Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort is on trial. Charges predate the Trump Campaign but could have ramifications for the campaign if he is convicted and could face up to 10 years. Lets take a look at some evidence presented by the Special Counsel against Paul Manafort. Case stands on two basic legs. One that manafort Made Tens Of Millions working for ukrainian politicians and russian oligarchs that he never paid taxes on and two that he took out fraudulent loans from u. S. Banks. Manafort spent upward of there is 14 million to buy several properties in alexandria, virginia, landscaping, housekeeping and Home Improvements done to boost the value of the homes. Then allegedly inflated his worth on loan applications like this one, taking out even more money. As the Specialty Counsel put it, he created cash out of thin air. He spent more than 1. 4 million at Clothing Stores in new york and and beverly hills. This is a python jacket, 18,000 jacket. And, by the way, thats not all. Im going to swipe this over to the next one so you can see what a 15,000 ostrich jacket looks like. Heres the problem. Everybody can live whatever lifestyle they want but this one was nearly tax free. Joining knme now live outside t court. Ken, good to see you. Youve been out there. Outside there since the beginning of this trial. Whats the early take on how its going . Reporter well, you never now how a jury is processing this, but the evidence from where i
Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Column about this that the government in this case, wants a win badly. Thats why they charge crimes like tax perjury, lighter burden, easier to prove and even with all of this documentary evidence, this overwhelming avalanche of data against Paul Manafort in black and white, they still trot in the evidence of this lifestyle just to put the final cherry on the top. Ken, the judge had some issue with photographs of things that described Paul Manaforts lav vish lifestyle. There were photos of closets full of suits and expensive renovations. Judge is keeping them out because he says its unfair. Paul manaforts not on trial for being rich. Overnight, the mueller team filed a Brief Arguing that the judge is wrong about that and they do have more latitude to
put in the evidence. Judge rejected that and said hes not going to allow it unless manafort argues something that requires a rebuttal. Then he might let some in. You looked a bit at the opening statement. Is there something in there that could be bad for the defense . Or Special Prosecutor . No. Quite the opposite. There could be something bad for the defense. Defense focused its opening statement, which is a preview of the defenses case, on the fact that rick gates is a lying liar. His pants are on fire. Thats the idea. And if the government can, as they intimated this week, if they can make their case without rick gates at all, then the defenses case goes out with a whimper because they focussed so much time on rick gates as an unreliable witness. The government takes a risk if it does not call rick gates, because gates is authenticate a lot of these documents, and also, hes coup the rating witness who can walk in and
point the finger at manafort and say thats the guy i did the crimes with. Government also realizes that cooperating witnesses have major Credibility Problems because in most cases they are admitted criminals on the stand saying i lied in the past, but this i swear im telling the truth. Thanks for this analysis. Looks like were getting closer to a sitdown between President Trump and Robert Mueller. New reports say hes pushing for an interview and mueller could be narrowing the scope of the questions. Youre watching velshi ruhle on msnbc. Your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands. Commanded armies. Yielded to no one. When i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. My name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. Now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com. These are the specialists were proud to call our own. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com
are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. President trump is reportedly pushing for an interview with Robert Mueller against the advice of his legal team. Believing he can convince the investigators the probe is a witch hunt. President s lawyer says Mueller Esteem is aefrg of offering to limit to two main topic areas, collusion and construction. Lets not forget the president s tweet on tuesday, collusion is not a crime. But that doesnt matter because there was no collusion, september by Crooked Hillary and the democrats. Lets take a look at what were dealing with when talking about collusion and obstruction. According to Miriam Webster collusion is a secret a i agreement or deceitful
purpose. Word is being used as a sort of catchall term. Hes only technically right when he saying its not criminal. Legal experts say under u. S. Code collusion is federal crime only applicable under antitrust law. That is a collaborative agreement usually secret among roo rivals. Basically its price fixing and bid rigging. But what is a crime is conspiracy. Under the federal conspiracy statute a crime is committed when two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States or to defraud the United States or any agency thereof in in any manner or any purpose. Robert mueller has already use thd against Paul Manafort. Obstruction, one of the Topics Mueller wants to talk to trump about. According to part of title 18 of the u. S. Code, someone obstructs
when they corruptly or by threats of Force Endeavor to influence intimidate or impede the due administration of justice. Accusations of obstruction came fast. After trump tweeted this is a terrible situation. Attorney general Jeff Sessions should stop this now before it continues to stain our countriny further. His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani denied this was evidence of obstruction. Its an continue. He used a medium that he uses for opinions. Twitter. One of the good things about using that is hes established a clear sort of practice now that he expresses his opinions on twitter. He used word should. He didnt used word must. And there was no president ial directive that followed it. He didnt direct to do it and hes not going to direct him to do it. Joining me former assistant watergate prosecutor. Theres so much to unpack. First of all, the white house
said that the tweets are president ial opinions. This is a new category weve never heard of before yesterday. But they are not to be thought of as instruction or direction. Even though hes the head of the executive branch. I dont buy into that argument at all. His words matter, and his words, whether theyre expressed z on twitter or in a speech, carry consequences. And its silly to be arguing about did he carefully select a word, should do it, instead of must do it . When your boss says you should do something, you know that if you dont do it, youre going to lose your job. And so, to me, you used words in defining this as influence or intimidate, clearly this it is an attempt to influence and intimidate someone into doing something. All of president s words recently, have been to influence
or intimidate the entire investigation to undermine the mueller investigation, and think we ought to stop calling it the mueller investigation. Weal ought to be calling it the russia investigation and we shouldnt allow the president to determine the words we use. He used the word collusion. Word is conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit a crime, and collusion is simply a s synonym for that. If the best argument he has is a semantic one, hes going to lose. What about Rudy Jewgiuliani comments . Walking it back, having the white house say its not really what he meant, having Rudy Giuliani going on and saying its no the what he meant. To some degree does that help the president that hes one big dust Ball Of Confusion . I dont think anyone wants a president whos just simply one
big dust ball. Wed like a president who speaks clearly and says what he means. His history on twitter, by the way, of course includes him hiring and firing people by twitter. And giving orders by twitter. He abolished or tried to abolish dont ask, dont tell, and some of the other gender integration issues for the military on twitter. He certainly twittered about immigration in a way that were orders he intends to carry out. I dont think we should be arguing about whether he meant should or must. I think he intended clearly to disrupt this investigation. In the same way he sent messages to the jury in the Manafort Trial that his friend was a good man who had worked for Ronald Reagan and was a darling, i think he used the word darling. I think these are things that should not be allowed. There is a judge in new york, judge bu
judge who has ruled the twitter account is a Public Domain and he cannot block people from it. Which speaks to the idea it is official and when he says things on it, its no the mere opinion. Now that mueller has apparently agreed to marrow the range of topics and offer trump the chance to give written answers, what do you think the strategy is . I dont know that the president will ever actually sit down. This may all be for show for his audience that oh, i really want to do this. And that he will ever actually agree to sit down. But i also dont really think the prosecutors need him, because he is obstructing in plain sight. He is communicating openly. Normally we have to either get wired conversations, recordings of them, or someone who will testify that the president said something. In this case, we are all witnessing in the same way that we witnessed what he said when
he was with putin in that press conference. To me, that was a clear case of his cooperation with russia, and his sub serve yens to russia and i think we ought to take at face value the things we actually see and not listen to him when he says dont pay attention. 0 dont believe what you see and hear. Those were his words. I believe what i see and hear. Jill, always great to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up next, President Trumps trade war is hurting americans but the president keeps saying its helping the country and now he could increase tariffs on china to 25 . What that means for the things you buy everyday. Take a look at the markets by the way. Dow is down about half a per cent, s p down less. Nz by the w nasdaq is up. Apple nearing a 1 trillion valuation. Youre watching velshi ruhle on msnbc. Im alex trebek here to tell you
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mark hausknecht. Theyre searching for pappas. They said he had a grudge against the doctor. He is considered armed an dangerous. The epa says the wildfires are exposing the state to unhealthy air. 17 major wildfires are currently raging across california. President trump is escalating his efforts to bring china to the Negotiating Table on a new trade deal proposing to raise tariffs on chinese goods to 25 . They would target 200 billion. China retaliated with sweeping tariffs on a range of u. S. Good, soy beans, corn, tobacco and whiskey. It could force companies to cut costs. They could lead to as loss of
more than 450 jobs. So what do americans think of these tariffs . A new nbc news Wall Street Journal poll shows only 26 believe that the tariffs will help the United States. Joining us now is a former u. S. Trade representative and former mayor of dallas. Ron kirk. Thank you for being with us. Always good to be with you. Thank you, sir. We just heard from the secretary of commerce, wilbur ross on fox business on this new potential hike. Excalation of this with china. Lets listen to what he said and we can discuss it on the other side. Well, the reason for the tariffs to begin with was to try to convince the chinese to modify their behavior. Instead, theyve been retaliating. So the president now feels that its potentially time to put more pressure on in order to
modify their behavior. Secretary, is this a good way to do this . I think we can argue agree ther issues with the way china behaves on The World Stage as is relates to trade and protection of Intellectual Property and other matters. But we have ourselves in a trade war with mexico, canada and the United States. We do not, and as you corrected noted, chinas behavior under the rules of the World Trade Organization have been problematic for some time, but it shouldnt go unspoken that previous administrations have engaged china on this. When i was privilege to serve as u. S. Trade representative for President Obama, we sued china ten times and successfully, on a number of these matters, but one of the reasons we were successful is we were able to engage those allies that we are
now in a separate trade spat with from mexico and anna da and the European Union to jointly come to the table and try to encourage china to improve their behavior. One reason we didnt just go to sort of the blunt tool of tariff threats is that the cost is ultimately borne by u. S. Consumers and businesses and workers. As weve seen in case after case, whether it was the tariffs on steel, or the threatened tariffs again the European Union, it was american businesses and farmers that have screamed the loudest. And what concerns us now is to get to the next level of tariffs that President Trump has threatened, the overwhelming negative impact of that will be on American Families and american consumers. The government is, i think coming up with 11 billion or 12 forfarmers. But if you take all the losses,
looking agent 39 billion without the new excalation to china. How do you weigh that . Weve been out there talking to farmers. Our reporters have been out there and many are willing to stand by the president for a little while. They feel theres a lot of unfairness in trade and they are feel the presss talking tough on their behalf but a lot live on razor thin margins. They do. Again, one of the reasons we didnt just go to that because most countries, always respond against agriculture first. And look, i think any time we invite a tariff war, it ultimately is going to hurt us. But, your average farmer is frankly, not boeing or caterpillar. They cant sustain these ridiculous retaliatory tariffs and loss of market share beyond more than a few months, because then theyre out of business. So,