Good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 557 of the Trump Administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. And this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. It is about something Rudy Giuliani has started to say. In the days after the president ial election Donald Trumps advisers had a message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. In the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. There was no collusion with russias effort to disrupt the election. On monday President Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented a third line of defense, even if mr. Trump did collude with the russians he committed no crime. My client didnt do it. Even if he did it it is not a
crime. Hacking is the crime. The president didnt hack. He didnt pay for the hacking he said on cnn. The article goes on. It is just a word choice, said a Criminal Law Professor at georgetown. Im sure nobody in the Justice Department has ever investigated collusion but they have investigated conspiracy. And rudy, she said of mr. Trumps lawyer, knows better. For the record, the president has said collusion on twitter 94 times. Giuliani has been giving interviews throughout the day. Here is what he actually said. I have been sitting here looking at the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime. Im not sure if that is a crime. You start analyzing the crime. The hacking is the crime. Giuliani also weighed in on the trump tower june 2016
for the Southern District of new york. And anita kumar, white house correspondent. Are we, in fact, watching as has been theorized, an evolving policy . Nocollusion, no collusion. We shouldnt be thinking of him in legal terms. He is all about the Public Relations battle. He is the attack dog filling the air waves. This does seem like a deliberate step that we have seen, as you traced there, since 2016. There was no collusion. And yet suddenly today we have giuliani trying a new line suggesting that, well, even if there were collusion thats not a problem because it didnt get anywhere. Nothing happened. I think that i will defer to my legal colleagues on the set
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Helpful . Maybe the president. If the president didnt think that Rudy Giuliani was the right guy to be out there he probably wouldnt be out there. What you all said before is exactly right. I have people that are close to the white house, republicans who are scratching their head and saying this is not helpful and the white house saying they are not sure what is going on. Remember, this is exactly what happened last time. The white house said on the Stormy Daniels issue that Rudy Giuliani had two different versions about that they didnt know what was going on with that, either. If this is a strategy it is one that very few people kboi abono. Rudy giuliani is out there. He is brash. He is aggressive. He is doing all of these interviews because the president wants him to. Once and for all for all the nonlawyers watching who have heard Rudy Giuliani and others today say more than once collusion is not a crime. What is it . He is right. It is something i think the
president made up. The president is the only one who said the word collusion. Robert mueller and his team have never used the word collusion. Conspiracy is a crime and receiving aid from foreign nationals in an election is a crime. It is word play and so flimsy and transparent. I think it is another sign of desperation. They are trying to sort of they have nowhere to go. They are trying to play semantics. Its another sign that they are panicking. The president today allowed that he would be perfectly willing to sit down with rouhani of iran with no preconditions. The mueller interview is something different. Where do those chances stand as of tonight . I think we Saw Singapore and helsinki. This is probably dohar. We know the president is drawn to the spectacle of these summits. Lets remember the criticism the
republicans leveed against barack obama when he made a similar statement. In terms of the mueller interview the reporting has sort of remained the same on this where President Trump wants to do it. No one else thinks that is a good idea. Giuliani told me over the weekend that they are strongly advising against it. The reasons for that have shifted over the weeks and months but have settled on the idea that they think mueller is biassed and his team of investigators wont give the president a fair shake. Other people around the president privately feel like the president just simply couldnt do that. He is someone who though he has lots of practice giving depositions that he would perjure himself as one person told me three times in the first 30 seconds, that this is a no win situation. They think an interview for trump would only go badly for him. The president himself has such faith in himself believes he is
his best salesman and Communications Director and spokesman, he thinks he can acquit himself. It got personal this weekend. Now tomorrow begins manafort. Tomorrow night, as luck would have it, the president is holding a rally in florida. What is that likely to be like after just reading his twitter feed this past weekend . I mean, what have all of them been like . Even his official speeches have turned into political speeches. Even his official speeches have turned into places where he pushes back on this investigation, talks about the 2016 election and everything else. So we can definitely expect that to be tomorrow in florida. Obviously, it is a rally for a particular candidate. He tends to take these and kind of talks about whatever he wants. You can bet he will push back on manafort. He is going to push Back On Mueller and all of this as he always does. He has actually another rally on
thursday. So we will be seeing him two to three times a week coming up these next few months so he will have a lot of opportunities to talk. Just to confirm, proper lawyer behavior Rudy Giuliani starts talking about this premeeting. As jonathan points out tonight this daily beast story leads us to believe that maggie was calling around about a rumor of a premeeting. You are not supposed to introduce a negative story into your clients life unless its been your practice to go out and grab the bad stuff and try to take ownership of it so when it does some out it doesnt seem so bad. I think that is what they are doing. It is sort of a central tenant of Trial Practice that you want to get the bad stuff out there first. We always say pull the sting, be the first one to let the jury know bad news. I think giuliani is trying to do that. The evidence is starting to pile up. I think the new thing is they are probably seeing or should be
seeing the witness statements from the manafort witnesses. Those statements have been turned over to manaforts attorneys. They have been reading the 302s which is the fbi reports of what the witnesses are going to say, rick gates being one of them. An educated guess might be that giuliani knows something is coming and is trying to get out ahead of it. We welcome you to the broadcast and we thank our returning veterans. Coming up for us on a monday night, we are, as we mentioned, mere hours away from the start of this first trial of the mueller overall investigation. Well get you up to speed on all things manafort, about the case, how it could impact the president. Later, what President Trump said today that sounded a lot like something obama once said the difference when obama said it republicans were outraged. The 11th hour just getting underway on a monday night. Tech at safelite autoglass,
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singleserve mixin pax. Charges. Our nbc news justice correspondent Pete Williams points out if manafort is convicted, prosecutors would have powerful leverage for attempting to compel his testimony before a grand jury about whether he knows of any improper dealings between the Trump Campaign and the russians. The trial itself is not expected to shed any light on russias meddling. Meanwhile, President Trumps attorney, Rudy Giuliani who we might have mentioned in the previous segment, said today he is sure manafort has nothing on President Trump. He has no Information Incriminating of the president. I know that for a fact. They can squeeze him, Paul Manafort does not know anything nor could it possible he did. He was with him for four months. I was there when Paul Manafort was there. Paul manafort was a brilliant gatherer of delegates. He was the chairman he wasnt Jared Kushner and
the sons and all these other people were really running it. Note that he was the chairman of the campaign but he really wasnt. Here with us to talk about it we welcome Barrett Berger former u. S. Attorney with the eastern and Southern District of new york and ken delaney is back with us, nbc news intelligence and National Security reporter who will be inside the courtroom tomorrow covering the trial. Ken, i would like to begin with a headline from the New York Times tonight. And it reads russia is not on the docket at manaforts trial but it will be in the air. What would they mean . That is well put. One prosecutor said he did not expect the word russia to come up at all in the trial. It is not clear that the jury will be told explicitly that Paul Manafort worked for donald trump. This is a significant trial in no small part. Paul manafort has been a fixture going back to the 1970s. He ran the campaign of gerald ford, ronald reagan, bob dole and was one of the first people to monetize the service with his old partner roger stone. That is getting us where we are today. He went to work and prosecutors allege he was paid some 60 million for this service over many years of Public Relations and lobbying. And for reasons that maybe only manafort can explain prosecutors say he tried to avoid paying u. S. Taxes on these millions and structured the payments in the form of loans and funded a lavish lifestyle that included a 20,000 watch and multiple multimillion dollar properties. And then when this man fled to ukraine the spigot of cash dried up and then prosecutors say manafort started to commit other fraud by trying to get loans from the real estate that he owns and doing things like
distorting profit and loss statements and overvaluing properties. This is going to be a document heavy case. I fear that it may be boring in some parts. To lead the jury through it the prosecutors have a star witness who is rick gates who is Paul Manaforts righthand man who has pleaded guilty. We may not learn very much about Russia Collusion in this trial, but we will it will be reinforced that Paul Manafort came to the Trump Campaign essentially broke and that may have made him a ripe target for recruitment by russian intelligence. We will have to see whether he is convicted and whether Robert Mueller can compel the testimony in exchange for perhaps a lighter sentence. Counselor, welcome to you. A couple of procedural questions, how long does Jury Selection take in a trial like
this . I think in this case it may be challenging to get a jury. It will be hard to find people who havent heard about the case or havent had strong opinions. This may take a few days and into the second week. I think we can expect to see the selection going on for a little while. Isnt it kind of true that until the u. S. Presents its case and we are underway that is not really that is the time when we know how this will progress. Absolutely. I think the minute we hear the prosecutors give their Opening Statements that will give us a great road map of what we expect to see as far as evidence goes and we will get to hear from the defense. It will be the first time that we get a chance to see what their strategy is going to be in this case. What are the feds doing tonight . This is a heavy white board and boxes of documents case, isnt it . Its a paper case. Exactly. I think they are doing the exact same thing that prosecutors do
across the country av time they have a criminal case. It is the marking of exhibits and making sure you have paperWork Together and witnesses are prepped. In a case like this which is a heavy paper case they will be going through those things to make sure everything is in order. I have to ask you about the last bit of drama until we begin tomorrow, i guess until Opening Statements. There could be a deal in this case. Isnt it possible . Its incredibly possible. We see defendants that want to push it right up to the limit. It is probably one of the more frustrating things as a prosecutor. That definitely happens. I think it would be unloikely i a case like this. Paul manafort says to donald trump i will work for free. Why is that a red flag as the law sees it . Well, in part because of other evidence. It is pretty clear that paul
manafort was trying to monetize his service to donald trump. We know he was offering private briefings to this russian oligarch. Absolutely, a red flag and a potential that he was recruitable by foreign intelligence. That is exactly what is at the heart of Robert Muellers Investigation Whether Manafort was involved in any potential coordination with the Russian Election interference campaign. Thank you for laying out what begins tomorrow. We may talk about it a time or two on this broadcast in the weeks to come. The one thing President Trump said today, when we come back, that will spread legitimate worry in his own party with the mid term elections 99 days away. Thats where our conversation goes next when the 11th hour continues. Now im doing more to lower my a1c. I take tresiba® once a day. Tresiba® controls blood sugar for 24 hours for powerful a1c reduction. woman wed been counting down to his retirement. It was our tresiba® reason. He needs insulin to control his High Blood Sugar and, at his age, hes at greater risk for low blood sugar. Tresiba® releases slow and steady and works all day and night like the bodys insulin. vo tresiba® is a longacting insulin used to control High Blood Sugar in adults with diabetes. Dont use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Dont share needles or insulin pens. Dont reuse needles. The most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause dizziness, sweating, confusion, and headache. Check your blood sugar. Low blood sugar can be serious and may be lifethreatening. Injection site reactions may occur. Tell your prescriber about all medicines you take and all your medical conditions. Taking tzds with insulins like tresiba® may cause serious side effects like heart failure. Your insulin dose shouldnt be changed without asking your prescriber. Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue or throat, dizziness or confusion. man i found my tresiba® reason. Find yours. vo ask your Health Care Provider about tresiba®. Covered by most commercial Health Insurance and Medicare Part d plans. 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. On his threat to, quote, do a shutdown if congress doesnt find money to pay for a border wall. He first issued the threat over the weekend saying, quote, i would be willing to shut down government if the democrats do not give us votes for Border Security. Republicans on the Senate Appropriations committee today appeared opposed to that idea. I think it would be bad politics for the Republican Party to shut the government down. We would get blamed. No one wins. I think the American People expect us to do our job. If the president wants to shut down the government thats his prerogative. I think it would be a mistake and i dont think it will be necessary. President trumps threats of a shutdown came days after his private meeting wi