Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Jay sekulow on abc yesterday. Would that meeting constitute a violation of the law . And what you have is a situation and ive said this well over a year. You have to look at what laws, rules and Regulation Statutes are purportedly violated here. Hes been saying that for well over a year. Well over a year ago, he said the opposite about that meeting in trump tower. Remember, it was all about adoptions. I didnt hear anybody talk about babies this weekend. And there are some potentially relevant laws. For example, u. S. Code of federal regulations. Quote, a Foreign National shall not directly or indirectly make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation in connection with any federal, state or local election. And, quote, no person shall knowingly solicit accept or
receive from a Foreign National any contribution or donation prohibited by this section. Of course, the president is right that Opposition Research is done all the time. The potential crime is getting that research from a Foreign National like the russians who attended that meeting. And legal experts have argued that dirt on Hillary Clinton could be considered a thing of value under this statute. As for whether anyone, quote, knowingly accepted it, we should look at the june 2016 email from goldstone. The publicist who set up the meeting. In which he wrote, quote, the Crown Prosecutor of russia offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary Clinton and her dealings with russia and will be very useful to a father. Don jr. Wrote back, quote, if thats what you say, i love it. In the second part of the president s tweet, he insists the meeting went nowhere. Seemingly indicating that because of that, nothing illegal could have happened. Its the same defense we heard from his son last year. Theres nothing there. Its a follow up. There was some puffery to the email. Perhaps to get the meeting to make it happen. And, you know, in the end there was some probably bait and switch about what it was really supposed to be about. So, you know, there is nothing there. Puffery, bait and switch. But heres the thing. If youre going to argue conspiracy, the agreed upon crime doesnt actually have to take place. You can be convicted of a conspiracy to commit murder. For example, without actually killing someone. All you need to provide is prove conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people, an unlawful objective an avert act to try and reach that objective. So a meeting certainly could qualify. And we know at this point there have been many lies told about why this meeting took place. I want to go to nbcs Peter Alexander in berkeley heights, new jersey. What do we make about the president s tweets over the
stops hes going to be hosting over the next several months. This meeting was significant for a variety of reasons. One is if the president met privately with hope hicks, that could be problematic. And the reason why the Special Counsel would want to find out details. Did she coordinate with the president so they could have their stories straight . Before he spoke to mueller, either in the form of orl al or written questions. We reached out to the white house for new any details. Broadly, about the president s frustrations, weve seen the frustrations. Recently saying hes rightfully frustrated by what they like to describe as the Fake News Media right now. He also perhaps appears a bit fearful amid new reports that he is worried that his son, donald trump jr. , may have, perhaps not on purpose, he suggests, walked in to some form of legal jeopardy. The don jr. Could face real
repercussions, consequences for hosting that meeting with those ruckuses back at Trump Tower Last year. The president suggesting theres nothing to it. Basically saying its fake news reporting. Saying its a complete fabrication that recent report over this weekend. But the bottom line is we have been witnessing him while on vacation, hardly in vacation mode, lashing out increasingly frequently. The pace of his mistruths or lies has been growing in recent weeks and months. Appears something in the president s head, as one person said to me last week, this is something in his head, this russia topic, and he cant erase it. The lies or mistruths might work for his base or republicans who want air cover here. The question we need to dig into is was the law broken. Because if it does, it dont matter how popular you are. I want to bring in my panel, kim wha waley, a professor at the
university Baltimore School of law. Excellent table this morning. Kim, to you first, bottom line this, did djtj, donald trump jr. , break the law by taking the meeting . You did a terrific job laying out the law. I start teaching my students in a couple weeks and i couldnt even do it as well as you did. We have a Code Of Federal Regulations but a United States statute passed three different times that basically says we dont want Foreign Nationals mucking around in our elections. Its very broad. It does not require that they actually achieve some kind of benefit from a foreigner. Soliciting, meaning trying to get something of benefit from a Foreign National is verboten, its against the the law. So thats one thing. The second thing, you mentioned conspiracy. Robert mueller is already indicted. Multiple members of the Russian Intelligence Community for hacking into servers and
stealing Voter Information to the extent to which that conspiracy could be added to. We have a potential conspiracy crime. We have potential Obstruction Of Justice because we have stuff that was covered up. We have a potential perjury charge. So theres a broad range of wrongdoing here. The real question is, what are we going to do about it. Jeck sekulow said is there a crime. Well, were answering the question. I think yes. And then whats going to happen about it . Is the American Public going to tolerate this . Weve got this level of wrongdoing at the highest echelons of the office, which quo to the heart of our democracy, and people haare shrugging and i think its dangerous to continue on this path. Why would the president be doing this . If its about popularity and his base or the media . The Russia Investigation isnt winning trump any votes and its not losing trump any votes. People feel the way they feel about it. But at the very least what he did this weekend over twitter
could put him in greater legal jeopardy, so why do that . Because it was stupid. Technically speaking. Because it was stupid. I got it. Look, you cant always seek explanations for the president s behavior and some form of higher rationality. I mean, there is clearly a Pneumonic Tick going on here. He is fulminating. Obsessing his mind. This is the risk for any administration, a president whose every stray thought goes to twitter. Some i think clearly amount to attempts to obstruct justice. He is digging a legal hole for himself thats going to be very deep. The issue, however, is this. I agree with every word that kim said. And you really did lay out the legal facts beautifully. But heres the other detail. Bob mueller, according to the Justice Department regulations, Cannot Indict the president. So the issue ends up being a
political issue. Would bob muellers, a report from the Special Counsel lead republicans in congress to conclude that they have no recourse other than the constitutional one to impeach and convict the president for high crimes and misdemeanors . So if there is a higher Ra Rationality at play here, and theres always questionable with trump, is he is speaking politically to other republicans and the republican base, not playing the legal game with the Special Counsel. Okay, so those other republicans who understand the legal game. Right. What is more important to them . Robert muellers report or how the public reads the president s misinformation . It depends where you are as a republican. If youre in a safe seat, all you care about is making sure the president s safe. If youre on the line, you may be facing a blue wave, somebody connected to this one way or another, youre concerned about what the president is saying. The president its not just sort of the ure neurotic ticks. He is consistently conflating political and legal problems which puts everybody whos trying to defend him in trouble. Remember, the key thing about the whole adoptions, adoptions are connected to the it was never really even when they said it was about adoptions, adoptions are codes. Exactly, exactly. Like saying im going shopping for a car and im a getaway driver. To the degree that also leads to look like it was collusion, like they were getting material help, thats where the president gets everybody in trouble. Speaking of everybody in trouble, lets stick with don jr. Kim, youve written in the past that mueller could use don jr. As a way to get to the president. But don jr. Aint your normal con si c conciliatory to the president. Well, hes not protected by the clause. Theres doj guidance that
titled, quote, trump will have bled on his hands. Why he is responsible for something someone else might do. Walk us through this. Thats a heavy those are heavy words. At the end of may, i wrote a column saying that abc was right to cancel roseanne because of a racist tweet. I received a voice mail the next day. A man who sounded to me like white male, late middle aged, slightly southern accent, fantasizing about me and other journalists being killed, being murdered, by people with ar15s. Then that ended in a racist rant with the n word used i think about a dozen times, then have a nice day lover and he clicked off. That is the third time since trump the trump phenomenon began that i have been violently threatened by a trump by
someone whos clearly a trump supporter. Should also remind our audience that youre conservative. Well, yeah, but foot a fnot the president. The only thing ive been similarly threatened is by someone who later went to jail for supporting hezbollah. So we take this very seriously. Now, i put that voice mail to one side for four weeks and then the killing at annapolis, at the capital gazette, five journalists murdered there. Then you have the president going on about fake news. I think when the president goes to his rallies and starts screaming about fake news, the most he wants is for people to give Cnns Jim Acosta a middle finger. Thats the emotion. But if 1,000 people are giving jim acosta the middle continuing, some subset of that are people like my caller. Some subset of that are people willing to take it to the next step. We live in the age of the active shooter and the president is goading them, inciting them. Dozens of times, both in person and im going to charlottesville this weekend for the oneyear anniversary of the march because im also alumni. This is a serious issue. And the president doesnt care. Whats more problematic about that, the Republican Party doesnt care. The Republican Party doesnt care. Jamie dimon, for example is a ceo who does a superb job. When i hear him say things like, ignore what he tweets, stop listening to what he tweets, look at the policies, the policies are good. When are we going to see leaders who know better . Who know they could not ever say or do things like that, it would cost them their jobs . They would fire anyone in their organizations if they said things like this. When are we going to start to see corporate and government leaders say hold on a second . Well there are, you know, there have been a few. But look, theres this sort of
higher wisdom that said you should take the president seriously but not literally. But lots of people out there take him absolutely literally. If you are the enemy of the american people, then the logical consequences we have to we have to say one thing, seth did do an extraordinary thing. But it is a private hedge fund. Tell me a ceo of a company who has customers, employees, that span the political spectrum, that have the courage, the decency, to say this is wrong and this is a threat to people. Because i dont know what ceos doing that. No, thats exactly it. They are not speaking up. It will be too late. Should there be a National Tragedy for them to speak up or for those nice republicans in congress who have been sort of mutedly saying we dont quite like what the president is saying. This is why you take a moral stand before the tragic event occurs. And thats the other thing,
were going to have a Charlie Hebdo situation here, without question. It is going to happen. Because of the behavior of this president. Please dont let that be true. What disgusts me about it is these are local reporters were talking about. Who have great relationships the vast majority media reporters. Yes, these are the local community reporters. The republican members of congress usually complain about, who turn a blind eye to that High School Reporter that they knew when she interned with them and that person may be under threat and they dont care about it. That is why this is a danger. Not Just National security but our very sovereignty and constitution. A conservative friend of mine said, you know what, free speech goes both ways and the press gives trump such a hard time. I said, look, the press has been giving president s a hard time since the second washington administration, all right . This is the first time the president has answered. By the way, when the president goes out, hes surrounded by a guard known as the secret service. When we go out in the streets with our children, with our
families, we have nobody. This is a demagoguery this country has never witnessed in its history. You have this person in congress now who attacked a member of the press and paul ryan and nobody else said anything about it. They could have kept him from being seated. Body slammed him the day before the election and he won. I got to thank my producer dave murphy. He is the one who helped us lay out exactly whats at stake. Up next, The Manafort Trial enters week number two. His former righthand man rick gates could take the stand as early as today. Why he could make or break the case against trumps former campaign manager. vo why do Subaru Forester owners always seem so happy . Because theyve chosen the industry leader. Subaru forester holds its value better than any other vehicle in its class according to alg. Better than crv. Better than rav4. Better than rogue. An adventure that starts with a Subaru Forester will always leave you smiling. Get 0 percent Apr Financing on the 2018 Subaru Forester. And talked about being ordered essentially to commit bank and tax fraud. What they havent shown is anybody close to paul mannaed for who can speak to his state of mind, his motives and rick gates can certainly do that. Rick gates was his wing man. Rick gates has already admitted participating in these alleged crimes. Heres the danger. He also as mitted he lied to the fbi while negotiating that plea agreement. The defense is going to do everything they can to paint him as a liar whos just talking to save his skin and the way prosecutors are going to counteract that is by asking them hard questions on direct examination forcing him to confront his misdeeds before the jury to build his credibility, stephanie. They dont have to paint him as a liar, he is one. Walk me through this. Youve noted that manafort was deep in debt and desperate for a way out when he took the job with the Trump Campaign f. For me, it blows my mind a guy who made that much money could blow that much money but thats not for us to judge. Why is that fact so important in
this case . Yes, this is actually the most important revelation remember, he wasnt getting paid this is the most important revelation. In terms of what it could mean for the Russia Investigation. Because we knew from the indictment that manafort was in dire financial straights as of 2016 but this trial has offered startling new details of manaforts financial collapse. By 2016, his firm was losing more than 1 million a year. They were having trouble paying their Health Insurance bills. He came to work for the Trump Campaign, as you said, for free. Heres what else we know, he was in debt to a Russian Oligarch to the tune of 10 million. His close associate, a man named Constantine Kaliminik had ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence Services according to mueller. How desperate was manafort when he was working for trump and what would he have been willing to do . Thats quote this trial is raising, stephanie. Desperate times, did they call for Desperate Measures . Ken, thanks so much. I hope you brought a Couple Extra Pens today. Youll have a lot of notes to take. Coming up, the president s slogan of Hire American, that sounds fantastic. Were going to explain why a lot