Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Hes absolutely right about that. Nobody can be sure of anything. None of us can be sure of what to believe as of now, but how strange is it that that was Rudy Giulianis answer to this question. The meeting with the russians, how can you be sure if the president didnt know 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. Absolutely nothing to do with evidence. Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump . Including the fact that we had a very nasty and contentious Business Relationship . I turned him town to head the fbi one day before appointment to Special Counsel and comey is his close friend . This morning Rudy Giuliani was asked about the president s accusation that Robert Mueller has a Conflict Of Interest. How can the president make this claim and not support it . He doesnt have to. Whats the conflict . I cant tell you. Im not sure i know exactly what the conflict is. Thats it. Thats the best giuliani could do with his clients own line of defense. Now, im sparing you a bunch of high speed incoherent words thatRudy 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 Kellyanne 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 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 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 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 giulianis performance is so 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. Dear greatgreat grandfather, you made moonshine in a backwoods still. Smuggled booze and dodged the law. Even when they brought you in, they could never hold you down. When i built my family tree and found you, i found my sense of adventure. I set off on a new life, a million miles away. Im heidi choiniere, and this is my ancestry story. Now with over 10 billion historical records, discover your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun transitions™ light under control™ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of My Favorite Things
a frivolous lawsuit. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in april. Paul manafort filed a hopeless appeal to that decision. And today Paul Manafort finally dropped the appeal and dropped that case entirely. Today in a filing in the criminal case that will be heard in federal court in virginia, 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 did 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
particular, which ill get to in a minute. But manafort surely knows quite a bit. Hes at the center of the efforts to change the platform to make it a more proukraine. He is in the russia meeting. Hes in the leadin to the russia meeting we find out today. Hes in the thick of it. Its just thats not part of the case. The case does, however, have a detail which is after he goes belly up and he is deposed, he needs money and he promises this is going to be part of muellers proof, a banker in chicago that hell get him a job in the campaign if hell make a if the banker will give him a phony loan. So there is a sense in which manaforts conduct at trial gets into the thick of the campaign. But surely he knows quite a bit about russia and the campaign for another day. And julia, when the trial zeros in on exactly human forts needs interacted with the campaign as harry says, we dont know what the special prosecutor has there. There could be some real surprises in that testimony. Thats right, lawrence. I mean, one thing we have been doing in the past few weeks to get ready for this is to look at pieces of evidence that have been approved by the judge to see what can be exhibited at trial. Right now it is jus