Partner in crime writing, quote, not withstanding that rick gates pled today, i continue to maintain my innocence. I had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to innocence. For reasons yet to surface he chose do otherwise. This does not alter my commitment to defend myself in the charges piled up against me. Gates becomes the Third Trump Campaign official to join what one ally describes as team america. Gates, along with former National Security adviser mike flin and former Trump Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos are now cooperating with the investigation and providing special counsel bob mueller with any and all information including testimony, documents, electronic files, or anything else it requests in return for leniency. As this news was breaking, donald trump addressed a wildly enthusiastic crowd at the annual cpac conference just outside washington, d. C. I saved you, cried the woman, and youve bitten me. Heavens why . You know your bite is poisonous and now im going to die. Oh shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. You knew damn well i was a snake before you took me in. And thats what were dolg doing wi doing with our country, folks, were letting people in and its going to be a lot of trouble. That, ladies and gentlemen, was our president. Anyone who has covered trunk recognized that brazen version we witnessed at cpac as the kettle blowing steam donald trump. Todays guilty plea may explain the Pressure Cooker that the Washington Post has written about in the past and may likely describe the west wing today as the mull Mueller Probe inches closer and closer to the president s inner cirque. Weve assembled some of our favorite reporters and friends to break it down. Phil rucker from. From the new york time Michael Schmidt. Also Chuck Rosenberg, a former u. S. Terp, former senior nib official now and msnbc contributor and hairly litman and former Deputy Assistant attorney zben e general during the clinton administration. Let me start are with you, Michael Schmidt, and ask you, youve written i think the stories today and yesterday about the significance of rick gates, of his guilty plea and what that might mean. Break it down for us. Look, this is the latest movement and indication that mueller is building a case in a traditional federal investigation. He has put pressure on manafort, put pressure on gates to get gates to flip. Question now is what does gates have to offer. What did he give mueller in exchange for this . Is it simply just information to put for pressure on manafort to get montha for the anafort to fe more snftion baits was around for longer than manafort was. Is there anything he knows about the campaign . Remember the central question we sometimes forget as we look at all these documents about the ukraine is about russian collusion spt there anythi collusion. Is there anything he knows about that. Is it simply just on manafort or is it broader . Let me put up all the things that gates may or may not be involved in. He served as the Deputy Campaign chairman, the transition official, so he was there as the Trump Campaign folks started landing in different agencies. And he stayed in the trump white houses good graces and worked over at the trump super pac. So what sorts of things, what sorts of things would they be able to glean if they had the same kinds of things that we know they seized from Paul Manafort in that no knock search . Im guess ago as i cooperating witness hes now agreed to hand all those sorts of things over. Well, my guess well, certainly, look, he was involved with things from the convention. There were questions that happened at the convention. There are questions about things that happened at the transition. What were these things that went on and does he provide any larger insight into them . Is he getting a deal just on manafort or is actual stuff . Is there stuff on the convention . There were those questions early on about the platform and why the platform changed. Was that something he was involved in. Is there more that can he provide there. But as you point out, this was someone that stayed in trumps orbit for a lot longer than manafort and it sort of speaks to a fundamental problem that trump had which was it was not a Traditional Campaign and they let different people in that probably wouldnt have been let in to say a Mitt Romney Campaign and they allowed them to stay around for longer and they didnt vet them in the same way that a traditional candidate was and were seeing a product of that today. Phil, i was warned today not to look at that as a piece of the man for the story but to look at how much longer gates endured and to look at that as potentially for mueller a bigger piece on the chessboard. I want to read you something your colleague philip bump wrote today. He writes, getting manafort to agree to cooperate would be huge. Save flipping a member of trumps family like soninlaw Jared Kushner. There are fewer people who are higher in the Trump Campaign infrastructure during 2016. Hes much more possible to be aware of efforts to shift direction of the Campaign Including any ways in some which those shifts cross dollars ethical or legal lines. So it seems to me that we gloss over the gates indictment at our own peril as he could be a central figure in trying to get whatever it is that muellers investigators want out of mueller and if it says your colleague surmises, someone who might flip on a Family Member. Or, as Michael Schmidt is alluding to, if its a window into what sorts of promises were being made during the campaign, during the transition, or even once donald trump was president. I think thats exactly right. Potentially gates could provide a lot of information to mueller. He was privy to a lot of transactions that took place at the campaign. He was very involved, for example, in the creation of the digital strategy, the social media strategy during the fall. He worked closely with Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw. He was very involved in the transition at trump tower. We saw him there a lot. he helped be in the room in terms of deciding whichsosome o theervegs would get positions in the white house. He stayed on past man an for the and went on with ivanka and Jared Kushner in the Fall Campaign where he would have had access to a lot of strategic decisions. I want to ask you, chuck, theres been some analysis that the additional charges, indictments against manafort and gates coming so many months after the first ones which i believe were in october could mean a whole lot of different things. And we dont know what we dont know, but that since those first charges were filed, steve bannon, jeff session, jim comey and sam number have all spend time in the special counsels office space . Washington, d. C. What sorts of pieces of story white steve bannon, Jeff Sessions and sam numb berric who was a campaign official, who sorts of things could they have shared and threads could they have pulled that would have revealed additional crimes on the part of the chairman and his deputy . These could all be independent tracks. I wouldnt necessarily draw a Straight Line from noneberg and jim ocomey for instance to rick gates and Paul Manafort. What weve seen from the special counsel as the submarine surfaces from time to time is that there are many different aspects to the case. I imagine that continues to be true today. And let me ask you harry litman, you wrote a piece before todays guilty plea about muellers mow meant pum u tomb, aupd wrote theres great cause for home this week than last that the full contours of the story, whether it involves actions that are sinister, bumbling, criminal or unwitting will in due time become clear so long as mueller stays on the job. What from your vantage point, what you see with your experience, what is your analysis of both the pace of these indictments of the things that are now becoming public at a quicker pace since the new year and what is your sense of where this investigation is bas based on what we see . Its been kind of a breathtaking week where he has brought into play not simply all kinds of new charges, but new basic episodes that he can that hell be able to build one after the other. The bannon conversation, the gates plea, the vander swal plea as well. In terms of gates, where i think it would be headed he did have a proffer session with the prosecution. Its that he did gates lie about its one of the charges hes lead pleaded to. And notwithstanding lying, mueller offered him a pretty sweetheart deal ninkt it. I think its likely that he not only stitches up manafort, but does offer, as others are saying, certainly insights as to what was going on during the Campaign Even post manaforts exit. Chuck, let me ask you to weigh in on the manafort Statement Today. He obviously expressed displeasure with his former deputy pleading guilty. And a lot of people have asked me, and not that im any nor t e that im any authority, but have been throwing around this question about whether a pardon has been promised either explicitly or through some intermediary. What did you think when you saw the manafort Statement Today expressing displeasure and disappointment in gates for not staying and trying to prove their innocence which at least on paper seems like an impossible or herc leeanne task . Its not a statement to say the least. You have to look at this not from manaforts perspective but from gatess perspective. If you read these indictments, the case is overwhelming. Its not a difficult case to prove in court. Its a hard case to investigate, but not a hard case to prove in court. So gates had to make a racial choi rational choice. And he gets the chance, knots the promise, but the chance to stay out of jail. So that manafort would make a Statement Like that for him making a decision about his own future, its an odd statement. Should we wonder if manafort has been ensured through is some back channel a pardon if he doesnt plead guilty to these crimes . Its not odd to wonder that. In fact, that may well be the case, we dont know what we dont know, as you said earlier. But, look, if hes going to get a pardon, hes going to get a pardon whether he pleads guilty, is convicted at trial, or just stays the course and tries to wait this thing out. So, again, hard to know what we dont know, but the statement seems, and im being kind here, unseemly and odd. Were going to break you down and youre going to be just as mean as me by the end of this. I want to play something four phil. Donald trump weighed in on the question about security clearances for Jared Kushner. Would you be willing to grant a waiver to Jared Kushner, one of your Senior Adviser . Jareds done an outstanding job. I think hes been treated unfair diplomatic hes works for nothing, nobody ever reports that, but he gets zero. He doesnt get a salary. So that will be up to general kelly. General kelly respects jared a lot and general kelly will make that call. I wont make that call pi. I will let the general whos right here make that call. But jareds doing some very important things for our country. He gets paid zero. Ivanka gets paid zero. So i will let general kelly make that decision and hes going to do whats right for the country and i have no doubt hell make the right decision. Phil rut ker have, i have no doubt hell make the right decision but hes doing a really good job for no money and im sure that the general will do the right thing for the country. He was obviously making his preference pretty obvious there. He was. And, nicolle, the fact that Jared Kushner doesnt take a salary is basically irrelevant to this conversation. Hes still a white house staff member. He chose to be in the staff as opposed to just being a Family Member and he has an important National Security portfolio dealing with the middle east peace issue as well as the relationship with mexico. And so, you know, i dont know how can he continue do that job effectively without the highest level of security clearance which creates a really difficult decision for john kelly who we know over many months has had moments of real genuine decision with Jared Kushner and ivanka trump in part because they are sort in this weird in between space between being actual staffers and Family Members. And they try to have it both ways sometimes. Often times, right. All the time. All the time, right. Michael schmidt, let me ask you just to follow up on the security clearance issue because this was three scandals ago but it was never resolved and questions were never answered fwhi white house. One question that i have is is it possible that the kinds of things that are being asked, the reasons that Jared Kushner might be a witness of interest in the Mueller Probe are the same kinds of questions that the fbi might have in investigating his background sufficiently enough to say, no, no, sir, he wouldnt be a threat for blackmail . Thats the fbis test for any white house staffer and if they havent finished answering those questions for the purposes of the mueller investigation, how could they possibly finish answering those questions for the purposes of a background check . The one thing about the kushner spart we dont know a lot about what mueller is looking on specifically on him. But you are right that the two things would sort of line up. In fact, sort of on the russia question. For the background check, you would look at the contacts with foreign officials. What were jareds contacts with the russians . Thats obviously a central question is what was the campaigns relationship with the russians . Whats was going on, what type of meetings happened so they would line up there. The same question on business interests. Were there things going on in the business side with foreigners at all that are being looked at by mule center and obviously that is definitely stuff that would be looked at on the background check. So they are parallel things. Now, the real question here is why is it that this thing has been delayed . Is it simply that, as they say, Jared Kushners finances are just so complicated that they cant get to the bottom of it or are there other reasons . We know initially there was problems with the paperwork, it was not filled out. All the foreign officials that he had met with and they went back and amend today. And its been amend a few times since then. One of the things that got amended was the trump tower meeting in 2016. Were the russians promising dirt, met with don junior and manafort. They do line up at times. Tie this altogether for us. We sit here one week after the stunning indictments last friday of 13 russian nationals. Since then, two more individuals about n well, one more has pleaded guilty, another has been indicted in the Mueller Probe. Just pull back the lens a little bit for us and tell us where you think we are here at the end of the february. Okay. Well, let me start with Jared Kushner because theres a big difference between proving a guilty charge, a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury with abbe lowell defending and figuring out whether theres a security risk. Security risk are usually adjudicated in several months. If you have some troubling information, thats enough. Theres not the same burden of proof and rights for that person. Think probably the white house has already possessed sufficient information to give grave doubt as to his ability to handle classified information and it really does rest with kelly now. In terms of the broader status of the investigation, as chuck says, you know, the submarine surfaces occasionally. But in the last week, it surfaced and put into play four new platforms of inquiry. And if i had to try to tie together a basic theme, theyre sort of setting the stage for activity in and from russia. And the next big piece will be whether theres an ability to link up things in the United States, people in the United States with what was obviously nefarious activity coming from a hostile power. Michael schmid the rg Chuck Rosenberg and harry litman, were so grateful to all of you for starting us off. Phil rutger not done yet. When we come back, our next guest talks about the dereliction of duty and what a nation can do without a president not willing to protect it. 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