Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in washington. Federal prosecutors in new york have accused the president of criminal violation of the federal Campaign Laws. They say trump directed thats the word Michael Cohen to cover up a Campaign Contribution in the form of payments with two women with whom he had sexual relations. This comes from the Southern District of new york, not Robert Mueller, not the socalled 17 democrats the president says are working against him, not the deep state, not from a witch hunt. Its from one of the two Sentencing Memos filed in the case of trumps former lawyer, Michael Cohen, today, which are shedding new light on the president s potential legal exposure. As trumps longtime fixer, cohen pleaded guilty in august to Campaign Finance violations and making hush payments to two women on trumps behalf. And now, tonights Sentencing Memo makes clear that with respect to both payments, cohen acted in coordination with and at the direction of individual
one. Thats the president. Were also getting new insight into what cohen has told the Special Counsel in the ongoing probe of Potential Collusion with russia. According to the filing from muellers office, cohen not only provided information about the moscow real estate project trump tower over there that trump pursued during the election, but also provided information about attempts by other Russian Nationals to reach the Trump Campaign. According to the memo, quote, cohen spoke with a Russian National who claimed to be a trusted person in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign heres a phrase political synergy, in other words, working together, trump and russia against hillary. Prosecutors say cohen provided useful information concerning certain discrete russiarelated matters, according to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with Company Executives. Thats Trump Company executives. Thats how cohen got the information hes been using to try to save himself. And cohen also provided relevant
and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the white house itself after january of 2017. However, despite cohens assistance, prosecutors in the Southern District of new york still recommended a substantial term of imprisonment for Michael Cohen, given the nature of his crimes. Also tonight, prosecutors detailed how trumps former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, lied to them repeatedly while he was supposedly cooperating with them. What a news night. Im joined by ken delanian, julie ainsley, a security and justice reporter for nbc news, Barbara Mcquade, former u. S. Attorney out of michigan. Mimi roca, former u. S. Assistant district in the Southern District of new york. I want to start with ken and Focus On One Thing first. I want to focus on the criminal violation of the Campaign Laws, this effort to cover up what is really a Campaign Contribution of 130,000, 150,000, adding it up to cover up these affairs
with these two women. The president directed that activity, according to this memorandum today. Ken. Yes, chris. And in fact, Michael Cohen already stood up in court and said that when he pleaded guilty to these charges in the Southern District of new york. But whats different today is that the u. S. Attorneys office, a representative of the United States of america, is endorsing that View In Black And White in a court filing, that cohen acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual One, donald trump, who had become the president of the United States. Now, the reason ive been told its not accurate to call him an unindicted coconspirator, butt there is still an issue of Criminal Intent. The way the Campaign Finance law is written, prosecutors have to prove for a violation that you had an intent to violate the law. Normally you hear ignorance of the law is no excuse. In this case, ignorance of the law can be an excuse. If donald trump was told by a lawyer, hey, this payment is okay, its not a violation of the Campaign Finance law, that
would be clearly a defense. But the facts outlined here suggest a scheme, suggest people who knew what they were doing was wrong, particularly cohen. And clearly, if a president of the United States was able to be indicted, this is a Case Prosecutors would pursue to the last document, to the last witness, chris. And just to make your point again, the prosecutors in this case in the Southern District of new york, the federal prosecutors basically nominated and confirmed by this republican senate. These people say that Michael Cohen had Criminal Intent. They said he knew the law, that he had worked in politics. Absolutely. He knew this was a coverup. Julia, your thoughts on that, that cohen, directed by Individual One, the president , is accused of knowing what he was doing. Is it possible or plausible to assume that the guy who told him what he was doing didnt know it was a criminal act, the president . Yeah, chris, before i came out here, i saw that Individual One was the number one trend on twitter, at least in this region, and its because Individual One is named in both of these Sentencing Memos weve
seen tonight from the Southern District and from the Special Counsel. In the mueller memo, Individual One is the owner of the company, the Real Estate Company that cohen worked for. That would be Trump Organization. That would be donald trump. And he is the one who, im reading here, would have conferred with cohen about reaching out to the Russian Government. Then when you talk about the payments to the women, the Individual One goes on to become the president of the United States. Pretty clear thats donald trump. And that he also worked with him, talked to him about the payments to those women. So, in a lot of ways, it cannot be underscored that these memos really arent about cohen. I mean, they are about cohen, but they really point to the president in a way we hadnt seen before and point to this administration, not just the campaign, but whats going on inside the white house. Let me go to barb on this, because i think the language was very strong. I was really impressed by the spirit of the prosecutors language. They talk about how people go door to door in politics, they lick envelopes, they do all of
the work of politics in an open, transparent way because thats what the law and our democracy is all about, is transparent politics. And this skulduggery, this middle of the night going to that magazine, getting them to Catch And Kill, getting them to kill the story about these affairs, all this done purposefully and deliberately and intricately to cover it up, to make it nontransparent. They really threw the book at this. They took this Campaign Violation as dead criminal activity. One of the things that a prosecutor is required to do in a Sentencing Memorandum is describe to the judge the nature and seriousness of the offense. And here they describe this as a very serious offense. The whole purpose of Campaign Finance laws is to provide transparency and whos paying for things and how theyre being run. And in fact, they used the word cloud, that Michael Cohen and Individual One went out of their way and took deliberate steps to cloud that transparency by making these payments to hide the truth from the public so that they could cast aine formed vote. When we have a democracy, its based on the ability of voters
to cast an informed vote. And when youre hiding the truth from the American People, then democracy breaks down. Thats a serious crime. Well, on tonights multiple Court Filings, they appear to indicate that President Trump himself could be facing new legal exposure, including implications in a federal crime. The president , or Individual One, as hes called here, responded tonight with a show of confidence. He tweeted this is outlandish. Totally clears the president. Thank you well, thats just crazy talk. Let me go to mimi on this. You know whats interesting how character and morality all come to play here, that you know, sometimes progressives play this game and sometimes conservatives play this game and trumpites, whatever you call him. They say personal behavior Doesnt Matter. Its about politics and ideology conforms to the candidate and it Doesnt Matter who the person is. Here we are talking about a guy and his affairs and the way that his character shows him having the affairs and his character showing him covering up the affairs and how he uses his lawyer to do it and how he uses his money to do it, and now its
all about protecting his chance to hold public office. It all integrates together. Thats what i find faci and the prosecutors talk like that. They hit the guy morally. Thats the way i read the document. It wasnt a cold, secular document. Its saying this is what brings the toxicity into american politics, these affairs being paid off, women being paid off, power being used to snuff out the truth and not enlightened democracy, but to deny the truth to democracy and the voters. Your thoughts. Absolutely, chris. And look, this is a typical Southern District. And frankly, any u. S. Attorney office type of document where you talk about the purpose of the laws and the spirit of the laws, and thats important, as barb said, to explain to the judge in terms of sentencing. And judge polly is a judge who takes those laws very seriously. I think its important to point out that there was a phrase used in the Southern District memo
about the evidence against cohen being, quote, overwhelming, and that he didnt cooperate out of sort of the goodness of his heart or spirit, but because he was really caught redhanded. So, for trump to say that this clears him, we dont know that all of the evidence that is, quote, overwhelming against cohen, but im willing to go out on a limb here now and say that given what the Southern District has put in black and white, in writing, about the president s actions, im willing to bet that there is good evidence that trump had the requisite intent to commit this crime as well. And ill go out on a limb and say this is the biggest act of selfdelusion since baghdad bob, who said they were winning the war. I want to bring in ari melber, whos been brilliance on this tonight, msnbcs chief correspondent as well as host of the beat. Ari, i love the way you put it up and i want to go back to a deeper question. When trump got away for a while, for a few weeks, with the access Hollywood Tape that everybody said was going to kill
him, Reince Priebus was going to walk over it, smart republicans, decent republicans said this smells too terrible to withstand, to survive. And here we have a president basically being charged by the Federal District of new york up there with basically covering up a Couple Affairs with money and power and doing it in a way that i can get away with this crap. This is stuff i can get away with. Ive got this fixer lawyer here, cohen, he does this crap for me. Ive got a magazine thats going to buy this crap and kill it for me. Ive got it all wired. I can get away with it, just like he said in the access hollywood, i can get away with it. I thought it was interesting the way you talked about it tonight. Well, you laid it out, chris. That attitude that was caught on tape was not just bragging about sexual assault, which itself is potentially felonious conduct. It was also, as you just put it, his belief that lets you get away with it. Well, thats not how those people felt, because many of them spoke out. Thats not how the prosecutors in new york have deemed the conduct. And they say Michael Cohen had that same mentality. If you want to call it the trump
organization mentality, it is well just get away with it, the rules dont apply. I mean, this was a two by four striking Michael Cohen in the head over and over today. And this is someone who went out there and did media leaks and tried to say he was doing it both ways or he was going to do this because it was for the good of the country, or he said he wasnt taking a pardon, as if this was something for him thats sitting around on a silver platter, i mean, the privilege of that. And this is the federal prosecutors, as youre alluding to, saying no, it doesnt work like that. Youre busted. Thats why youre in trouble. Youre busted. Thats why youre sort of cooperating. And it still wasnt good enough, so you should do hard time. That comes against another thing i thinks going to royal the city youre in, the manafort filing, which is getting attention, although its partly redacted. Chris, it says in here on page nine we only dealt with this briefly on my hour Paul Manafort authorized people to speak with the administration on his behalf and then lied to mueller about it. Paul manafort was in contact with, quote, Administration Officials in 2018. Who are they . Did they lie about it . Are there other people inside
the white house who are on the hook in these implicated crimes . Lets talk about your interesting way of putting it together, Street Corner cop. You said theres the good cop, the bad cop. You basically said the new york prosecutors were the bad cops. The good guys were the muellers crowd in washington. Talk about how that worked, because it seemed to work against Michael Cohen. New york thought hes a sleazeball, basically said youre as bad as trump. Youre as bad as trump because youre a fixer. You help guys like him. Youre an enabler. You help bigshots get away with crap nobody should get away with, buying off women, empowering yourself at the expense of other peoples powers and dignity. And then were going to screw you but down in washington, they can stay nice to you because youve been whispering in their ear for a couple of months, and theyre going to be nice to you, but youre going to serve time. Looks like real time. I think theres a strategy here. Remember there was talk from pinned pu pundits about when sdny got involved mueller hand off the case . No, he never handed it off in
that sense. He referred things jurisdictionally, but hes a bythebook guy, but he never gave up control as he said under penalty of perjury to the russia probe. So muellers the good cop, saying give us what youve got, well take it in and try to award people who cooperate, but sdny is the bad cop, saying this isnt cooperation, this is crap. You didnt fully cooperate. This isnt going to be treated under the legal jargon as technical total cooperation, which gives him the sentencing guidelines benefits. And by the way, you only did it because you had to. So, what does that tell us . It tells us youve got folks who are quite independent up at sdny. It stands for southern, but your panelists know some people refer to it as the sovereign district of new york, and thats the place that produced james comey, ma mary jo white, rudy giuliani, preet bharara. Tell me about that culture. Rudy giuliani was up there. What is it about the Southern District that theyre so tough, they suddenly look like dick tracy . What are they about . They seem to be the tough guys
of the government, not the deep state in d. C. , that nonsense, or the 17 democrats. These look like what do they call them, the gmen. Theyre going to get the bad guys, the fbi. You definitely have a pride and attitude up there that this is the most important district, this is the only district with its own foreign policy, just like people say about the new York City Mayors Office is differ