Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. A source says Michael Cohen is prepared to tell Robert Mueller that donald trump knew about that meeting before it happened. He did not participate in any meeting about the russia transaction. The president . The president did not. Im happy to tell him, he wasnt there. He wasnt at the meeting. The meeting with the russians. How can you be sure that the president didnt know beforehand . Youre saying its just a he said, he said. Nobody can be sure of anything. Earlier this evening, a long time former Trump Organization employee said this about the possibility of such a meeting occurring without trumps knowledge. Based on my experience working with trump and everybody that worked for trump, something major, something newsworthy, something press worthy, would always go before trump. Always. I think that he would have told donald about the meeting and then if it didnt amount to anything, it would have been fine. Giuliani also added to the controversy around cohens allegations. He said he heard reports that Michael Cohen is alleging that
lanny davis speaking for Michael Cohen. Certainly michael avenatti. He wants somebody out there to muddy the waters. Weve seen muellers Approval Rating drop. Giuliani has been effective there. But this one around people close to the president just wonder what he was doing and its raised concerns again whether giuliani is too often out ahead of his skis and is causing more trouble than hes helping. Counselor, as the former fed here at the table, how do the feds view the day that Rudy Giuliani had and all that he said on television . So, brian, i think as a prosecutor, im seeing this and what im seeing is a little bit of panic from the president and from Rudy Giuliani and ive seen it before. When a defendant and a defense team starts to feel the facts and the evidence closing in on them and theyre feeling like theres nowhere else to go, you see this change in tone that jonathan referenced. And whats been happening over the last two weeks . Were learning more and more every day about what Michael Cohen knows. We heard the tape from Michael Cohen. We know the Southern Districthas now subpoenaed the longterm accountant. You can see the Panic Setting in and theres a couple the big tell here is when they lashed out at the mueller team and this is right out of defense lawyering 101. Its personal. Its personal and its nothing new. Its in the desperate defense lawyers playbook. Everyone whos been a prosecutor has had it done to them. Its a sure sign that youre on to something and its a sure sign theyre running out of options so when you see the president Lash Out At Mueller and the team, know thats coming. I believe thats coming from a point of weakness and a point of panic and as jonathan pointed out, when people panic, they start selfdefeating and some of the things that Rudy Giuliani said today and walked back are really problematic for the president. Anita, lets go to you because youre the closest to this. The view up here in new york as youve heard is that it was a day of confusion, at minimum. Is anyone of the view that its helpful . Well, maybe the president. I dont know. If the president didnt think that Rudy Giuliani was the right guy to be out there, he probably
wouldnt be out there. But you know, 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 theyre not sure Whats 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. So, if this is a strategy, its one that very few people know about. Theyre not giving a head up to anyone. But remember, Rudy Giuliani, ill just go back to what i first said, is out there. Hes brash. Hes aggressive. Hes doing all these interviews because the president wants him to. Elie, 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 . Hes right. Collusion is not a crime. Its something, i think, the president made up. You just showed the graphic. The president s the only one whos ever said the word collusion. Robert mueller and his team have never used that word, collusion. Of Course Conspiracy is a crime and of course receiving aid from foreign nationals in an election is a crime, and Obstruction Of Justice is a crime. But its word play and its so flimsy and its so transparent that i think, again, its another sign of desperation, and you know, as jonathan said, theyre trying to sort of they have nowhere to go. And so theyre trying to play semantics and its another sign that theyre panicking. So jonathan, the president today allowed that hed be
perfectly willing to sit down with rouhani of iran with no preconditions. Now the mueller interview is something different. Where do those chances stand . I think we saw singapore, weve seen helsinki, this ones probably, you know, book your flight now. The president is drawn to the spectacle of these summits and as an aside on that, lets remember the criticism the republicans levied against barack obama when he was president and made a similar idea that he would sit down with leaders like this without preconditions. The mueller in terms of a mueller interview, the reporting sort of has remained the same on this, where President Trump wants to do it. No one else thinks thats a good idea. Giuliani himself told me over the weekend theyre advising against it. The reasons for that have shifted over the weeks and months but they have settled on they think mueller is biased. Giuliani told me they would be liars and he doesnt want to walk the president into what he thinks would be a trap. Other people around the president , privately, feel like the president just simply couldnt do that. That he is someone who, you know, though he has lots of practice giving depositions, that he would perjure himself three time in the first 30 seconds. They feel like this is a nowin situation. They think that an interview for trump would only go badly for him but the president himself,
he has such faith in himself, believes hes his best salesman, his best spokes man, he thinks he can get in there and acquit himself. Anita, elie correctly points out it got personal this weekend and now tomorrow begins manafort. Tomorrow night, as luck would have it, the president s holding a rally in florida. What is that likely to be like after just reading his twitter feed this past weekend . Right, 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 its a rally for a particular candidate but he tends to take these and just kind of talks about really whatever he wants. So you can bet hes going to push back on manafort. Hes going to push back on mueller. Hes going to push back on all this. You know, as he always does. He has actually another rally on thursday, so were going to be seeing him two to three times a week coming up these next few months so hell have a lot of opportunities to talk. Elie, just to confirm proper lawyer behavior, Rudy Giuliani starts talking about this premeeting and as jonathan points out tonight, this daily beast story leads us to believe that Maggie Haberman of the New York Times was calling around about a premeeting. Youre 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 come us, it doesnt seem so bad. I think thats what theyre doing. You know, its sort of a Central Tenet of Trial Practice that you want to get the bad stuff out there first, right . We always say pull the sting. Be the first one to let the jury know bad news and i think giulianis trying to do that. I think hes doing it in a ham handed and confusing way, but again, the evidence is starting to pile up. Theyre now, i think, the new thing is now theyre probably seeing they should be seeing the witness statements for the manafort witnesses. Those statements have been turned over to manaforts attorneys now. No reason manaforts attorneys arent sharing those with giuliani and trumps team, and so theyve been reading, we all them the 302s, which is the fbi reports of what the witnesses are going to say, rick gates being one of them. So an educated guess might be that giuliani knows somethings coming, and hes trying to get out ahead of it. We welcome you to the broadcast. Thank you very much for joining us as we thank our two returning veterans, jonathan and anita, thanks, gang. Appreciate it. 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. And 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 under way on a monday night. 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 was, but he really wasnt jared and the sons and bossy and these other people were really running that. 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, nonetheless. In no small part because Paul Manafort has been a fixture in republican politics going back to the 1970s. He ran the campaign of gerald ford, ronald reagan, bob dole, and he also was one of the first people to monetize his service as a political strategist with
his old partner, roger stone, and thats really sort of getting us where we are today, because he went to work for this russianbacked Ukrainian Oligarch and as you said, prosecutors allege he was paid some 60 million for this service over many years of Public Relations and lobbying for this rather unsavory character, and for reasons that maybe only manafort can explain, prosecutors say he tried to avoid paying u. S. Taxes on these millions, and he structured the payments in the forms of loans and they funded a lavish lifestyle that included 10,000 suits and a 21,000 watch and multiple, multimillion dollar properties, and then when this man, victor, fled to ukraine, the spigot of cash dried up and then prosecutors say manafort started to commit other fraud by essentially trying to get loans from the real estate that he owns and doing things like disporting profit and loss statements, overvaluing properties, so as you can imagine, brian, this is going to be a document heavy case and i fear that it may be boring in
some parts, but to lead the jury through it, prosecutors have a star witness, and thats rick gates, who was Paul Manaforts righthand man, another republican political consultant, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating. But you know, the times is absolutely right and Pete Williams is right. We may not learn very much about Russia Collusion in this trial, but we will, i think, it will be reinforced to us that Paul Manafort came to the Trump Campaign essentially broke and deeply in debt to some russian oligarchs and that may have made him a ripe target for recruitment by russian intelligence. Now, whether he has anything to tell about that, whether that actually happened, i think were going have to wait to see whether hes convicted and whether Robert Mueller can then compel his testimony in exchange for perhaps a lighter sentence, brian. That laid out the case very well. Counselor, welcome to you. A couple of procedural questions. How long does Jury Selection take in a trial like this . It really depends. I think in this case it may be challenging for them to get a jury. Certainly its going to be hard
to find people that havent heard about the case, that havent already formed some strong opinions about this case, so this may take a few days. It may take into the second week. I think we could expect to see this Jury Selection may go on for a little while. Isnt it kind of true that until the u. S. Presents its case and were under way, thats not really thats the time when well know how this is going to progress, what do they have, how do they plan to lay it out. 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 the evidence goes. Well also certainly get to hear from the defense and it will be really the first time that we get a chance to see what their strategys going to be in this case. What are they doing tonight . What are the feds doing tonight . This is a heavy white board and boxes of documents case, isnt it . Its a paper case. Exactly. And you know, i think theyre
doing the exact same thing the prosecutors do across the country every time they have a criminal case. It is the unglamorous work of sitting in rooms and marking exhibits and making sure you have your paperwork and in a case like this, which is a heavy paper case, theyre going to be going through those things with a fine tooth comb. I have to ask you about the last bit of drama up until we begin tomorrow, i guess up until opening statements. There could be a deal in this case. Isnt it possible . Oh, its incredibly possible. We see that all the time. Defendants that really just want to push it right up to the limit. Its probably one of the more frustrating things as a prosecutor when youve gone through all the steps that are necessary to get ready for this, but that definitely happens, and i mean, i think it would be unlikely in a case like this, but certainly. Hey, ken, Last Question for you. Paul manafort says to donald trump, ill work for free. Why is that a red flag as the law sees it . Well, in part because of
other evidence. Its pretty clear that Paul Manafort was trying to monetize his service to donald trump. We know that he was offering private briefings to this russian oligarch, a man he owed some 10 million to, its now emerged from Court Filings so yeah, absolutely a red flag and a potential that he was recruitable by foreign intelligence assets, and thats exactly whats at the heart of Robert Muellers investigation, whether manafort was involved in any potential coordination with the Russian Election interference campaign. I cant thank you both enough. Barrett, ken, thank you for laying out what begins tomorrow and we maybe talk about it a time or two on in 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 midterm elections 99 days away. Thats where our conversation goes next when The 11th Hour continues. To make me feel sluggish but