2 00 p. M. In washington where today the president s lawyers are scrambling to clarify his tweets. It is unusual since the president s lawyers dont respond so quickly to clarify anything, he says, which makes you wonder if the tweet in question got them worried. In a series of official president ial statements, remember the white house has called his tweets official statements, trump called the russia probe a disgrace to the usa and seemed to demand his Attorney General put an end to it. Quote, Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country any further. As reported in the New York Times last week, Special CounselRocky Mountain is keepi m rob Robert Mueller is keeping an eye on the president s twitter. No, say the president s lawyers. Katy Tur hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Clinton campaign, and the indictment of 13 russians and three entities who allegedly used a Sophisticated Network of social media accounts to sew discourse among american voters. And timing matters. As the president was tweeting today, the First Defendant indicted by Robert Mueller to face trial was sitting in a virginia courtroom. Donald trumps former Campaign ChairmanPaul Manafort. Quote, as the president said today, who was treated worse . Who was treated worse . Alfonse capone legendary mob boss, killer and public enemy number one, or Paul Manafort . He worked for me for a very short time and these old charges have nothing to do with collusion. A hoax. So the big question we are asking today, is trumps tweets calling on sessions to end the russia probe evidence of Obstruction Of Justice. Joining me nbc news chief white
here is one of those exchanges. Is Rudy Giuliani the one giving the president legal advice on his tweets . And does that statement reflect the opinion of the president s legal team . Look, the president is not obstructing. He is fighting back. The president is stating his opinion. He is stating it clearly and he is certainly expressing the frustration that he has with the level of corruption that weve seen from people like jim comey, peter strzok, andrew mccabe. There is a reason that the president is angry and most of america is angry as well as there is no reason he shouldnt be able to voice that opinion. The answer to that question does trigger another question, which is who is the president fighting back against . Is it his own Department Of Justice . Robert mueller conducting this lawful investigation. One that is resulting in Paul Manafort, as we speak right now across the river, across the potomac, sitting in a courtroom in alexandria, virginia, in a trial because of what special
other ex ortations that are taken as a show that it should be shut down. But you just look at this statement in isolation. It reads, it quacks, it walks like a command. Its a command. There are a couple other tweets that were told could be problematic for donald trump. They are a couple of old tweets. There is one from december 2nd, 2017. I had to Fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the fbi. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide. Interesting those actions were lawful. There was nothing to hide. Another tweet. This is april 2018. Trump appears to have knowledge that the actions some have construed as potential Obstruction Of Justice are examples of fighting back. Doing things that nobody thought possible despite the never ending and corrupt russia
investigation, which takes tremendous time and focus, no collusion or obstruction, parentheses, other than i fight back. So now they do the unthinkable and raid a Lawyers Office for information, exclamation point. Bad in capital letters. Harry litman, when you take these tweets together, what is a prosecutor going to do . How are they going to argue it . Will we see Robert Mueller arguing Obstruction Of Justice with this or more . Is it enough just to have these tweets . I think it probably is for the comey piece. The first one you read, katy, has become quite important in the last couple of days because new reporting has shown that trump knew at the time that flynn was under investigation by the fbi. So thats a mendacious tweet. When he tells comey can you let it go, we know he is saying to let go an active fbi investigation. Likewise, the whole sort of tweet storm, these are going to be admissible, and they will all
it was not known to the fbi but to say that the investigation was based wholly off of it is misleading. Thats not true. It was part of the mix, but it was not the immediate trigger for the investigation. And then, michael, you have been steeped in this, trumps relationship with russia, what is going on there . You wrote a book, Russian Roulette about it. What is he worried about . What we have seen in the past couple of days, over the weekend through today, is an escalation of tweets, angry and seemingly frustrated tweets by the president really honing in or homing in on Robert Mueller in a way that he wasnt doing a few months ago. This is relatively new. Well, look, there has been an expectation for some time that mueller is wrapping up the Obstruction Part of his investigation in the form of a report. If he is getting close on that, and there is reason to think he
is, that could be something that his lawyers know about and has been communicate today the president and could help explain the new tweet storm this morning. There is a common consensus that mueller likely is not going to do anything after labor day. He does not want to be accused of interfering in the Congressional Election in the same way that james comey interfered in the president ial election with his lastminute letter. So if he is going to do something on the obstruction front, it is reasonable to think that it may be coming in the next few weeks, and that could be the trigger for what the president was tweet being this morning. Really interesting. There is also the manafort trial, of course. Of course. The manafort trial. His old Campaign Chairman. He had nothing to do with it, he was only there for a short time i am being sarcastic is the first to face trial in the russia investigation. Thank you very much. And all of this is happening today, a day after we learned about an ongoing sha Shadow Campaign on social media to influence american politics. Sound familiar . Its happening again. Nbc news can report that facebooks report on the Covert Campaign excluded some of the most divisive rhetoric. They removed pages that sought to divide voters along racial and ethnic lines. Sound familiar . Even as the president and the white house has even as the white house has praised facebook for the quick action, it is unwilling to identify the country behind the targeted attacks. But former intel chiefs say they have no doubt that it was russia. I have no doubt that the russians are behind the effort. The similarities in patterns here and some of the techniques, the fact that one of the
administrators in these new accounts was an administrator on the season accounts i think is all the evidence we need it say it was the russians. This was identical to russias behavior in the run up to the 2016 election where their first objective was to sow discord, discontent and doubt about the truth. They are at it again. Joining me is msnbc News Reporter ben collins and justice reporter julia ainsley. Ben, you coauthored that exclusive. Tell us more about what you found. What we found is that facebook released a Press Release yesterday saying we found new accounts that may have been tied to this agency, but the one specific thing they didnt mention is how bad the stuff could get, right . They mentioned that there was no event, that people were counterprotesting neonazis. It said bring goggles, expect the worst. Bring helmets, expect the worst. Its almost inciting violence . Exactly. Or seeking to foster the environment where you think its going to be violent . Yes. They had an abolish i. C. E. Protest that started off not that bad. Over time it said take over i. C. E. Headquarters. Thats what the event was changed to after about a few days on the surface. Now, facebook didnt release any of that stuff. They released some memes, some as ycan see on the screen, standard political rhetoric. Its more divisive than that. There is more to it than that. This is what the russians do. They put up no one is going to start joining facebook groups talking about taking over i. C. E. Headquarters and doing violent stuff. They start they start with something innocuous . Exactly, something you want to agree with. Yeah, and they push it in
that direction. This happened in 2016 as well . Same exact thing. They found this it seems like because one of the Page Administrators was bone of the same fake accounts from 2016. Julia, facebook flagged this this morning. There was a hearing on capitol hill. What else is being done in order to protect the American Public against this sort of rhetoric . Not the rhetoric necessarily, but the intent to divide by a foreign country it likes . Thats a good question, katy. In some respects we kind of have a divided administration on this issue. As we know, a couple of weeks ago the president said there was no continuing threat from russia to target the united states. Of course, he got immediately blow back from his Homeland Security secretary and other people who disagreed and said it would be foolish to think russia was not still planning these same kinds of attacks. Another thing that occurred days after trumps remarks was deputyAttorney GeneralRod Rosenstein saying that the Justice Department was going to adopt a new policy of starting to call out these bad actors. If they believed there had been an influence Campaign Carried out by a foreign government, they wanted to alert the public to that just like they would a breach of your credit card. It fell to the private seccer. This was something that facebook flagged. They took down 32 pages. This didnt come from our own intelligence coming in there and saying we think these pages are problematic. And you cover National Security. Is anybody out there, at least in private, asking where the president is on this . Why isnt he leading this . They are not. I think they asked that question for a long time and got no answer. I do think that they are in some respects feeling a little bit reassured by the Justice Department just for how much they have come out, how much Secretary Neilson came out yesterday saying that russia was still a threat in this case, in this arena. So they feel that at least in their Intel Community and the Justice Department they have sohen they want to go after these bad actors. That Doesnt Go All The Way up to the man up top. Guys, thank you very much. And coming up, will prosecutors in the Paul Manafort trial call their star witness . What we know about rick gates taking the stand coming up. And later this hour, Emmy Award Winner rob ryaner is here to talk about trump and the president s tattered relationship with, you guessed it, the truth. Weve got aging roadways, aging power grids,. Aging everything. We also have the ageold problem of bias in the workplace. Really. Never heard of it. The question is. Whos going to fix all of this . An actor . Probably not. But you know who can solve it . Business. Because solving big problems is what business does best. So lets take on the wage gap, the opportunity gap, the achievement gap. Whatever the problem, business can help. And i know who can help them do it. And then, im Gonna Pike My hips back into downward dog. [ rhythmic tapping ] hey, the rain stopped. A bad day on the road still beats a good one off it. Tell me about that dental procedure again i can still taste it in my mouth progressive helps keep you out there. I can still taste it in my mouth Wienermobile Horn to put a better hot dog its oscain every hand. Ion and thats just what we do. With no artificial preservatives, no added nitrates or nitrites, and by waving bye to byproducts. So you can get back to loving them. For the love of hot dogs. Wienermobile Horn
as the federal trial of former trump Campaign ChairmanPaul ManafortSbergs Tenters th day, the president is seeking to distance himself. He tweeted Paul Manafort worked for ronald reagan, bob dole and highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didnt government tell me he was under investigation . These old charges have nothing to do with collusion. A hoax. This week the president and his lawyers have repeatedly insisted that collusion is not a crime, and its true that the manafort case is not about collusion, although its much more complicated when you talk about whether collusion is a crime. Its more likely called conspiracy. Anyway, its also true that a conviction could make it easier for prosecutors to get manafort to tell them whether he knows anything about possible collusion or conspiracy or
coordination between the Trump Campaign and the russians. That is, unless Paul Manafort is counting on a pardon from his former boss. Manafort, who has pleaded not guilty, is facing 18 counts of tax evasion and moneylaundering. He is facing separate charges in d. C. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Nbcs National Security reporter and intelligence reporter Kendell Lanian is outside the courthouse. And Danny Cevallos is an msnbc news legal analyst. Im skipping words around, guys. I dont know why. Guys, so let me first play for you what Peter Alexander asked Sarah Huckabee sanders about the president s tweets claiming that this is all fair for Paul Manafort and whether or not that means the president believes he is innocent. Listen. The president believe that Paul Manafort is innocent of the charges he faces . I dont believe that thats the president s role to play. He believes he is being treated unfairly. Beyond that, i cant say. So, danny, what do you think of the president tweeting about Paul Manafort and then trying to claim its unfair but he also could be guilty . Its fascinating because on the one hand he is the executive he is the embodiment of the Executive Branch. The same Executive Branch that is prosecuting Paul Manafort, and there is a history of president s commenting on criminal trials. Go way back to the Charles Manson trial and an uproar was caused when president nixon suggested that he believed that Charles Manson was guilty. It almost caused a mistrial. Now you have the president essentially saying that he thinks Paul Manafort is being treated unfairly, which is really just code for he shouldnt be prosecuted at all, which is that a forecast to a pardon . Nobody can know for sure. Is that what manafort is holding
out for . That may be the only thing he is holding out for at this point because by this time mueller may have all the information he wants and there is nothing manafort could possibly offer thats worth a cooperation agreement. Ken, give us the latest about what you saw in the courtroom today and what so far the prosecutors are using for their arguments. What evidence are they using, and how are they trying to paint Paul Manafort . Sure, katy. Look, whats happening in the courtroom is completely divorced from this whole political debate. There is no mention of collusion. There is no mention of russia. There is no mention of donald trump. The jury was not even told that these prosecutors are working for the Special CounselRobert Mueller. Today we have deep into the worlds of mens fashion, believe it or not, because the prosecution is trying to show that