Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. He said, any further information is classified. Today the white house actually did impose new sanctions on russia, but not for election meddling. The administration is penalizing the kremlin for using chemical weapons against an exspy and his daughter in the uk, a decision that congress had to push the white house to make. Meanwhile, republican senator rand paul is in moscow this week, of all places, apparently on his own summer Outreach Mission to the kremlin. The senator had been one of the few open defenders on capitol hill of President Trumps overtures to vladimir putin, the only defender at times. Today he wrote this about his visit. Quote, i was honored to deliver a letter from President Trump to president Vladimir Putins administration. The letter emphasized the importance of further engagement in various areas, including countering terrorism, enhancing legislative dialogue, and resuming cultural exchanges. Putin was not in moscow to meet with the senator personally, were told. The white house was quick to respond that the letter was written at senator pauls
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Trap is forbidden. And that is when you have no legitimate purpose for calling someone the a grand jury other than to try to catch them in a lie. That is, you dont believe theyve committed any other crime. But youre going to try to catch them in a lie so you can charge them with that lie. I think in this instance its clear that Robert Mueller has a lot of legitimate questions that he wants to ask of President Trump. And the idea that its a perjury trap only exists if he chooses to lie. Now jonathan lemire, the question for you which may call for a judgment, what is greater do you think in the trump camp . The fear of a subpoena or the fear of perjury . I think theyre worried about both. I mean, they believe they have legal arguments to protect them against a subpoena. They dont believe that the Department Of Justice in the code there that mueller is certainly a buy the book prosecutor, and we believe that they believe that they would not for that. Perhaps its perjury. Everyone as ive said before and i reported before, people around the president just feel that hes its walking into a land
course, we did see jim comey open up a federal investigation that absolutely mattered to an election just about ten days before voters went to the ballot box. More on that in a moment. Barb, i watched giuliani with sean on fox tonight. It was interesting. At a certain point, giuliani stopped talking about this. He kind of referred to deferred to jay sekulow. A, is it possible one of the feds said your side should really stop talking about these negotiations . And b, what are the feds likely to make of all this public sharing of letters and demands and no questions on obstruction and the like . Well, ordinarily, the Department Of Justice doesnt want to silence people who want to talk. They have First Amendment rights to do that. So im sure they dont like it. They probably arent happy with it. It may not even be accurate. But theyre probably not going to do anything about it if giuliani and sekulow want to continue to talk about it. I dont think it advances their
position in negotiating by talking about it in the public sphere. But i dont think that the Justice Department is going to order them to stop in any way. But youre right that the effect of it all is we get this very onesided narrative. We dont even know whether its true. They made representations about their letter. We havent seen the letter and certainly were not hearing from Robert Mueller. So we dont know what it says. But i do get the sense that theyre slowwalking this. Theyre trying to get themselves as close to september as possible. Say were negotiating, were still keeping the door open because they know that as that election approaches, its less likely that Robert Mueller would serve that subpoena and launch whats likely to be some very explosive litigation. Also, barb, what is rudy talking about when he says this investigation will violate doj rules if it goes past september 1 . Well, he is conflating some things here. I dont know whether its intentional or not, but there are sometimes something referred to as a 60day rule before an election, there is usually a cooling off period. The language of the rule really is very broad. It just says prosecutors shouldnt do anything to influence the outcome of an election. And what you do or dont do really depends on the facts of the case. But many people have interpreted that to be sort of a 60day rule that says when you get 60 days out of an election, you probably should cool off and not file anything publicly. So with the elections in november, that would be about labor day. So i think there have been many suggesting that Robert Mueller would be unlikely to serve a subpoena then. But to suggest the investigation needs to be over by then is a very different thing. Even if he does go into a cooling off period, which he may or may not do without trump on the ballot, nothing says he has to be done by that point. Bob, on that point no one expects mueller to do anything incautious, a. And b, one of the hardened cynics in our business proffered this theory tonight, and that is that by saying september 1, by getting that out into the bloodstream, rudy, who is a member of this team that says
nothing really by accident, usually its backreferenced, may be getting into the public consciousness what he sees as a win if and when mueller suspends on or about September 1st for election season they can say its been properly, this investigations been paused and thats a victory for us. Thats right, brian. Talking to mayor giuliani, you see him preparing right now for the subpoena fight. That Subpoena Threat goes all the way back to march when mueller made it in a private exchange with then trump attorney john dowd. The Republican Party is on edge, especially after tuesdays primaries in ohio and elsewhere about the midterm elections. They dont want to have the Mueller Report hanging over their heads. So in my conversations with republican lawmakers on capitol hill, theyre telling the white house, theyre telling trump allies, theyre telling giuliani and the president , anything you can to get russia off of our plate, wed appreciate it. And they know they have to take a tough line and sanctions. The party is more hawkish than
the president on russia, but they want this Mueller Report to be not hanging out there as a variable. And so thats why in part this is a political strategy for giuliani as much as a legal strategy. Jonathan lemire, i want to read you the quote, two very young promising writers at the Associated Press have worked together on this piece. Oh, look, its you and your coauthor. Trump has seethed to confidantes that he views the manafort charges as a warning shot from mueller. He has told those close to him that as he watches the Courtroom Proceedings he fears that donald trump jr. Could at some point be the one on trial. Left out all the careful sourcing that you were careful to put in this. Youre just back from bedminster, new jersey. How is the president enjoying his vacation . We havent seen too much of him on the vacation. Exactly the way they planned it. Thats right. He did have a dinner with Business Leaders last night. We saw the first few minutes of it. But largely he has been laying low. The white house hasnt been reading out who hes been speaking with and golfing with. We know over the last ten days or so, we have seen reflected in his tweets, as well as these private conversations, how upset he has been watching the manafort trial day after day. Its the cable coverage, its in his face. Its mostly you, inescapable every day that he sees it there. And that he as hes told people around him, he feels that thats sort of muellers opening act. Even though this trial is not about russia, but he feels muellers hand is involved, Obviously Manafort was a prominent part of his campaign and its a sense of what could still be to come. Even though the president tells people around him he doesnt believe his son did anything wrong. But he suggests that equality, a, he inadvertently broke the law perhaps or, b, hes simply the victim a witch hunt. Stop me if youve heard that before from the president. And in this case, he feels that that could be next. And that is something that even though publicly he is suggesting im not worried about don jr. , privately he is. Don jr. Himself also very much taking this brash approach, moving forward. He has become a very popular surrogate among republicans for
the midterm elections crisscrossing the country. So he is not letting this slow him down. Big thanks to our big three on a wednesday night in august. Jonathan lemire, robert costa, barbara mcquade. Thank you. Coming up, a prom nept member of congress who went Big For Trump early arrested and charged by a Trump Appointee at the Justice Department for something he might have been photographed doing at the white house on the lawn. And later, the president says hes five for five. Others in his own party, however, are scoring the situation a bit differently with the midterms 90 days away. The 11th hour just Getting Started on wednesday night. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . 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. Information, the feds say he immediately called his son. The indictment says collins son cameron sold a large block of stock and tipped off others, including his fiancees father, who is also facing charges of Insider Trading. The feds allege they avoided in all more than 700,000 in losses by dumping the stock when they did. U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, a Trump Appointee, by the way, said someone who helps write the laws of this land act as if they didnt apply to him. Congressman collins cheated our markets and our justice system. These charges are a reminder that this is a nation of laws. And that everybody stands equal before the bar of justice. All three men, including the congressman, pleaded not guilty in manhattan federal court. Earlier tonight in buffalo, collins said he is looking forward to clear his name. The charges that have been levied against me are meritless, and i will mount a vigorous
defense in court to clear my name. I look forward to being fully vindicated and exonerated, ending any and all questions relating to my affiliation with innate. The congressman says he is not only staying in his seat, his name will be on the ballot as he is running for reelection in november. Meanwhile, House Speaker paul ryan has stripped collins of his committee post on energy and commerce pending an investigation into the accusations. With us tonight to talk about it, daniel goldman, former assistant u. S. Attorney for, wait for it, the Southern District of new york, who prosecuted an Insider Trading case just last year. And Shane Goldmacher is back with us. Chief metro Political Correspondent for the new york times. Welcome to you both. Shane, i dont want this to become an episode of billions, but we have upstate political players and power bosses and we have the aforementioned Southern District of new york. Talk about this seat. How safe was it for collins . What was his position in the new york delegation . And what would it take for those political bosses to say, you know what . This seat is too valuable. We need you to step aside. Well, his position in the new york delegation shifted dramatically the day he endorsed donald trump. He was the first member of congress to do so. Because after that he became a Senior Member when trump became president because suddenly he had entree to the white house. The president was calling him on the phone. He became an important member of the delegation. He wasnt before. He was a back bench member. And he represents the Trumpiest Seat in new york. Donald trump won almost 60 there, more than any other seat in the state. This is seen as a safe republican seat, except candidates running under indictment are almost never actually safe. Counselor, correct me if im wrong, other when there is an Earnings Call and a stock takes
a tumble, or skyrockets up, when there is an event that causes a stock to tumble or soar, doesnt the s. E. C. , Dont The Feds kind of rewind the tapes two, three days and look for any large blocks of stock, any Significant Movement of stock . And youve got guys like this member of congress. Dont they understand people are watching and listening . Well, it is interesting. Finra, which is the sort of Nonprofit Arm funded by congress, has algorithms that goes back and looks at all of these things. And thats where a lot of these investigations begin. But you know, it was a small small stock generally speaking. It was 50 cents when this occurred, or when this information was relayed to him. It was very difficult to trade in the united states. It was only over the counter. It was not on a Larger Exchange because its an australian stock. So i think it was it seems,
if you can put yourself in his mindset, it was almost instinctive, like i got this information, i got to tell my son. I cant sell my shares, which is laid out in the indictment as to why he cant, including the fact that his shares were in australia and there was a moratorium on trading them. So im going to just tell my son. And then his son took it and told everybody else. But this guy was on the board of this company. He has a fiduciary duty to maintain the confidentiality of what is clearly inside information. And for someone in elected office to completely abdicate that responsibility and pass along information that he unquestionably knew he should not be doing is a blatant violation of the law. By the way, 50 cents a share. Were talking about a lot of stock, if they were stemming losses potentially close to 3 4 of a Million Dollars . Yeah. The stock went down 92 after this was made public. A true penny stock after this. Shane, the problem with the seat and the area in new york state where its located is how cruel the economy was to that real estate, that part of new york state. The optics of a member of congress cozy with the Trump White House on the lawn, on the south lawn, on his phone. It looks very swampy. And if the right democrat comes along in that district and says this is the rich getting richer. Must be nice to be at a picnic at the white house, must be nice to avoid three quarters of a Million Dollars in stock losses as alleged. You could see red turn to blue, could you not . You could. One challenge is the democrats dont have the candidate they wanted in this race. Its a local elected official progressive activist. But the governor was actually trying to get his running mate, kathy hochul to leave the Lieutenant Governorship and run for this seat. He publicly basically lobbied for her to do so. She lost to Chris Collins a few years back. She said no. So they ended up with this progressive activist. He has almost no money, about 81,000 in the bank. Chris collins has 1. 3 million in Campaign Cash and millions in personal funds he can tap into. But he is already running up legal bills. He may not want to front the legal bills himself. He may want to use the Campaign Money to pay off things. He spent 250,000 already at a law firm thats defending him. But look, if youre facing jail time and you have millions of dollars i think you spend as much as you can to not go behind bars. Frankly thats one of the hopes the democrats have over the long run. But look, this seat went from off the board to on the board. Right . This may not be the most competitive seat in new york. It may not be the most competitive seat certainly in the country. But its something that certainly the republicans are going to have to look at you. You saw that video, right . This is on the white house lawn, on camera, on the phone. That is a devastating political ad. Daniel, roughly how many years is he looking at if convicted . Guessing in the four to fiveyear range. Okay. Gentlemen, thank you. We couldnt help but note goldman and goldmacher would make great letterhead if they were going to form a
firm of some point. Daniel goldman, Shane Goldmacher, thank you both very much. Coming up, prosecutors in the trial of Paul Manafort may be days away from resting their case. And tonight whats now an open question. Is the judge in this case making the case more difficult for the feds . When we come back. Begi