Paul manafort has been doing. A bombshell from the first female air force Fighter Pilot to fly in combat, senator mcsally revealing that she was raped by one of her superiors out with a new powerful interview this morning. Just as a commander that i speak, but as a survivor. I just felt i needed to talk about it. But it isnt about me. Do you think the prevalence of Sexual Assault and abuse in the military is a National Security threat . I do. Dont let your assaulter rob you of your future. Dont do it. Conduct, any conduct, that degrades this readiness doesnt just harm individuals in the ranks, it harms the mission and places at risk the security of our country. I blame myself. I was ashamed and confused. And i thought i was strong. But felt powerless. The perpetrators abuse their position of power in profound ways. And the House Oversight committee is debating President Trumps response to the drug crisis. A new you study shows overdoses are increasing in the africanamerican community. An overdose is happening, and it happens multiple times a day in the city of baltimore. The thing is, i lost people that i grew up with from childhood like about eight people in one year. Lets start with breaking news right now involving Michael Cohen. Nbc investigations reporter tom winter is joining us. Weve just received news that Michael Cohen has filed suit against the Trump Organization. Thats correct. So our basic understanding, were still goal throuing throu court documents, it is a 22 page filing. Michael cohen is saying that july of 2017, he entered into an agreement with the Trump Organization he claims that that agreement was to indemnify him and also to pay his legal bills. So essentially this is something where he would enter into some sort of a joint Defense Agreement or when you say his legal bills, not the legal fees that tru trump s cohen for trump representing trump. Youre talking Michael Cohen is demanding or has filed suit because he believes that donald trump should be paying his current legal bills, ie what he owns lanny davis. No. So basically what it is suggesting is that Michael Cohen incurred a signature amouificanf legal becauses because of his before congress. He is saying that there are bills and some concerattorneys had back then and you agreed to pay those bills. You only paid half in the Certain Circumstance according to cohen, and again we dont have a response from the Trump Organization yet. They havent filed a response in court. This really hasnt been fully entered into the do being ket. They have just dropped the lawsuit. So were just getting these documents. So i still need to figure out exactly what cohen is claiming as far as when those legal bills should have been stopped. So in other words, whether or not Michael Cohens legal brills after he agreed to cooperate with the special counsels office, after pleaded guilty in the case brought by prosecutors here in new york, whether or not he believes those should be covered or not. That is something i still need to review. Im going to guess the trump team is going to say when pigs fly. Well, it is a little bit difficult. If he entered into a written agreement with the Trump Organization in july of 2017 and they said hey, as a result of your work for us, we agree to indemnify you and pay your legal bills, the Trump Organization up until the point that Michael Cohen didnt want to be associated with them anymore, we would still have to look at that contract language, again, assuming these allegations are true that Michael Cohen is presenting here, frankly the Trump Organization is on the hook. They are on the hook to pay those legal bills for the work that he did for them. And this is not uncommon when youre an attorney or when youre working on behalf of a company, there are many frankly most of us in the media business, if were sued through our work here at nbc, depending on the circumstances, the company has to pay our legal bills for that. It depends on your employer and what the agreement happens to be, but if Michael Cohens allegations are true and that he did enter into an agreement with the Trump Organization, then his legal bills certainly up through the search warrant process, and those were very significant lemm bills were told, should be paid by in fact the Trump Organization. So well have to see how this all shakes out. Well have to see the numbers. The suit has just been filed. Frankly we usually dont go on and just report within side of this without having to double check the other. However this has been brewing for some time. And we kind of know the overall facts of the issue. And it is up to really really need to test here to see whether or not the allegations are true and well obviously wait a response from the Trump Organization presumably from the white house as well, although they have usually deferred comment in these situations. And at some point the Trump Organization will respond i assume in the next several days legally to the claims brought by Michael Cohen today. Lets bring in harin harry l and ken dilanian can. Ken, have you had a chance to look not to this . Reporter yeah, im looking at documents on line. And it looks like cohen is saying that he hasnt paid his legal bills since may 2018 and hes saying that as of january 25th, 2019, hes incurred 1. 9 million in legal bills that he is going after the Trump Organization for aend wants them to pay another 1. 9 million that were forfeited as part of his criminal sentence. So really an interesting argument. He has essentially flipped on the president but he still wants the president to pay his legal bills even while evident coopera evident coopera he was cooperating with the special counsel and southern district. And mike, you have covered this closely. How do you think that the white house will take this . Well, we can tell from the language of cohen versus trump org here that this is essentially a divorce document. That it memorializes the fact that for 11 years he probably worked for the Trump Organization and in Michael Cohens lawsuit it cites the fact that he was known as the fixer which isnt a term that youd expect him to use, but he spells out his Loyal Service and we can see just not only how ugly this has gotten, but also this spells out for us on one piece of paper the extent of the legal issues surrounding Michael Cohen. So he has a list in here of 11 different legal cases that he says he is owed money in connection with. You have house testimony, Senate Testimony, the federal prosecutors. And so it is a reminder and it spells out for us just how much of a level hell Michael Cohen has been in and he is saying i need some way to pay for this. Harry, tom winter brings up an interesting point. If you have this sort of agreement where you are indemnified by somebody for things that where going on, does it extend to the stuff that Michael Cohen seems to be claiming and when does it end . In a case like Michael Cohens where at some point the cooperation agreements end and parties are going their own way, when does the indemnification he said . First question first. Typically i havent seen the actual agreement. The words will control. I gather tom says it is a written agreement, so that will be straightforward. But it is very common to have these sorts of agreements as tom and ken both say, but also very common for them to exclude criminal conduct. So the arguments may be about parsing the Senate Testimony versus the actual defense. It would be unusual for an insurance policy to say, well always cover you for any criminal conduct youre accused of. In cohens case, that was actually largely what he was doing for the Trump Organization. When does it end . It ends when the subject matter ends. So if it is something that the contract covers because you have done it in the course of employment and the contract says well cover it for you and the lawsuit goes on 20 years, it is like an insurance policy. For that subject matter related to your conduct with the company. Tom has a piece of information. I wanted to mention one thing because i think it is important here. That after this agreement occurred, and it doesnt specifically say whether it was written or not, but that might be important. Yeah. Well have to see about that. But in october of 2017, Trump Organization did actually pay some of Michael Cohens legal bills. So i think that is important to note, that there was some sort of an agreement that Michael Cohen claims occurred and then he further says in this lawsuit that they paid 137,000 to one of his former attorneys now former attorneys, his attorney at the time. So it is not as if the Trump Organization never paid a bill here. But i think it does establish something that you were suggesting, that in fact it appears if youre going to pay a bill, it appears that perhaps there was an agreement that was in place. Obviously well wait and see what the Trump Organization has to say about that. All right. We have to talk about Paul Manafort now. Sentencing will take place a few hours from now. Set the stage for us. Reporter so it is judge ts ellis. And remember judge ellis expressed a lot of skepticism. And so hes faced with the prospects of how many years to sentence Paul Manafort for these crimes. And the guidelines are very severe. They call for up to this years in prison. Judge ellis by some accounts is known as not the touch youest sentencer for white collar cases. Manafort is asking for leniency. And the bottom line, what really matters is what happens next week in washington, d. C. Because that judge will pass another sentence and then also decide whether those sentences are served at the same time or one after another. So that could be the really huge decision in terms of whether manafort has any prayer of ever getting out of prison, 69yearold man looking at a virtual life sentence. And we continually hear from the president in particular from his tweets, from sarah sanders, from the president s defenders and some in congress that this isnt really a thing, that there has been no collusion, no proof of anything. You and your team at axios are calling this the biggest scandal in american history. Walk us through some of this. Yeah, so so much news flies at us every day that we forget how much we already know. How much has already been learned and revealed. And so, yes, the Mueller Report may have more. Yes, we expect more related indictments. But pause a second and look at what we already know from the 34 indictments and guilty pleas that we already have from mueller. Somebody put all the mueller filings into an actual book now and you can learn so much from them. So when you pause and look at what weve learned, this is one of the most significant counterintelligence investigations in american history. And we called leading historians an we said what scan dams hadal been bigger, what has been more disruptive. You can talk about iran contra, you can talk abouter on sc eoth scandals, but the only two real examples according to historians are the teapot dome scandal 1920 when you had corrupt administration officials, the Harding Administration of all things, selling oil leases. And of course watergate. And what these historians said to us is that trump russia already looks bigger than watergate when you look at the range of incidents and offenses that are being investigated and when you look at the fact that foreign power is at the center of it. So it is the stakes and potential consequences inthat elevate this. So were living history in a way that it is very hard to realize. But donald trump just tweeted two days ago that his approval amongst republicans is whatever superlative he used. Why are republicans so unfazed by this . In the wauwall street journal nbc poll, he piblged up in h picked up in his approval rating. And his base it is more than his base though. I just came back from the capitol. Because of his popularity in these key districts, he is holding on to popularity. They are still with him. There is not cracks enough to worry him right now. Harry, what is the likelihood of a president ial pardon in manaforts case . I mean President Trump is never shy about voicing an opinion good or bad. And usually when things go sour for someone, the president distances himself. This is his former campaign chairman. The guy who was running the show when President Trump secured the republican nomination. Potentially going to jail for the rest of his living years. Yeah, i mean more than potential. The real likelihood. Ellis, ive been in front of him and he is hard on the government and can give light sentences. But between that and the one this d. C. , it is very hard to see it coming through. What are the odds . You know, trump leaves a very long record of heart broken people who wanted to rely on his good will. And he double crosses people all the time. I dont see it happening if it happens until the very end of his presidency. It would then be pretty brazen. But i think that it would depend a lot on just how sort of crippled a President Trump is at the time. But a kind of final thumbing of his nose to the criminal Justice System with a pardon for manafort, stone, et cetera. It certainly wouldnt be out of character. Ken, mike, harry and tom, thank you all for joining us with this breaking news. After days of infighting among the Democratic Caucus sparked by comments made by freshman congresswoman ilhan omar, nancy pelosi says that the house will vote today on a resolution opposing, quote, all forms of hatred. Lets go now to kasie hunt live on the hill. You were at the speakers News Conference earlier. What can you tell us . Reporter has really become a Major Division for democrats. As they have tried to work out how to balance some very emotional questions really. I mean weve had impassioned speeches on the floor from jewish democrats and there have been nonjewish democrats also incensed by what congresswoman omar said. But she has defenders among the prg s progressives and it is really a generational divide. Younger members have defended her saying she has been the target of antimuslim bias. So i asked nancy pelosi about this at her press conference earlier today and she really you can tell she is walking this line trying to accommodate all of the members of her caucus who again are very upset. Take a look at how she answered these questions. Do you think that ilhan omar understands why her comments were problematic and what happens if it happens again . I dont think that the congresswoman is perhaps appreciating the future weight of how it was heard by other people, although i dont believe that it was intended in an anti semitic way. But we have to remove all doubt as we have done every and over again. Reporter so i also asked the speaker if omar should apologize. She has not apologized for this latest remark and the speaker demured and said that that would be up to omar. And again, were talking about this question about dual loyalty. She talks about how she used the phrase allegiance to a foreign country in a remark she made last week. And for many jewish members and this movement has been led in large part by congressman deutsche who gave a speech saying my father fought the nazis at the battle of the bulge. Why are you questioning my loyalty to america, it is possible to have this religious faith and also to be loyal to the united states. Because this is something that has been used to justify violence against jewish people and other minorities throughout the years. Ilhan omars defense to her colleagues privately seems to have been that she did not realize that this was a trope, that this was a stereotype that would be read the way that it was by the other colleagues. But this is now the third time that she is on Public Record as making comments that really reference these tropes. And quite frankly i think there are a lot of members who are frustrated with that reality and really want to make a Public Statement about it. All right. Kasie hunt, thank you so much. This is pretty extraordinary. Yeah, and what is interesting is that they were supposed to have the vote. Looks like they will have it, but there has been a lot of with each passing day, it is not just generational, it is the fact that there are some people who are worried that whether ilhan omar was deliberate about this, whether she is playing to a constituency or whether she was ignorant of it, is there a possibility of having a discussion in which one is critical of israel or aipac which is always supportive of the government of israel regardless of whether they should be subject of some criticism. So the more it is discussed, the more helpful it will be. But also delaying the vote isnt saying, oh, this is being a oka