Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Beforehand. Rudy giulianis answer to that was, nobody can be sure of anything. With Defense Lawyers like that, who needs prosecutors . So why Hasnt Donald Trump replaced his weak, Tv Defense Lawyer who is doing a terrible job of defending donald trump . Well, there are a few real possibilities and rational possibilities for that. One is that donald trump doesnt know what good lawyering looks like and sounds like. After all Michael Cohen was Donald Trumps lawyer for years. The same Michael Cohen who Rudy Giuliani now describes this way. The way is unethical. Is a scum bag. He is a horrible person. Will Donald Trumps next lawyer be describing Rudy Giuliani that way some day . Another reason he has not been fired is that it is actually impossible to do a better job of defending donald trump. That might just be it. It is impossible to do any better than giuliani has done. He goes into Tv Interviews with when don jr. Made as you know that day before the meeting and i think after calls to a blocked number. Was that the president . I dont know. I dont know. That is a very important question about the president s knowledge about the Trump Campaigns attempt to conspire with russian government officials. And Rudy Giulianis answer is i dont know. Robert mueller probably knows. And Rudy Giuliani knows that Robert Mueller probably knows whose blocked phone number donald trump jr. Was probably calling and thats why Rudy Giuliani said i dont know instead of a good, strong clear denial that donald trump jr. Was calling his father to tell him about the russian meeting before and after the russian meeting. Giuliani is right for all of us out here wondering what happened in trump tower and in the Trump Campaign and in the trump white
house. Nobody can be sure of everything. But Rudy Giuliani is certainly acting as if he believes that Robert Mueller is sure of something, something that is very bad for the president of the United States. Joining our discussion now, former assistant watergate prosecutor, former federal prosecutor and Deputy Assistant attorney general under president clinton and the president of the center for american progress. And jill, this issue of giulianis public performance, the newly utterly incoherent Rudy Giuliani seems to me to make a certain sense if giuliani actually does have Nothing Better to say. If the evidence that he is aware of in this case gives him nothing else to say, it makes a certain sense that he talks as fast as he can, as if he went to
that Kelly Anne Conway school. I think the better answer for him ought to be him staying silent. If this is the best he can do, he is hurting his client. What he is saying really makes no sense. I read the transcript of that full interview, and its almost impossible to understand what point he was even trying to make. And i think as a prosecutor or as a defense lawyer, you quickly learn that sometimes the facts are just completely against you and youre better off saying nothing. And in this case, thats what it is. But he also hasnt got the law on his side. When hes yelling that there is no crime, that also isnt true and this argument about whether the word is collusion or conspiracy or aiding or abetting is simply a question of
terminology. Somehow the American Public picked up the word collusion. There is no crime of collusion in the statutes, but there is a crime of conspireing together, of agreeing together, of working together, of Aiding And Abetting. If you take criminal conduct, the hacking, and you use that material, you are part of that. And it doesnt matter if you are the gunman in a murder, when you go in to rob a bank and someone gets killed, if someone else pulled the trigger, you are still guilty of murder because you were part of the conspiracy. I would say that we have plenty of evidence of conspiracy here. What jill says about staying silent is absolutely true for most of possible criminal suspects in their attorneyclient relationship. But a politician, as you know, is in a different situation. And politicians feel compelled to defend themselves publically at every stage of these kinds of processes and we have seen democrats in the past also find fault with prosecutors who were
investigating them. We havent seen anything quite as noisy as this. But if giuliani has Nothing Better to say and if there is a political calculation by donald trump and Rudy Giuliani that someone has to be out there defending the president on tv, there is probably a better way for giuliani to do this. Just talk fast, dont make any sense, dont worry. Donald trumps voters voted for someone who doesnt make any sense. I think thats whats happening here is really that they dont have a case they dont have a legal case, right . This whole debate about collusion, i mean, first, we should just point out donald trump said there was no collusion for a long time. Now giuliani is saying, oh, there was collusion but its just not illegal. Theyre really playing semantics
games to give an argument to their base at this moment. What i think is really happening is that they dont have an argument for the prosecutor. They probably know the prosecutor has a pretty strong case of Aiding And Abetting a crime, conspiracy of a crime. Theyre not really disputing that. Giuliani is playing a semantic game about collusion itself, which no one has said the word collusion means a crime. Obviously Criminal Conspiracy is a crime. But hes playing these word games. I think what he really is trying to do and what donald trump has been doing this entire year is he believes he will skate free of this if republicans are unable to act on any report of indictment offenses. And hes disciplining his troops and disciplining the Republican Party to attack mueller, to oppose to say everything is political, to make up this new argument that there is conflicts of interest, but they wont tell
what you say the conflicts of interest are. So republicans will not act on a report. And that is why these elections coming up in 99 days are so vitally important, because donald trump is placing a bet that the Republican Party he could he could be found colluding or Criminal Conspiracy, abetting or even shooting somebody on fifth avenue and the Republican Party will do nothing about it. That is why we need checks and balances and democrats to take a house of congress for some accountability for this president. Lets take a look at some of the risks involved in the giuliani tv strategy of talking so fast. Today he revealed and it seemed to be by mistake that he believes rick gates, who has been indicted by the special prosecutor and is cooperating with the special prosecutor, was actually in a meeting Strate Strategizing how to handle the
russian meeting. Lets listen to this. He stated there was a meeting two days before the meeting took place with donald jr. , jared, manafort and two others. Gates and one more person. Cohen also now says, because he says too much, that two days before he was in a meeting with roughly the same group of people, but not the president. Definitely not the president. In which they were talking about the strategy of the meeting with the russians. The people in that meeting deny it, the people we have been able to interview. The people we have not been able to interview have never said that about that meeting. Your reaction to that, harry . You know, it is a complete slip of the tongue by him. The only sort of use youre right. Its all been incoherent. Two big slip ups in the first. Thats the first revealing not
just gates is there but the very existence of that other meeting. And then the whole trying to move the goal post on collusion, years of no collusion, no collusion and, oh, wait, whats collusion . It was incoherent and frenetic and you were looking for someone to cart him away and give him a sedati sedative. I dont agree that its the best he can do. Even if they dont have much in substance, you can try to contrast with the manic and krkra crass speaking of crass, how about the moment of, mueller, stand up and be a man . He could at least speak with some dignity, some calm, make certain legal points. Even if youre chastising mueller, there is a way to do it that people might actually
listen. This frenetic unhinged performance makes you think that nobody has any idea what theyre doing over there and the real lawyer in charge must be tearing his hair out listening to both trump and giuliani completely losing it on national tv. By the way, at least trumps tweets are all going to be admissible. Everything he says would come into court. Just misstep after misstep. And it seems that Rudy Giulianis calculation is that what worked for donald trump in the campaign to eek out a win in the Electoral College would work here. I have to say for everyone on tv what part of the donald Trump Presidency has been dignified so far . Who associated with donald trump thinking the first job is to be
dignified in their response on tv or anywhere else . But i think truly that Rudy Giuliani is just doing a kind of Carnival Barker experience here, experiment and trying to just throw sand in the air, muddy the waters, make people believe there is some response. Donald trump has been incredibly successful in getting a minority of the country to agree with him on some pretty wild claims. I think that is their strategy Going Forward, to just get their base to believe this whole thing is tainted. The one thing i would say, though, is that this strategy will be much less successful because people saw themselves, the broad public saw themselves bowing down to putin. And this whole issue of russia was made really clear to the American People and public polls
have shown stronger support even amongst republicans for the Mueller Probe and for finding out what happens. And thats why i think the white house is almost in this panic and guys piulianis performanco panicked, particularly on the eve of the manafort trial. As to the question of Conflict Of Interest for mueller, the Rod Rosenstein said in testifying to congress that there is a process in the Justice Department for bringing conflicts of interest to them. Theyre open to it. You want to bring them a Conflict Of Interest, they will examine it. He said there are no conflicts of interests with Robert Mueller. And the notion that the president offered him or considered him for fbi director is unclear. We have never heard muellers side of that conversation. It could be that mueller went in there to explain to the president that he could not do it and possibly make some suggestions to him what who he
should choose. We dont know what was in that conversation. Exactly. All of this is nonsense because there was a lot of discussion about potential Conflict Of Interest having to do with muellers golf Club Membership at a trump club. And some dispute about the fees. And that was resolved a long time ago. It was reviewed by the department of justice. There is no Conflict Of Interest. The president is simply repeating over and over again because it seems to have some effectiveness. He just keeps saying in the same way he says in collusion. And then hopes that his base will believe that, even though it isnt. He argues as he has done, that the facts are not there, that the law isnt there. And, you know, the truth is if the law is against you, argue the facts. If both are against you, you better plead guilty. And i think were getting to the point where we can see guilty very clearly. And i think he is now worried
because i think he finally has seen all of the evidence that came from cohens office. And i think if there is any leaks coming, it is coming from them to get out ahead of this. They want to protect and sort of get the first word. It is a very basic tenant of Trial Advocacy that if there is something bad, get it out yourself on direct examination. Dont wait until cross. Thank you for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it. When we come back, former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort surrendered to Robert Mueller on one side of his legal issues today. Thats next. And donald trump is threatening a government shut down over the trump wall, a government shut down that republicans fear. Let your perfect drive come together at the Lincoln Summer Invitation sales event. Get 0 apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus 1,000 bonus cash. You know how painful heartburn can be. For fastacting, longlasting relief, try doctor recommended gaviscon. It quickly neutralizes stomach acid and helps keep acid down for hours. Relieve heartburn with fast acting, longlasting gaviscon. And helps keep acid down for hours. burke so we know how to cover almost anything. En almost everything even vengeful vermin. Not so cute when theyre angry. And we covered it. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum
prosecutors say they can prove the former Trump Campaign chairman is guilty of tax and bank fraud. They say they can move that he earned more than 60 million working as a consultant on behalf of a russia backed Ukrainian Political Party and hid the money in offshore bank accounts. The New York Times reports that prosecutors claim that beginning in 2006 he d 2006 He Millions Of In Income that he received from the Ukrainian Government and the ukrainian oligarchs to promote a prorussian leader when he fled to russia after a Popular Uprising in 2014. The funds dried up. They charged that mr. Manafort resorted to bank fraud to maintain his lifestyle. Rudy giuliani said this poses absolutely no threat to the
information. 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 be possible that he did. He was with him for four months. Joining us now is the National Security and justice reporter for nbc news and harry is back with us. What could Paul Manafort possibly know in just four months with donald trump . Quite a lot, lawrence. I mean, he was the campaign adviser. It is not like he was a lowlevel position. Even the Campaign Volunteer new quite a bit about the ofgs of the campaign and how they worked in their social media strategy. So in this case, what Paul Manafort knows is interesting only if they can actually squeeze enough out of him. Giuliani is right insofar as this exact case that we will start hearing starting tomorrow does not have a lot to do with russia or the Trump Campaign. It has to do with Paul Manaforts work were a
prorussian interest and his effort to cover up with that money was coming from later on. This will only tell us about what the president did or what Paul Manafort knows about the president if they can present enough information that Paul Manafort at this point way down the road would decide he wants to start cooperating in order to lessen his sentence. Listen to what donald trump during the campaign about Paul Manafort. Are there any ties between mr. Trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime . No, there is not. It is absurd. You know, there is no basis to it. Paul manafort has done a fantastic job. And all of pauls people. Paul brought on the staff. And we really do. We have a great staff of talented people. Donald trump also said that Paul Manafort, to the best of
his knowledge, had nothing to do with russia. And he said i have nothing to do with russia. And then donald trump said about Paul Manafort, i think he represented ukraine or people having to do with ukraine or people that whoever. And harry, it turns out that Paul Manafort, who donald tr