Yesterday. It was chronicles by long time aide, timber wolfs detail concluded. God speed former president george h. W. Bush, youll be missed by all of us. That is our broadcast on this friday night. Thank you for being with us. Have a good weekend. From nbc headquarters here in new york. Bob mueller revealing Michael Cohens crime as well as new detail on his crimes with russia. Calling for substantial prison time. Lets get right two it. T two major Court Filings that are out tonight. Michael cohen has been helpful in his investigation. Prosecutors up in new york say he deserves years in jail. All of this is a week before a judge will sentence cohen for all the above. Lets look at the latest in the mueller filing. Bob mueller says he is not taking any position on how much time Michael Cohen should serve, but he knows that cohen first came into his office and lied to them. Not just about anything, but specifically about money. Now then mueller says in the new filing that we just got in our news room that cohen has taken steps to mitigate those lies and other crimes. That he gave crucial information. He started telling the truth mueller says and he told the truth about russian attempts to reach the Trump Campaign dating back to 2015, and also russia
related matters that are quote core to his investigation. Learned about all of these things because of his quote regular contact to unnamed people in the Trump Organization. Could be employees could be family members. Federal prosecutors in new york not impressed at all. I was reading the filing and it is a thrashing. They hammer him and they note that he wasnt ever actually a cooperating witness, that he didnt do everything he could have done. And committed four distinct federal crimes they say that he was motivated by personal greed, that he used his own power and influence for deception. And they note where the law
comes insuri comes in. And they say while he should get a little bit of credit for what he did do for cooperating, he shouldnt get much. They call for roughly four years. All of this as we are learning about Michael Cohen, bob mueller just filing a big, big document, you may have heard about. This is for Paul Manafort. Now that document i can tell you has been filed under seal this means as of this hour we dont know whats inside it. But what we do know it is a big day for bob mueller. I want to get to it with myra wiley, and Nancy Gertner who has served as a federal judge and bringing that perspective. She is a professor at harvard law school. Why your former colleagues are coming down on Michael Cohen, and why they also put in there President Trump directed one of Michael Cohens campaign crimes. I think you just said it, ari, what is relevant is one, you have a document that makes very clear that there have been significant contact between those in trumps spheres and russia. We actually already knew that. What we see now is the reverse side of it. Meaning we have a long history between George Papadopoulos, beginning with George Papadopoulos in march in 2016 who understood his job and in april and may communicated about
the meeting in russia. We found out trump moscow tower deal was happening at the same time and the russians were reaching out to the trump world. There was lots of contact with russia even before this document. And what were seeing is there is a lot more that we did not know about. We know there is going to be a continued investigation to it, that is clear both from the Michael Flynn filing. In terms of the Southern District, it is kind of quite clear. What they are saying quite frankly is look, this guy didnt Do The Right Thing. And by the way, he was a lawyer, his obligation to Do The Right Thing was heightened and he came in and he was not really, he didnt formulate a cooperation agreement, he didnt agree to talk to us about things that may
be crimes that he was not already pleading guilty to. And that should bring us right back around to the Trump Organization investigation that they are still conducting. Nancy, i am thrilled that we have the benefit of your expertise to want because this is now going right into judge lane. How does a judge take these two very different recommendations, mueller saying basically, he lied but he helped, you figure it out. And the sdny saying this is a bad dude. He is a criminal, he is a liar. He thinks he is above the law and he should get four years. What does the judge do . The judge has two alternatives. On the one hand, this is a train that is driven by the prosecution. It is the mueller that it is the big question. If it was just the sdny part,
then cohen would get time and how much. The fallacy of all that we are talking about, is even if cohen were sentenced tomorrow to four years or three years or whatever variation that is, he will continue to cooperate with the government. The government can file after the fact a reduction in the sentence. This didnt happen in the orderly fashion, the rule 35 will continue to hang over him. Do you think the judge will give him years . You know, i have been speculating all day. I think the judge will give him years in the face of the sdny recommendation, i dont think the judge will give him four years. He is before a very tough judge. He is not someone who has been
lenient on white collar offenses. And if you look at the four corners of the sdny stuff, because of the amount of money this guy will get four years. But that is speculating. The court can impose a sentence and stay the sentence, he continues to cooperate with mueller and there can be a subseque subsequent adjustment. Sure, but this is real stuff. Real crimes, real felonies. We are going to cover this in a couple of ways throughout our show tonight, but i want to under score, it is not normal to have every day events saying we proved this campaign crime. Your view of that piece of this tonight. Well that is significant. Almost nothing comparable since
watergate with this. And to have a lawyer coming forward follows that parallel. But the thing that is interesting here, you have a good guy Bad Guy Presentation by the Special Counsel versus the Southern Districts. And the Southern District gave tough language, but the result of five years frankly looking at his exposure and what he did which can be much more substantial than that. I agree they can come back and revisit t but they dont want to reward somebody who cabined off what he was prepared to do so. On the other hand we have the statement by the Special Counsel. How do we justify that as a Justice System . Well, you know, they group together. I mean, this is the lawyer sounds like you dont know. I thought you had an answer, but then you said birds of a feather, birds of
a feather. Not eagles, perhaps, but birds of a feather. That is my answer. We see, if you look at his history of lawyers, mr. Trump, we go from cohn to mr. Cohen. I would revise your remarks and then i will let you build on them. I think what you have is someone who is as clearly criminal and deceptive as roy cohn, but less effective. And that is what i want to ask both of my prosecutors about. Fascinating narrative here. I am reading from the documents, i hope folks will bear with me. It is interesting. Explaining that the first time they talked to Michael Cohen was on august 7th at cohens request. And they are saying he did
provide relevant information. They write quote, cohen provided false answers in what he later explained in an effort not to contradict his congressional testimony which we now know was perjury. What does that tell you about the way they gathered and squeezed Michael Cohen. And why are they revealing it now. They are revealing it so we know what they are dealing with. They have the advantage to press him to tell the truth by taking his Tape Recordings and letters and emails and to come firm what he had to say. They say we have by other means confirm what they are telling us. And he had help. And gave him credibility as a cooperative witness. I think that is substantial. The real question is if we have what is going to happen. And if we move from whitaker to barr. You are talking about news that any other night we would have mentioned but i literally havent yet, President Trump announcing a new pick for an Attorney General william barr. You might say mat whitaker is as low a bar that you can get in terms of credentials. It is possible that what interested donald trump most about this new Attorney General nominee is that he went along with the group of political
pardons. Maya i want you to way in on the same questions as john. We are getting a strong, very public signal that there is Corroborating Evidence. Thats the way i read it. We dont have to just rely on Michael Cohen. He walked in there, the mistake he made which is not one that a very, very accomplished lawyer would make, by the way. He walked in assuming he knew what the prosecutors knew and thats the thing you never want to do. He walked in and he was surprised. He wasnt expecting to be asked those questions about the trump tower moscow. He then, lied which was dumb. After that lie, and in the remaining six sessions that he
had, he came clean and that is the kind of complexity of the story we are told, a guy who is a career liar, cheat, perfectly willing to do it again, but like any good solid prosecutorial team, they had good information. They can prove it without him. Even if his credibility is somewhat impugned, they have additional evidence. Which if you put it like that and we just got all of this, what you are saying is it is a very elegant implicit rebuttal to the donald trump claim that well, Michael Cohen is saying anything to get out of trouble so he brought this seemingly bad stuff to mueller and now they are all chewing on it. What you are saying is this footnote says no, here is the timeline that we had this bad stuff and now he is one extra witness but not perhaps our
primary one. And corroborate with us. Cooperate with us, you will be in a better position, because if you dont, we will get you. Stay with me everyone, there is another filing regarding Paul Manafort. Heavily redacted but i want to get your view of what if anything that we gleaned from there. Reporter it is significantly redacted. We did learn that the Special Counsel is saying Paul Manafort lied. Ongoing ties to russian intelligence, and there is a reference to a meeting to an individual whose name is blacked out. And the Special Counsel alleges that he lied about that. And also lied about a wild
transfer to a firm linked to manafort. And lastly, the Special Counsel says Paul Manafort lied when he said he wasnt in contact with anyone in the trump administration. And because of all of that, the Special Counsel has canceled manaforts Plea Agreement and now facing up to 15 years in prison. Is it possible to say to obstruction or since cal lili c. Reporter im sorry, i am e the what part of the probe that
hits . Reporter he has always been a Mystery Figure in terms of collusion. It goes to the question of Paul Manaforts role. Because of the redactions we dont see the full picture. Copy. And i appreciate your precision on that. I want to go to some of more of what mueller has said basically through the cohen filing because he is getting into the trump tower deal. A lucrative business opportunity. It required the assistance of the russian government and company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from russian sources. Nancy, do you view this as a indication that finances may be at the heart of bob muellers probe of what a Collusion Conspiracy looks like, money and
not just where it started. Thats why they followed manafort in the litigation over whether or not the Special Counsel prosecutor had a right to go after manafort, what they said was they were following the money, following the money from the ukraine sources to manafort. Getting back to the sentencing issue, i am reminded that john dean when he testified before congress, i believe he did some time for his role in nixons obstruction of justice. So the notion that cohen would get some time would make some sense. That was apropos of your other question. With respect to the russian issue, we have to step back. There is almost like we thought this case was about flynn, Michael Flynn lying about his contacts to the russians. If you recall, sally yates saying that was an issue. Might be willing to extort from donald trump, a way of influencing them because people were lying about russian context. So even a failed Trump Tower Project opens the door to the russians basically exercising influence on all of the trump players because they were lying about it. And the more significant, the contexts are, the more significant and substantial the financial dealings were, the more the russians had on him and therefore, that raises a host of other questions about russian sanctions et cetera. So its a weve now opened the door much broader of russian influences. John, you almost get the
feeling that they are good at this, and people with more ethics or more Government Experience may have better resistance and this crew clearly didnt. I think thats true. And nothing can overcome the greed motive, until the recent disclosures, i didnt appreciate how much trump hoped to profit lifting the sanctions. And because he was being blocked by the same sanctions that were compromising the autocrats in ruc russia, he had that. Also the question of the sanctions lifted benefitted putin and himself. It is interesting to read the manafort document. Basically where they said he lied. That tells us what they had was
true and could be proven. On a couple of occasions he said something and when confronted with the fact he changed it. And he at the same time sending information back to the trump team as to what he is being questioned about in this investigation. So you have him lying and you have obstruction and cooperation with the west wings team representing trump. Thats significant. Thats such a significant point you raise because there is a lot of this that is boiled down to Black And White while people wrongfully think, do you go after a sitting president or not and where does that go. As you allude to, john, at a minimum, we now have as of tonight, bob mueller putting boo the record and into court two key people came in and lied to
him. The question any investigators question becomes what does that fit into at the white house, who knew about that, did other lawyers know about that. Going to come into play if you have employees of the white house or lawyers actively committing new criminal conspiracies. I want to thank nancy for joining us. I want to thank maya, john, and ken, and i might come back to each of you. Stay close to your cameras i want to bring in neal, a striking detail here. They say, Michael Cohen not only made illegal payments, we heard about that, but they say in court, he made them quote in coordination and at the direction of individual one. That is donald trump. I am thrilled as part of our
special coverage, neal joins us. And he argues as a legal matter, prosecutors have concluded that donald trump is on the hook for that felony. Of course you served in many high profile positions. I know when you speak about what constitutes a felony, you dont do so lightly. Give us your analysis of that part of tonights news. To me, the big news is not about Michael Cohen, it is about one person, donald trump. And this filing that was made today in the Michael Cohen case really does for the first time, you have federal prosecutors essentially saying that donald trump committed a felony. And here is the way that it works. First of all, this is not a document by mueller, this is filed by trumps own Justice Department by the Southern District prosecutor in new york and three pieces to the claim. The first piece is on page 11 of
the filing which said that cohen made these Campaign Finance payments at the direction of trump. And what we are talking about here are payments made to two women for their silence. And what happened was that cohen paid those folks and did so at a time when you are only supposed to give 2,700 to a campaign. And congress has said we dont want rich people buying elections. So on page 11, the Southern District prosecutors say that was done at the direction of trump. And the next page, page 12, Quote The Agreement Principal purpose to suppress this womens story. Prevent it from influencing the election. They are taking away the trump defense. I was doing it to protect my
private life. No, this was done for the purpose of influencing the election and last