Chris Matthews debates hot political issues with politicians, newsmakers and Washington leaders. Not to pay off women so his marriage would be in tact. But to get himself elected. That is an amazingly particular charge that gets to the heart of the president s lack of credibility. I am thrilled that you honed into that specific part of it. This is not just a pay off. It has to do with the campaign itself. When you have Something Like this, could Michael Cohen perhaps testify against the president of the United States. Who knows and we may never know. One thing that under lies testimony and makes Michael Cohen potentially credible here, is that we are talking about payments which means there are transactions which means there are records and documentation. Not own are the things that Michael Cohen allocate to are damning. But these are banking allegations, things that have
but today was a costly day. Trump is directly like the center of the spokes of all of this wheel of implication of all of these people, manafort and Michael Cohen. So we are looking at donald trump now and we want to know what is out there in terms of evidence. Remember, this system worked, chris. The raids on cohens home and office worked. The raids produced evidence. After the system worked for the benefit of the government but still protecting Michael Cohen. So now we know there is evidence that the Southern District has but can the president be indicted. Isnt that the ultimate question. Can they bring a rico charge . Is. Here is the deal. The president sitting president of the United States doj guidelines say you shouldnt and wont be indicting the president of the United States. Doesnt mean he cant be indicted after he sits in
office. Congress can impeach the president. Why would a grand jury sitting there indict a president. Talk about indictment in the court of public opinion, you cant get any more close. I asked omarosa come on tonight because i have known her for years and you have a stash of emails and other forms of documentation. Lets take a look at this video that shows Michael Cohen boarding trumps plane in september of 2016. Lets watch. My number one star. You are on my video, just so you know. Now ive got to stop you. Michael, a bye. This is september of 2016, in the midst of these negotiations. What does it tell you. The first thing that the president is going to say is that Michael Cohen had nothing to do with the campaign, he was just a coffee boy, just involved. First of all, to show you that he was in fact involved with the campaign. He organized this particular trip to cleveland. He spoke at this event. And as you can see, horsing around after on the plane and he sat and met with the president during that trip. He was very involved and directing some of the things that were happening and impacting some of the decisions that the president made. Give me a preview of coming attractions. Has it been accurately reported that you have all kinds of things in terms of evidence. That was the first video that i shared and one, i shared because people are demonizing Michael Cohen. And donald trump do you know the president told him to lie for the purpose of paying off those women. He certainly asked him to protect donald trump, to protect him from his wife and the country and help him get elected. Did he know about the meeting in june with the meeting with the russians . I suspect. How do you know . You know that to be a fact. Didnt hide his affinity for russians and it is leudicrous fr people to say we didnt hear about his desire to have a relationship. Trying to get dirt from the russian government. There was a time when we found out about these emails, and there is a debate about when
donald trump found out about them. You mean the hacking of the dnc . I have been cooperating with them. Have they asked you about, have muellers people ask you about this thing. They asked me a wide range of question. And i will be very careful. Today changed everything. This is the beginning of the end for donald trump. Why . Because he know that the person who knows everything about him, about his relationships with these women and others that people may not know about are going to come to light. Let me go to ken on this thing. And then go around the room here, because i think this guy knows a lot. And i get the feeling that his charges are light. He is a felony now, he cant vote. He cant run for office. But Michael Cohen knows a lot. And if omarosa is backing this up and everybody else, if this
guy was on the inside, isnt he trumps worst nightmare. Especially with all the documents they grabbed. He has visibility into a wide range. And we are not just talking about the payoffs of the women. We are talking about throughout the campaign as omarosa documented on this video. He was in there. And we are talking about his business, trumps Business Dealings before that. We know that he traveled the world. And he rejects the claim that he was in prague meeting with voces. But we know he was all over the world. We are seeing the tip of the iceberg. He worked with Elliott Brody who has been the subject of interest. Cut the deal with them, they have got them in their tentacles. How do they feed him now to provide information on russia and Everything Else in this pandoras box over to mueller . Any time that you cut a deal with the government, you can cooperate in any time with them and any information you share federally, you know, it is all one system. So if he has told them one certain thing that may be helpful to Special Counsel mueller, that is something that they can share back and forth. As far as information finding its way back to the Special Counsel, thats not going to be a problem. Katie, Last Question do you. He was a tough guy, he was basically a tough guy for trump. In the good old days. Is he in control of the u. S. Attorneys. Does he have to basically talk when they tell him to talk or else he faces real trouble, your thoughts. He is still in the driver seat because he has valuable information. The more you cooperate, the more sentence is going to be lightened. More information on a variety of different topics. If everybody knew about this situation, are they all liable . Katie, how many people knew about this . The payment, the deal, to hush them up so he can get through the election. You also have Keith Davidson, there is more people including Keith Davidson that would implicate donald trump as well. And Campaign Finance law speak to who had liability in this case. The candidate in this case,
cohen is signaling out the candidate, but a treasurer of a campaign also would have liability for that. I was on the Receiving End of one of these hush deals where lara trump called me and offer me a job. So i could keep quiet. So they are in the business of trying to silence people and using Campaign Dollars to do that which is illegal. Thank you omarosa, ken vogel, katie fang. Up next, Double Barrel story, Paul Manafort going down for eight counts. Still got to go to d. C. For another round of trials. Will the president give this guy
a break and pardon him who knows. This is hardball where the action is. But ever since he bought a new house. Tom its a 10 cover . Oh, okay. Didnt see that on the website. Hes been acting more and more like his dad. Come on, guys jump in the waters fine tom pritchard. How we doin . Hi, there. Tom pritchard. Can we get a round of jalapeno poppers for me and the boys, please . Ive been saving a lot of money with progressive lately, so. Progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents. But we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. Come fly with me, lets fly, lets fly away. D auto
welcome back to hardball. Paul manafort has been found guilty on eight counts. Five counts of tax fraud, the judge declared a mistrial in the remaining ten counts. It would have been 18 when the jury declared they couldnt reach a consensus on the other accounts. President trump had this to say. Paul manafort is a good man. He was with ronald reagan. And a lot of different people over the years. I feel sad about that. It is a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with
russian collusion. This started as russian collusion. This has nothing to do. This is a witch hunt and it is a disgrace. Nothing to do what they started out. Looking for russians involved in our campaign. There were none. The charges stemmed with manaforts Work Over Seas where manafort was paid 60 million over 12 years but failed to properly pay taxes. This is the first big test for muellers special investigation in the meddling. Even though the charges against manafort pre dates his time on the campaign. Joined by ken littdill laini. What do you think the trial means today and how do you think that jury got through where they
got through. Ken. This jury meticulously went through the evidence. One is that they did not believe rick gates, because the Conspiracy Counts of bank fraud where gates was key, they could not come to an agreement. The tax evasion was clear. On the foreign bank charges, they convicted him on only one potential, the evidence was strong there. But they went through count by count and they found some evidence more persuasive than other evidence. And they dont appear to have been affected by any outside noise. In terms of what it means for manafort, he is looking at seven to nine years in prison. And the judge can take into account all the charges even the
charges he wasnt convicted of. A hefty prison sentence. Does he pack it in, cut a deal or keep fighting . And this defense must be costing him enormous sums of money. The next shoe to drop is looking at whether Paul Manafort decides to cut a deal. So right now, chris, this is a loselose for Paul Manafort. Convicted of only eight of the 18 charges. But the other ten charges, the government could retry those if chose to. The government could use that conduct as what we call relevant conduct and that can actually enhance his sentence. All we have to prove at a Sentencing Hearing regarding relative conduct that it is more likely than not that he committed those acts. Is that fair to say if
someone gets a hung jury and not convicted of that that is held against him even though there is no proof. Fair or unfair, those are the rules. Would be exposed to if convicted of those accounts. He does get a sentencing if prosecutors can prove by a preponderance of the evidence. Manafort is that rare defendant looking at a hat trick. Mueller, once he decides to return the conspiracy indictment, manafort will be roll rolled into this as well. Let me go to carolyn on this. He doesnt show much emotion. He is a tough guy. He is 69. Facing a decade in prison. The judge can throw the book at
him and try to win conviction on those. Maybe a liberal jury, philly is a tough down. You dont know what you are going it get on a jury. Maybe liberals. Who knows and there is a hell of a lot of documentation being thrown at him in the next trial. If he skated through this baby with help on the jury, he may not be as lucky next time. He may face the rest of his life prison. Absolutely. Taking a long hard look at himself in the mirror today. Remember, rick gates got on the stand and said we both had this option. I chose a different option than manafort. So the idea being he refused to cooperate with prosecutors. To the extent that prosecutors were planning on using rick
gates in the second trial coming up. He didnt play well to the jury. Paul manafort has been in pretrial incarceration prior to the next trial coming up. So he has gotten a taste of what prison life is like. If i had to guess, i would say say i made a mistake, it is the d. C. Court. Watergate, those guys did not go well going to d. C. Court. Ken, the difference between a north virginia court, do you have any sense at all of the jury and who they are . I think the jury pool is going to be even more predisposed to be hostile to a republican political. And this judge. This Manafort Defense Team is
afra afraid of the d. C. Judge. Judge ellis was seen as favorable. You are not going to see that in the d. C. Judge. Paul manafort showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Is donald trump going to pardon manafort. Speckle of two trials. If donald trump was willing to pardon sheriff arpaio. It is harder to punish, to pardon someone when you benefit. When you are pardoning a guy who can testify against you, everyone is going to say you are jerry ford at best. A pardon can equal obstruction of justice. Some people can say he has unfetterred unlimited pardon power. Yes he does, but once he exercises it. You pardon that same person because that persons relative gave you a million dollars, that is corrupt. I didnt know there was a limit on the pardon power. There is an unlimited power, but once you do, we are not trying to limit the power, but looking behind it. If intent is corrupt. The person still gets pardoned. Exactly. Thoughts of that carolyn. Everyone is thinking pardon. Like he cares about this guy. He probably doesnt care at all about mr. Cohen at this point to
say the least. If you look at again the groundwork that trump has made. Desouza didnt argue that he didnt commit the crime. That is really the idea that trump is ginning up here in this witch hunt narrative. He is going to say of course this had nothing to do with the russian collusion and therefore he was treated unfairly and the idea of the corrupt intent, it is the exact idea we have been talking about with the firing of james comey, was that obstruction of justice. He is the president of the United States and he has the power. What was the underlying motivation. And he may be saving the pardons for his kids, im saying. Ken, thank you, as always great
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clear, so black letter as it were t