Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. About. Can the legal system resist a Political Campaign led by the president of the United States. My favorite weird anecdote of yesterday, at One Point Giuliani was running out of so many people to talk to, he had to talk to a fellow lawyer. Jay sekulow had a radio show. Here is jay sekulow interviewing Rudy Giuliani, his boss as the attorney. Listen. Mayor, i know youve said and ive said we want to see this come to closure soon here. Mayor . Yeah, we do. Its about time that it ends. I also think, and i hope the Special Counsel is as sensitive to it as we are. We do not want to run into the november elections. So back up from that. This should be over with by September 1st. Is that a threat . Look, its throwing everything at the wall and trying to see what sticks. I think everything thats said here is correct. This is a political messaging campaign, but its not without peril, right . Everything Rudy Giuliani said sort of reveals what the legal
all of this that that was a mistake . Well, i covered the bill clinton controversy. And, yes, the clinton people went after the prosecutor. But i think what donald trump and his team are doing here is something far broader and deeper than that. Theyre going after the entire Department Of Justice. Theyre going after the entire judicial system as bill was saying. The angry theres the angry 13, who are the prosecution team. Theres the angry 17 plus who are the grand jury. We assume he uses 17 as some bizarre qanon thing or not. They randomly started moving from 13 to 17. No, theyre talking about the grand jury, i think. No, he calls them the lawyers, but okay. In any case no, he c conflated with the kbragrand ju the other day. Theyre going after the legitimacy of the entire
judicial branch of the government. Thats something bill clinton didnt do. He had a prosecutor who was well known that he used as a tart. This is much, much different, much deeper and much more pro founding. Will the judicial system as a whole be able to weather it . And thats ultimately going to come down to the Supreme Court in one way or another down the road. I think it is the o. J. Strategy, you discredit not just the individual prosecutor but in the case of o. J. , in a sense the l. A. Police department. There there were some things that could be discredited we went down this o. J. By the way, in our meeting today, we went down the o. J. Rabbit hole. I said whos mark fuhrman and somebody said peter strzok. But that September 1st mention is ominous. Giuliani is purposely conflating two things. The Justice Department informal guidelines, i believe, not law, you shouldnt bring an indictment in a politically sensitive case 60 days before the election. Not that the investigation
shouldnt continue. Says you should stay quiet. Which mueller is capable of doing. But that is ominous. And what trump said at the end of the tweet you showed on the screen, stay tuned. I do wonder if labor day they say, look, he hasnt resolved this yet, this is an outrage, you shouldnt have these things going on in the election season and he starts Firing Rosenstein and mueller. I raised that possibility here last week that i think hes not ruled that out by any means, trump hasnt. Hes looking for the timing, not the possibility. And by the way, the other thing they can do, the prosecutor can do is go silent between september and november, which i think is whats likely to happen. Kimberly, i think a big factor here in whether the president acts, manafort is guilty or innocent. I think thats a big thing. I think this is what were seeing this getting kicked up so much right now is we see the first real trial in this mueller investigation, the first evidence and its not looking
good at all for manafort. I think that that is a big factor in this. But to the point of the potential for Firing Rosenstein or someone else in the investigation, what does if that happens before the midterms, what does that do but serve as the best Get Out The Vote device for democrats leading up to the election . How is that a politically good move . I just dont see it. Heres more Rudy Giuliani. Sometimes you just want to play it because you cant believe what youre hearing on television sometimes. This is Rudy Giuliani basically as you pointed out earlier, kimberly, openly admitting what theyre afraid of. He knows the answers to every question that he wants to ask. Hes going to ask him, did you tell Comey To Go Easy On Flynn . The president will say, no, i didnt. Hey, bob, you know it. Why do you want to get him under oath . You think were fools . You want to trap him into perjury. Were not going to let you do that. He doesnt need to ask a single question on obstruction. He has all the answers. Theyre not going to change. The president is not going change his testimony. So stop the nonsense. You are trying to trap him into perjury because you dont have a case. The president has lied, hes going to continue lying. Were not putting him under oath. Then he lies under oath. The president really wants to testify and his lawyers are holding him back. I think thats all nonsense, its all a political narrative. They have convinced a fair number of reporters because i think the president probably tells his staff so they can tell the reporters, id love to get in a room with mueller. I think i could convince him. One thing he said is true is that mueller knows all the answers. If the president Doesnt Testify and somehow thats protecting him from something is utter nonsense. Certainly the idea that they can negotiate. Okay, as long as you dont talk about obstruction or collusion, that somehow mueller will go on with this, mueller has not agreed to anything on the record. This is only giulianis sort of spitballing publicly that we have to go on. But howard, this is the trump
m. O. , delay, delay, delay. This is how he handled debtors. Every time you thought he was done as a businessman, he kept buying time, offer them 10 cents. Keep negotiating. Eventually the bankers are like, fine, im done. I agree with that. If i can go back to an earlier point about manafort, i think the people around manafort for sure see this as a whole with trump. In other words, you were saying that its going to depend on what happens in this Manafort Trial. I was out there today and talking to some people there. They see it he sees it as part theyre pushing the illegitimacy of prosecution thing in the same way. How much theyre going to be able to get that on the record in court i dont know. But their whole spin is that the only reason that Hes Being Pru prosecuted for illegitimate reasons. Theyre basically saying because of mueller, what, somebody else might not have
found the crimes . Well, that he wasnt theyre going to say if they cant put it on the record in court, theyll say he wasnt audited. This is a standard thing that happens but theyll make that assertion. You know why he wasnt audited . Because the irs has had its funds cut year after year after year. Audits are down overall. Do you think White Collar Crime is down . My point is when it comes down to it, assuming hes convicted on some of these charges, they will make the Manafort Trial part of the larger narrative of how this is all an illegal prosecution. Rudy is basically what he said, theyre going theres going to have to be an investigation of the investigators. He actually said it. Weve been joking thats what they want. He just went and said it. And if republicans do pretty well on november 6, which im not sure what that means, certainly if they do really well its about holding a chamber. I think we are looking at
pardons and looking at trump two or three months after the election before we get into the 2020 cycle to really clear the decks. Of course there could also be more indictments this month or a Mueller Report this month. Cohen tapes. Theres so many moving parts in this. I also think that the Manafort Trial is harder to discredit a jury verdict than it is what if they get lucky and get a hung jury . What does trump do if that happens . Fires rosenstein. See, its a witch hunt. Hung juries can happen, right . It has to be unanimous, by the way, in the federal criminal trial. It has to be unanimous. There you go. Weve all seen the movies and they do those things. Wheres john cusack, is he involved in this . Kimberly, bill, howard, stick around. Up ahead, the latest on the Paul Manafort trial. What actually happened in there. And a surprise from the judge. ford chime its the Ford Summer Sales event and now is the best time to buy. You ready for this, junior . Yeah, i think i can handle it. No pressure. Thats just my favorite boat. Boom. laughs make summer go right with ford, americas bestselling brand. And get our best deal of the summer zero percent financing for sixty months on f150. Right now, get this special offer on f150 zero percent financing for 60 months during the Ford Summer Sales event. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Im not really a, i thought wall street guy. Ns. Whats the hesitation . Eh, it just feels too complicated, you know . You know, at Td Ameritrade, we can walk you through your Options Trades step by step until youre comfortable. I could be up for that. Stepbystep options trading support from Td Ameritrade welcome back. The president and Rudy Giulianis attacks on the russia investigation have taken a toll on Robert Muellers credibility with the public, at least among republicans. At what point can or should the Special Counsel feel as if he has to push back . Well, lets have that conversation. Joining me now is an msnbc contributor and former u. S. Attorney, barbara mcquade. All right, barbara, thats my simple first question here. I know that u. S. Attorneys, sometimes you want to use the press, sometimes you dont. Bob mueller is a man who does not want to use the press at all. But its a onesided fight right
now. If it is a pr battle, does bob mueller need to rethink his strategy . Well, i think it is his m. O. Certainly to stay out of the press. He has been known for saying that the press is can be your friend at times but at other times not, so he prefers to keep his head down and to do his work. So i doubt hes going to change his ways. Although you make a good point, which is hes used to working in a world where the ultimate Decision Maker is a judge or a jury and it doesnt matter what the press has to say and doesnt matter what Public Opinion says. In this scenario where it could come down to a report for impeachment consideration, it very much is a political situation and up for public debate so is he out of his comfort zone here where hes dealing with something where the political stakes are so high. Nonetheless, i doubt hell change his game. My guess is he will make a decision to either persuade President Trump to sit for an interview, serve him with a subpoena or decide to go forward
without it. This Hemming And Hawing by giuliani where it looks like he and muellers team are going back and forth, and we dont know whether thats true or not because muellers team are so mum and whether this is giuliani playing to the cameras. But i am curious, mueller could end this, as you just said, if he decides, you know what, im going to split the baby here. Ill do the subpoena that i know i can win, which is to question him about all of his actions as a candidate. And i punt the questions about obstruction. Is that the Fallback Scenario here . I dont see Robert Mueller going that path. I think he very much would want to ask the questions about obstruction, so i think the demands that giulianis team are making are quite unreasonable. I dont see any reason why Robert Mueller would give up on those questions. Theres some very real questions here about obstruction of justice. The only person who can really answer those questions are President Trump himself because corrupt intent is so important. But really i see his sitdown asPresident Trumps opportunity to tell his side of the story. If he doesnt want to avail himself of that in some ways, maybe Robert Mueller just walks away and assumes the worst about him. But if he were to file that subpoena, i am very confident that he could win unless we get a new Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh is someone who has written on a strong executive and strong Executive Privilege and so maybe the Calculus Changes once he comes to the court. But that case of u. S. Versus nixon, unanimous opinion from the 1970s, seems like the law is very strongly in favor of Robert Mueller, at least as of this point. Lets talk about the other big legal drama in trump world, the one where we have you tethered to a camera there for us, the Paul Manafort trial. Youre outside the court house. Prosecutors are back at it. Theyre showing how they say manafort committed bank and tax fraud. The latest example, apparently manafort claimed a New York City condo was a second home when he was renting it out on airbnb. That allowed him to get a bigger loan and lower Mortgage Rate from the bank. The Airbnb Listing disappeared right around the time manafort was trying to secure that loan. How airtight, how good was the testimony today, how good were the prosecutors today at making their point in your opinion . I think it was a very strong day. Today was a prosecutors dream. It can be very dull and tedious for the jurors and for the court watchers, but the case comes in through documents. They had Bank Witnesses who were just up there talking about how they do their jobs and walking through all of these different loans and all of the contradictory statements that were made by Paul Manafort. I think a very strong day for the prosecution. The defense tried to make some points by saying that rick gates was involved in some of these communications or that some of these statements werent a big deal, but i think that the evidence really does not support their theory that this is all rick gates. Weve got Paul Manafort personally sending emails, personally attending the closings, so i think today is a very strong day for the prosecution. The fact that the defense keeps bringing up rick gates, is it pretty clear thats their whole strategy here . Its not manafort that did all
this, its gates . It is. And you know, rick gates is not a bad person to try to pin this on. He came across as a really despicable person and someone who will lie to do whatever he wants. But the rest of the evidence corroborates the testimony of rick gates and isnt consistent with the theory that the defense is trying to pin on him. Hes certainly involved in some of these things and works together with Paul Manafort to commit some of these bank frauds and some of the tax fraud, but you see Paul Manafort very involved. The testimony of accountants who say that Paul Manafort was deeply involved in his finances and knew where every penny was spent, i think, is going to be enough for the jury. You never know what a jury wants to do, but if they act reasonably and rationally, i think theres sufficient evidence to convict. All right. Lets talk about judge ellis. It was quite a shock to some. He had a star turned today with a big profile on the new york times. Part of me thinks he made the apology thinking his star turn isnt playing so well. Obviously it had to do with an official complaint by the prosecution. One, was he truly apologetic . And two, has the judge hurt the prosecutions case with the jury . So the request of the government overnight was a curative instruction, because the judge had admonished them in open court, really scolded them for allowing their Expert Witness to sit through the trial, which he hadnt known until he was called to the stand, despite the fact that the government had filed a motion to do that and the judge had granted it. And so they asked for a curative instruction to tell the jury that the government had not done anything wrong. He did that, but he did it in a way that sometimes you see celebrities make apologies. I apologize if anyone was offended. He said something to the effect that i may have been wrong and so you should set aside my comments made to the government yesterday. So whether that was effective or not, whether you can unring the bell, im not sure. But he did at least say that his
instruction may have been a mistake and that they should disregard that. Has he hurt them in the case . You know, he i