Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. 2016. He was a very close ally of tom price, instrumental in price being chosen as Hhs Secretary. You know price has since left that post. Collins attorneys have released an official statement saying quote, we will answer the charges filed against Congress Collins in court. And will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name. It is notable that even the government does not allege that congress man collins traded a single share of innate therapeutic stock. We are confident hell be completely vindicated and exonerated. The complaint also alleged that collins was at the white house attending the Congressional Picnic when he conducted some of the activity that led to the Insider Trading charges. This one is extraordinary for me. Hes nots just being investigated. Hes not just being charged. He was arrested. They knocked on his door and arrested him. A serving congressman. Wow. Joining me now nbc news
investigations Reporter Tom Winter live on the phone and former u. S. Attorney for the district of new york. How does this go down . Well, stephanie, as you said and as the diindictment says, t congressman was at the white house for a Congressional Picnic and apparently, according to the dime he received information hes on the Board Of Directors of this immunotherapeutics, a company out of australia and received information that a drug trial was not going as well. As a matter of fact a completely clinny cal failure. According to the indictment he picked up the phone and calls his son. Stock had been held pending news in australia, meaning no shares could be traded in australia, which is where the congressman had all of his shares. However, his son and several relatives and associates of his had their shares held in the united states. They were traded over the
counter market here. So those shares were not held. That allowed his son, according to the indictment, to be able to place a number of orders and safe hold on a second. When you talk about the but hold on a second. When you talk about the trading halting. Thats for regular shareholders. If youre on the Board Of Directors, arent you held to a different standard . Thats exactly correct. Thats the reason why and the congressmans attorneys are absolutely correct. Congressman is not charged with selling shares or doing trading. As a matter of fact he lost a significant amount of money. But when you have nonPublic Information about the company that may be material to the company in it stock, you cannot share that information before its made public. So i can know about it because im on the Board Of Directors but i cant share that with somebody else before the Company Released a statement. Thats where theyre in trouble. How serious are the charges . This is not the first weve heard about this with Chris Collins. Previously, we had heard about him encouraging other members of congress when the stock price is very chloe, thlow. Is this is is extremely serious. Basically hes taking advantage of his fiduciary duty to this company and providing information to his son and other relatives so they can dump their stock, take the profits, before the bad news comes out to the public. Basically, the Investing Public is being defrauded by virtue of what hes doing. Lets add another level because the rules are different if youre a member of congress. In fact, theyre better. They are. But, in this case, hes an actual member of the board. Hes not just a member of congress. Hes a member of the board. And whats startling here is that right after he gets the word on the telephone, it looks like the governments got all this Phone Records, all of his
text records. He makes a number of calls to his son, does reach him at first. Calls him six times. Nobody calls anybody six time force a hey, how are you doing. Absolutely not. When you juxtapose that with the next morning, he immediately sells all of his shares. Then, im sure the Phone Records show that he calls other Family Members, who in turn sell shares. Youre talking millions of dollars here thats at stake. And very serious criminal activity to could wind up with him being in prison the next five years. Millions of dollars. He is already a rich guy. I believe he was the first member of congress to endorse the president. He was one who was outspoken about the saying the president should not have to release his taxes. Now i wonder why. Tom, as of 2015, collins had the 10th highest estimated net worth of anybody in the house, more than 66 million. What questions i mentioned it
briefly had we previously heard . I think these allegations related to specific stock issues, first came up over a year ago. Im not mead yoimmediately fami with any other issues he may have from a financial standpoint. Its serious. He surrendered himself to the fbi this morning. Hes going to be presented in court later today. Hes been indicted. This is kind of a more longterm case. Something they developed a significant amount of evidence to. Phone conversations, people that have agreed to provide cooperating information. I think at this point, the congressmans in a heap of trouble here. As it relates to the specific securities charges that hes been hit with. Again, its not just the congressman. Its his son, and the sons soon to be fatherinlaw . Yes. Wellestablished one that says birds of a feather flock together. President said drain the swamp. Thank you so much. Were going to continue to cover this story as it develops this morning. And, now we get into this. Two closely watched races from yesterdays primaries and especially elections. Two close to call. People are focussed on politics. Razor thin margins, what they mean for the midterms and for trump in 2020. Youre watching velshi ruhle. Cause trouble with recal. Learning from him is great. When i can keep up anncr thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. Dads got all the answers. Anncr prevagen is now the numberoneselling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. She outsmarts me every single time. Checkmate you wanna play again . Anncr prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. 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. We got Breaking News. We just heard from President Trumps attorney rudy giuliani. Nbcs Kristen Welker is live at the white house. What did you learn . Reporter well i just spoke with the president s attorney by phone, and a couple Key Headlines to tell you about. They do plan to submit their Counter Proposal to the Special Counsel by the end of today. This is an offer for what an interview might look like with the president. Giuliani telling me were going to send it out today and it will be a legitimate offer to find a way to do an interview. It wont be a refusal. Thats significant because giuliani essentially making the case we are keeping the negotiations open. I asked him why does he think the office of the Special Counsel is open to the possibility of a Counter Proposal. Remember, theyve been going back and forth since january. Giuliani telling moo he they didnt say in the last letter this is the final offer and we havent done that either. Effectively saying the tone of these communications that are going back and forth between each side is one aimed at finding some way to negotiate a potential interview. We know President Trump has indicated behind the scenes to his legal team that he wants this interview to happen. His legal team far more skeptic skeptical. Concerned about things like follow ups, interview stretching on for too long. We know in the last proposal, they did agree to some concessions, for example, they agreed to some questions receiving written answers. But, not the entirety of the enter view. Thats something the president s legal team had floated. This is still a work in progress, i asked is it more likely than not that an interview is going to happen . He said it will make it more
likely because we could have responded no. Hes going back to this broader point that they are Keeping Negotiations open, so is the Special Counsel. When will we have a final answer . That remains to be seen. As they say in dumb and dumber, so youre saying theres a chance. Kristen welker, thanks so much. We are also keeping a close eye on a high stakes primary race and especially elections that are too close to call. But both parties celebrating in a sign of what could come in november. In the battleground state of ohio, in a race that was not supposed to be close, Republican Troy Balderson narrowly led democrat danny connor in the especially election for the 12th Congressional District seat. Solidly red for more than 30 years. The numbers are so close the race could be headed for a recount. Another race is the republican primary for kansas governor. Trump backed cris big night f
women. Victories in three states. Pushed the number of women nominees running for the house to at least 183. According to the center for american women in politics, d. C. Is about to get its first muslim congresswoma congresswoman. Democrat won the primary last nite. She is set to ununopposed in november. Joining me two. Former senior strategist and pollster for president obama. Lets start with you evan. First of all, lets talk balancedersbald derson versus oconnor. And giving a victory speech. It is so close. I think balderson will end up prevailing at the end of the day given the way the provisional ballots will go. I think republicans are really trying to shine something that isnt good. This is a district thatPresident Trump won by 11 points. No democrat has been elected to this house seat since 1980. We are having a very big problem. If a democrat can bring it to 1754 votes in terms of margin of difference between the two candidates, in this district, i am terrified as a republican because it confirmed z everything weve been seeing on the ground, erosion of married suburban white women voting for gop candidates and giving the majority in both parties. They are abandoning the party. If what youre saying is last nights election is not about who won and whats to come, democrats shouldnt lick the wounds, but the chops. I look to the green party. 1 of the votes. Had that one percent gone to oconnor, he would actually be slightly and just slightly but within the margin and calling for a recount. Is this a moment for theDemocratic Party to say listen, we appreciate Green Party K candidates. One believes in science, one doesnt. I said this for a long time. Its about green parties, right now. I think the sanders and Alexandria Cortez Wing of the party. You have to make a decision whether or not you want to defeat republicans and put more democrats who will fight for working people in office or sacrifice people on the altar of political rigid ideal ji. We cant losing races by splintering the party. If you look where Balderson Under performed, you expect democrats to do very well in Franklin County but also in Delaware County. He did a little better there. I think theres a real pathway for democrats there to concentrate on Delaware County and build up that margin. Winning this district, if he
wins it, if he holds up and wins by 1700, there arent enough voters in rural ohio to make up the difference that democrats can gain in this district in both franklin and Delaware County. But your concern that sort of the trump brand is hurting votes in suburban america, crisco not in a general election. I know the republican governor es a S Association asked him not to g get involved in kansas. But he did anyway. I think that going back to the ohio race, and the midterms overall, i think the biggest story and what will be the Biggest Issue is going to be health care. Danny oconnor ran as his top priority are making it more accessible and afford b8. Right there. Thats what he ran on. He barely talked about trump. Yet the more i speak to
democrats, here, all day long, its no trump, no trump. Is the formula for the midterms put trump aside and run on issues that help americans. You cant put trump aside but you dont have to talk about it. He is hanging over competitive races like a dark cloud. Thats what i have said to every democrat democratic candidate i work with. You dont have to invoke him. He is there. Swing voters. Look, people in kansas are salivating over being able to run against him with laura kelly, the democrat. Its not that long ago kansas elected a democratic governor. Earlier this century. What you have to do as democrats is not wave trump in everyones face every day. His Approval Ratings are still at historic lows. Run the campaign and find the issues and values of which hes alienating those voters. And run those campaigns on a few issues where theres a huge
wedge with trump, you dont have to invoke him day in and day out. In fact i think its a mistake. Make the campaigns about their lives. I should have asked before, but when you said your message to democrats is unify here, what did they say back to you . Because i hear your message, but then when i look at them and hear what they have to say, when nancy pelosi tells Rolling Stone that seth moleton, stim ryan no Major Players im saying arent they young, future forwardthinking . I think the Democratic Party is a more diverse party. We ought to capitalize on that. What we need to do is win more elections at every level right now. You heard me say this probably a million times if youve heard me say it once. Right here on this show. We will not win elections if we dont appeal and keep to moderate democrats and moderate independents in our party. Is diversity the voice. Nobody has the guts to say i respect what you have to say but if you want us to win you have to get behind me. Last night there were a couple of places where sanders and cortez supported candidates and lost. Get on board with the person who won. Thats what we do as democrats. If you want to win, if your ideology is more porntimportant out of our party. If you want to win back candidates who fairly won. Cortez is saying well you need to run authentic. Because if you run a moderate, theyre not going to win. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat. In 2006 democrats took back the house and senate because they ran moderate candidates. I dont think cortezs district in queens is anywhere comparable. They have different values and beliefs. Authentic and idealistic are
two different things. But shes conflating it with being to the extreme left. If you are somehow not on the extreme left you are a fake and not a real democrat and no better than a republican. I think that she really needs to hone in on, as to other democrats, health care. Obamacares premiums are coming out two 0 three weeks before election. Those premium raises are going to be high and shocking. Republicans own it. Additionally, private insurance rates are going to be coming out and then. Some are going up. I have a friend going up by 25 . That is somethings people dont want. If democrats run on that and creand theyre going to do very well and possibly take back the house. Run on issues i call the 60 to 70 issues. People in your district and state agree with us at a level of 60 or 70 . Mainstream issues on maihealth care, expanding obamacare, common sense gun law, improving health care, expanding made care. Raising wages for people who got stiffed. Big corporations profits went up. The income and equality divide is massive. President trump had the insight to go after it. He said he was going to solve it. Heres whats happened. He hasnt solved it. Hes exacerbated it. Thank you so very much. Next, Breaking News, stay on that Republican Congressman from new york, Chris Collins arrested, charged with Insider Trading. Were going to dig into his latest final disclosures. Youre watching velshi ruhle
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