. Lanny davis added there was a meeting two days before the meeting took place with donald jr. , jared, manafort and two others. Gates and one more person. And thats a real meeting. Thats a real meeting on another provable subject in which he would not participate. Your key supposition, we dont know, is that manaforts attorneys have in their hands everything that gates told federal prosecutor. How is that being communicated . Through the lawyers. You are right, it is supposition, it is conjecture. And sometimes our limitations on whether they can share that information. What is the ethical guidelines. There is no ethical guidelines, it varies. And for all we know, mueller could have gone to the judge and said we want the keep the Collusion Stuff out of this material. I dont think that would win because you have to cross examine him. It goes to show how crucial rick gates would be to the collusion investigation. We are talking about michael cohen. He may have information. But a lot less for the reasons you described. And by the way, he wasnt there in the june 9th meeting. But if Paul Manafort left that meeting and went and told rick gates what happened, rick gates can testify to that as a coconspirator. Manafort would have had better access to gates. But if he is telling gates, gates can relay that about what manafort is saying at the time. So you dont need manafort to cooperate if he is sharing. It is so fascinating when gates takes the stand. An amazing moment after all of this to see what he has to say. Although a lot wont come up. That is what you to have recognize. Not going to be talking about this stuff. Daniel goldman, thanks for joining me. Thank you. Russians are using the exact same message of sustained criminal sabotage as they did in 2016. And what the Trump Administration is or is not doing about it after this. Ahh. Summer is coming. And its time to get outside. Pack in even more adventure with audible. With the Largest Selection of audiobooks. Audible lets you follow plot twists off the beaten track. Or discover magic when you hit the open road. With the free audible app, your stories go wherever you do. And for just 14. 95 a month you get a credit, good for any audiobook. If you dont like it exchange it any time. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. There were two main prongs of the strategy, the russia based Internet Research agency pretending to be americans to discord and try to sway voter opinion. Also, a dozen russian officials trying to gain access to emails. Now with just 98 days until the Midterm Election, here is where we are. Senator Claire Mccaskill has already been targeted by hackers using these same kind of Password Stealing Techniques that exposed john podesta in 2016. And today facebook announced it had uncovered a coordinated attempt to influence the Midterm Election many they say that quote some of the activity is consistent with what they saw from the russian based agency. Anna scheckter has been covering this and joins me tonight. Facebook made this announcement today, what did we learn . We learned that the exact same tactics have been used. It looks like the russians are behind it. Although facebook cant say. They havent found the russian ip addresses. There is a rally planned for august 12th and engaged real people to show up on august 12th. There is a group called black elevation, a group called confront and resist fascism. This is all the same kind of, what is uncanny about this is
these are not actually the people they say they are. Trying to foment conflict. That is right. But still getting people on board. And they had almost 300,000 followers. That is a big Facebook Page oh, across the pages. Across the pages but 30 events taking place. Who knows what is going to happen august 12th but calling them to show their fight. Show as much discord and as much conflict. You saw in charlottesville, the result with a death and 19 people injured from that tense environment. Now we dont know if the Internet Research agency had anything to do with it, but divisive issues. You also have a situation it seems to me where facebook and twitter killed off a bunch of
accounts. This seems to be being policed by the companies. Who is on the watch for this . The companies are working with an fbi Task Force Working specifically on this issue. We didnt see the companys selfpolicing. But this complete cultural shift where we the users are saying, my data is all over the place. People want the companies to we didnt see the companys selfpolicing. But this complete cultural shift where we the users are saying, my data is all over the place. People want the companies to hold themselves to account. The key point to me is transparency. You dont want to be encountering stuff that is potentially produced by imposters. Manipulating your psychology. It is deeply unsettling and to know that 30 of these events have already happened. I would like to know more about who showed up to those. And its pretty sad. We will be learning more about how extensive all of this is. Thank you so much. Joining me now, is angus king of maine. Senator, what do you think about the fact that it appears the exact same playbook is being operationalized this year as 2016 . This is a big deal. As you pointed out, they are back at it. Number two, buried in the story today, it appears they are doing it in a sophisticated way. Disguising where this is coming from through vpns around the world. And what they are doing is taking aim at our system itself. The combination of the First Amendment and democratically elected governments is exactly what they are focusing on. I call it geo political jew. What do you say if people say, i am not convinced that this is happening a huge effect. One of the things, and you mentioned we are going to have a hearing on this tomorrow before the Senate Intelligence meeting followed up. Tomorrow are going to be experts on exactly what is going on. We think we are only seeing the tip of an iceberg. There is a lot more going on that is being used to manipulate us. And what they are doing is simply trying to sow discord and distrust they are doing a good job at it. Has there been sufficient response from the Trump Administration . The short answer is no. Just this morning Secretary Nielsen in new york started making the right kind of noises. The problem is the response has been spread across a lot of different departments. Nobody was in charge. They set up a new office today, and that may help. The other thing she mentioned that is absolutely critical, we have got to convince the russians or the chinese, or the North Koreans or whoever proposing to do Something Like this that they are going to pay a price. We are a cheap date, they knocked the hell out of our
process in 2016, nothing that would change their calculus. We have to have a Deterrent Policy that they understand that if they do this, there is going to b