Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Robert mueller is not. See you in a bit. Here onset for another day, dan goldman, an msnbc legal analyst along with our pal nbc News Reporter carol lee. It is less hot than it has been all week. You picked a good day to be here. Dan, let me start with you, if you look at what each side wants, they are both looking for leverage. And the sticking point, one of them seems to be this idea much an in person interview. What is the framing behind that . The trump team wants questions on collusion only and special counsel wants to hear about it all. I think Rudy Giuliani is trying to figure out a way to drum up some leverage because ordinarily the witness of the defendant or target or subject does not have the leverage, the prosecutor does. And but because bob mueller is not talking and Rudy Giuliani is, hes able he has the whole Public Domain to make all of his arguments, even though as
a prosecutor, none of them make sense. Start with the perjury trap. This is not a perjury trap is it a perjury trap if you tell the truth. The perjury trap looks at it from the perspective of the prosecutor and the truth looks at it from the perspective of the witness. The reason its not a trap in any way shape or form, they have legitimate questions to ask about an ongoing investigation. Thats that makes it not a trap. Whether he tells the truth or not is up to him. There are two strategies that the president s legal team seem to be putting forward here. You have the legal strategy which youve laid out but then carol, theres kind of the Public Relations strategy which weve talked about before as it relates to the president s legal team and Rudy Giuliani seems to be making implicit threats. Heres what he had to say in the fox interview as well about that. The real story here is not that this case isnt going to fizzle. Its going to blow up on them. The real question is what we talked about before, theres a lot more to what they did that
nobody knows about yet. And mueller is going to have a lot to answer for. Seems kind of easy to send Warning Shots to somebody you know isnt going to fire back. Absolutely. This is a pr o fenffensivoffens been negotiating on this interview for eight months now. Its its an exceptionally long time and in that time, youve seen the president s legal team while its undergone different changes and various phases, they just launch an increasingly aggressive assault on the investigation and so in many ways, you know, you can see how theres a whole school of thought that the president was never going to do an interview, even if he wants to, that was never going to happen and theres been a lot of stalling and thats part of the tactic here. You can see even if he if he does decide ultimately that there is no interview, that hes mounted this whole defense about why that is and hes made it so normally in a political sphere,
that would be seen as youre afraid to answer questions or this and that. Hes casted as the investigation as such a witch hunt and in that sense he can argue that why would he sit in front of an for an investigation thats a witch hunt and out to get him. Dan, i want to quickly touch on the idea that Rudy Giuliani says theres a Department Of Justice rule that says you cant be doing this to close to an election. Theres no written regulation on this. No written policy. Theres generalized guidance it seems that prosecutors do not indict political candidates or use O Vert Investigative Methods in the weeks before an election. Fact check that. No written rule but it is seeming to be an unwritten guidance. Everybody thinks about james comey when we talk about this. James comey was a little bit of a different story because that investigation became so public prior to that period before the election. But putting james comey aside, theres sort of 60 day rule that the Department Of Justice generally abides by. Its not written, not hard and fast. But where Rudy Giuliani gets it
completely wrong is that it does not mean you need to end an investigation 60 days before the election. It just means that you calm things down a little bit. You let the political process play out and then you can ramp it back up after the election. Both of you stand by for a second. While were talking about special counsel as it relates to a Potential Sitdown with the president , the special counsel is doing work right now this morning inside a courtroom in alexandria, virginia. The trial of course of trump trumps former Campaign ChairPaul Manafort picked back up for the day in the last few minutes. Prosecutors are in the final stages of their case, going out with a bit of a bang. Fireworks from the testimony of rick gates and then these clashes with the judge. Nbcs julian anzly has been inside the courtroom for us and stepped outside to bring us live reporting. Julia, fill us in on whats happening this morning and high drama as the government starts to bring this case to a close. Thats right. We expect the prosecution to finish calling witnesses by the end of the day tomorrow. Right now on the stand just as i
stepped out was melinda james, a low level person working at Citizens Bank in brooklyn where she would prepare Mortgage Applications, were assuming one of those Mortgage Applications is paul man that thforts and well hear more from her. There are forensic accountants and irs agents and understood the way he inflated income or lowered to dodge taxes or money la launderi laundering. Theyve moved past rick gates, the drama ive seen so far coming from the judge. In fact today we heard the first apology from judge ellis to the prosecution because yesterday he berated them for allowing a witness to stay in the courtroom during the entire testimony of the other witnesses and instead he said im sorry i was wrong, i did tell you that was allowed. Jury, please dont consider that when youre deliberating this case. Thats really interesting. Thank you much. Ill let you hop back inside to keep reporting this out. Let me bring in dan and carol again and as well as from washington, pbs news hour, yamish, julia brings up something interesting, talking about the judge. He has become a kind of focal point in this moving forward with the decisions that hes made that seem to have gone against the prosecutions case. Walk through how you see the jury viewing that or perceiving that . Well, first of all, its really important to note that judges have so much weight over the jury. While the jury will make their decision, the way the judge talks about the case and way he approaches it, really impacts how people how people view this case. I think that when you look at the fact that the judge is base he canally saying and has said at the beginning of this he doesnt want this to be a witch hunt for Robert Mueller and doesnt want this to be something to try to squeeze Paul Manafort, its already kind of created this feeling as though he might kind of have his thumb on the scale. I was in the courtroom yesterday as well. Essentially, if hes deciding that the jury cant see all of these photographs of this extravagant life that Paul Manafort was livering and cant really put they have to deal with documents, thats a lot harder than saying look at this big life this person was living. Its problematic and he was breaking the law. Just yesterday when i was in the courtroom, he was interrupting the prosecution a lot. He was basically trying to do the defenses job for it in some ways but also impacting the defense and interrupting them. It was clear that he was more concerned about the prosecutions line of questioning and making sure they werent leading the witness and i was there for rick gates. It was mainly whether or not they were leading rick gates to make a lot of statements that the judge didnt think was fair. Let me pull up a graphic we had on the screen listing some of the decisions the judge has made, for example not letting jurors see some pictures of Paul Manaforts clothing, giving an extra week to review questions and politico writes taken on
their own the individual rebukes are relatively minor but some experts say cumulatively they could plant doubt in the mind of jurors about the strength of the prosecutions case. On the other side of it you had a former prosecutor on Rachael Maddow who said this judge is a perfectionist, if and when this goes to an Appeals Court or appeals judge, everything is set to go. All judges are a little bit worried about protecting the record. And generally speaking, judges are harder on the prosecution than on the defense because they want to make sure that the defendant gets a full and fair trial and it allowed a vigorous defense. So what you really have to focus on is what the judge is saying outside the presence of the jury versus what the judge is saying in front of the jury. Its one thing for this judge to try to move the prosecution along to not want to show a lot of these photos which by the way will be shown in the closing statement, admitted into evidence and will go in front of the jury. Its a very different thing when the judge is interrupting and
interjecting during crossexamination of the governments main cooperating witness whose credibility is so crucial to this case and when he is asking a lot of these questions and sort of weighing in on his credibility. That is completely out of line and totally inappropriate. Im going to ask all of you to hang out longer. Youll be here the rest of the show thats a good thing because theres a lot to talk about this morning, including the last line of defense from one of the president s key allies in congress. Hes been caught on tape explaining why the president s party needs to hold on to power. Its a message you might here echoed by other republicans this fall. Were going to bring you those recordings as you look live at Downtown Summerville new jersey, population just over 12,000 people. We dont have 12,000 on the plaza but were close. The first person to survive Alzheimers Disease is out there. And the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen
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putting into words what his deeds have shown. Hes made it pretty clear he sees his job as protecting the president at all costs and not getting to the bottom of what happened, whether with regards to russian interference and with regards to whether any members of Donald Trumps campaign participated or assisted in the russian interference. Thats been obvious for a year and a half now. Its remarkable to come out and admit it privately, not publicly in a setting where you often hear politicians slip up and say what they really mean. And i think what it shows is this argument you see democrats making across the country which is the Republican Party in no way is willing to be a check on donald trump. No way willing to investigate corruption or malfeasance or impropriety in his administration and Devin Nunexts S not just unwilling to investigate it but actually coming out and saying ehe is th one the republican majority is the last ability to stop donald trump from being investigated in this case by the
special counsel. So jeff, do you see this as a message that other republicans will adopt or could adopt or are adopting the idea that Democrats Cannot take back the house because weve got to protect the president . I think it depends on what the race is. Theres different theres different republicans running in different all politics is local. It depends, yes, if its going to help a republican this their district, yes, you would take that on. Similarly if it helps a democrat in their district, they could take on the opposite or flip argument, if we dont take oerve over the house taking over the house is the only way we can be a check on the president and possibly move towards impeachment proceedings. I would pick up on that word. Thats one of the bottom line concerns hes addressing there. There are republicans who absolutely feel that way, if the if the democrats take over the house, they are going to try to impeach the president. And if you get that word out there, even more than the democrats are talking about it, it will gin up the base and have
their worry, look our guy is at risk. Theres also this that devin nunes said as it relates to Rod Rosenstein and for example impeachment. Listen. The senate would have to drop everything they are doing and start with impeachment on rosenstein. Then you take the risk of not getting kavanaugh confirmed. So its a its not a matter its a matter of timing. So not a new idea, matt, right, but what does it say to you about the possibility if or when kavanaugh gets confirmed, the Supreme Court pick, that then this this idea of the Impeachment Train for Rod Rosenstein gets back on track . I think you can take what he said one of two ways. One you can take it literally that there is a plan in the Republican Party, especially in the house to try to impeach Rod Rosenstein after the elections, im not sure thats the case. I know nunes wants to do it and
mark meadows and others have pushed for. Paul ryan is the speaker to the end of the year has been resistant to that and other republicans resistant to it. The other way to interpret it, devin nunes should talk about the impeachment of rosenstein because it is part of their kind of scheme to undermine the special counsels investigation, that even if they dont have any intention to ever impeach rosenstein for the reasons he outlined in those remarks, its still they find it politically advantageous, as long as they can attack that investigation, they can undermine it with the republican base. Thats the interpretation i take away as the more likely one. Jeff, how about what you could call Cathy Mcmorris rogers factser, she is high up in house gop leadership as nunes is making these comments that elaborate what hes indicated he wants to do. For sure. Shes a part of leadership and on the tape part we dont hear her weighing in or disagreeing
with anything hes saying. It is interesting, leadership in particular, paul ryan had a much different view of this and of the russia investigation than representative nunes. Its politics. She was in a tough primary. We dont know didnt say on the tape. But also as you said in the beginning, had an opportunity to comment on this and chose not to. Right. Carol and jeff, thanks for coming on out. I know your pool if the president has an event later this afternoon. Youll be shouting questions. Ill be shouting questions. Make us prouds, my friend. Ill see you soon again, im sure. The nunes audio is not the only secret recording on our radar today. Omarosa now has a tellall book and possibly Something Else behind her sleeve. Secret tapes of the president. Plus a congressman indicted for Outsider Trading out on bail and promising to fight back. How democrats are vowing to make an example of him already. Youre looking at the Beautiful Day in summerville, new jersey,
about an hour from headquarters outside new york, settled by Dux Immigrants in 1683. Fun fact for you. Well be back. I love my grandma. Anncr as you grow older, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause troubl