Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Presidency took a giant step toward impeachment. It happened in a courtroom in manhattan when these words were spoken. At the direction of, meaning at the direction of the president of the United States. And when a defendant is Pleading Guilty in court, it is very difficult for the defendant to Say Something more important than the word guilty. Thats usually the most important word a defendant speaks during a guilty plea session. But today in Federal Court in manhattan Michael Cohen said guilty, your honor eight times and hes also said at the direction of twice. And both times he meant at the direction of the president of the United States. And so today donald trump made history by becoming the first president of the United States to be accused under oath in Federal Court of ordering someone to commit a federal crime to win a president ial election. At the direction of. Have to be illegally purchased. Crimes would have to be committed to elect donald trump. Michael cohen is saying that donald trump ordered him to commit these crimes so that donald trump could win the presidency. Tonight on a rally stage in West Virginia donald trump said this. Where is the collusion . You know, theyre still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion . Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion. Heres some collusion for you. Donald trump colluded with Michael Cohen and david pecker in an interstate conspiracy to violate federal Campaign Finance law, and thats not me making that accusation. That is Donald Trumps personal
lawyer and confidant today in Federal Court under oath making that accusation about the president of the United States participating in two federal crimes. For the principal purpose of influencing the election. Bill clinton was impeached for less. Bill clinton was never charged with committing crimes in order to get elected. Bill clinton was never accused of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the American Voter in order to get elected. There are 16 current members of the United States senate who voted to convict bill clinton in his Impeachment Trial and remove him from office for less than what donald trump stands accused of tonight by Michael Cohen and one of those republican senators
was actually a member of the House Of Representatives at the time, and as many of you might recall, in Senate Impeachment trials the prosecutors are actually members of the house judiciary committee. And here is the standard for removal from the office of the presidency. That Lindsey Graham argued for in the clinton Impeachment Trial in the United States senate. So the point im trying to make is you dont even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic. If this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. You dont even have to be convicted of a crime. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. You will not hear Lindsey Graham say that again. Lindsey graham and all of the
republican senators who voted for bill clintons removal from office have proven in the last two years that they did not mean a word that they said when they vote informed remove bill clinton from office. Not a single word of it. They do not care about restoring honor and integrity to the office. But impeachment begins in the House Of Representatives. And if democrats win the house in november, then we are tonight already on the road to Impeachment Hearings in the House Of Representatives. Impeachment hearings that republicans cannot stop. The New York Times is reporting tonight that the white house realizes this and is worried about impeachment as never before. White house correspondent Maggie Haberman tweeted, trump folks are worried about impeachment more than before. The thinking goes like this. This is something tangible, not a theoretical, and it didnt come from mueller. Does not mean it will happen, but this has moved to a different stage in their minds. Today when Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, the prosecutor and the judge made it clear that Michael Cohen will have to pay restitution for the damage he has done with his crimes. But how can Michael Cohen pay restitution to the 65 Million People who voted for Hillary Clinton for president . Or to some, some of the 62 Million People who voted for
donald trump but would not have if they had heard Stormy Daniels story about donald trump telling her that she reminded him of his daughter before he had sex with Stormy Daniels. How do you pay restitution to the 330 Million People who now live in a country where the president was accused today in Federal Court of conspiring to commit two crimes for the principal purpose of influencing the election . There is no Campaign Finance violation in history that comes close to the enormity of the crimes that Michael Cohen confessed to today and accused the president of the United States of ordering him to commit. Leading off our discussion now, john heilemann, cohost and Executive Producer of showtimes the host. Jill winebanks, former assistant prosecutor. They are both msnbc contributors. We knew Michael Cohen had something to say but we did not know we were going to hear the words today right from Michael Cohens mouth at the direction of donald trump. We did not. And i think one of things that theres a thought say about today obviously and were focused on Michael Cohen rightly. Ill say it. It was a good day for the American People and a good day
not because its bad for donald trump but its bad for donald trump. But its good because wheels of justice were running on overdrive today in two different venues where we saw the system is still functioning. The stuff people worry about is are the wheels about to come off the wagon . Theyre not. And were seeing that happen. Its obviously also the worst day in the Trump Presidency since may 17th of last year when bob mueller was appointed. We all thought Michael Cohen was going to flip. Hes been sending clear signals about that. For months all the people close to him all the people reporting
on him, all my reporting, everything has suggested this was going to happen, Something Like this. But youre right. The precision, the clarity of it, the damningness of it, those things you couldnt quite anticipate. And the fullness that hes all in now. And as rachel suggested on the handoff, whats about to happen is clear. Theres some suggestion he may already be commenting with bob mueller. But if hes not already hes going to be. And the reason hes going to be
is theres that Sentencing Hearing Coming In December where bob mueller can walk in to the judge, can walk into the process and say you know, what Michael Cohen has helped us out a lot, hes not going to we dont want him to go to jail for five years, we want him to go to jail for fine months and that is incentive enough for Michael Cohen to give bob mueller absolutely everything he knows about absolutely everything that donald trump has done wrong. Jill, you tracked the Special Prosecutors investigation of a president , worked on that investigation. You know the kind of emotional Roller Coaster that it is, the peaks, the valleys. And so im so interested in the way youre tracking this one tonight. And where you mark this on the road map of where this investigation has been and what the marker what the marker means for where this investigation is now going after the president was accused under oath in Federal Court today of committing two Campaign Finance crimes in order to get elected. Well, its not quite the smoking gun where you have the clear proof of obstruction that
we had in the watergate case, but this is a dramatic day. Its a thrilling day for anybody who wants to see the truth come out. This is clear evidence that the president committed crimes. And that is grounds for impeachment. Theres no question of it. I know he will defend in saying well, this isnt rush. Well, i dont care that its not russia. Its not russiagate, but its still trumpgate. This is crimes by the president of the United States, and it affected the election. That is a terrible thing, is that we have that happen in our country. And your opening is quite correct about the millions of people who might not have voted for him had they known the truth. And we cant get restitution for that. There is no way. But we could get some relief from this presidency. And were joined now by phone by mimi rocah. Shes a former federal prosecutor who worked in the Southern District of new york, the office that is prosecuting Michael Cohen. And mimi, as to smoking guns, in the testimony in court today there came a point as is a standard point in these proceedings where the judge wanted to know from the prosecutor if the prosecutor really does have enough evidence to convict Michael Cohen on all of these counts. And so on the Campaign Violation counts in which the prosecutor also said these crimes were committed at the direction of the candidate, the prosecutor actually told the judge that this is the evidence that they have. Records obtained from an april 9th, 2018 series of Search Warrants on mr. Cohens premises including hard copy documents, seized electronic devices, and then here is maybe the smoking gun. She said, and Audio Recordings made by mr. Cohen. So mimi, there the federal prosecutors today in court
telling the judge that there are Audio Recordings made by mr. Cohen that prove mr. Cohens guilt of these crimes and prove his version of the way he committed these crimes, which is at the direction of donald trump. Right, lawrence. Thats common for the prosecutor to give a summary of evidence like that at the judges request in a plea in the Southern District of new york. And i think the point about the recordings, we heard one of those weeks ago a wi input, it was wo t recor was wit were talk reco t purpo election. Because Yo Qui Recordi o i men encr so lot of the e backed up. He was either going to take fall or sort of cooperate, if you will, sort of a half cooperation. And tell the truth, which he did under oath, which is so important. Thats why i think this feels so different to everyone. Its not just cohen through his lawyer on tv sort of giving their version. But when you go under oath in front of a judge like judge paulie, who i know rau, is an excellent judge and very, very strict and tough on defendants and everybody, and very high standards, this is not someone youre going to go in front of lightly and Say Something under oath. So i think its a very big deal, both what the prosecutor said
and what Michael Cohen said under oath. And Everyone Wants to hear more from Michael Cohen. Lets listen to richard burr. Hes the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee. The Intelligence Committee now wants to hear more from Michael Cohen. Lets listen to this. What we can say is that we recently reengaged mr. Cohen and his Team FollowingPress Reports that suggested he had advance knowledge of a june 16th meeting between Campaign Officials and russian and a russian lawyer at the trump tower. Mr. Cohen had testified before the committee that he was not aware of any meeting prior to this disclosure in the press last summer. We hope that todays developments in mr. Cohens Plea Agreement will not preclude him from an appearance before our committee as needed for ongoing investigation. John heilemann, not surprisingly, theyd like to hear from him again. Not surprisingly at all. And look, i mean, theres obviously going to be a lot of focus now, there already has been a lot on Michael Cohen. I do think its important, were seeing this reporting coming out, Maggie Haberman, you cited the tweet earlier where she says the white house is now much more focused on impeachment than it was before. And i think its important to understand part of why. They have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort since may of last year trying to discredit the special counsel,
trying to discredit the deep state, now trying to discredit john brennan. All these people who relate to the thing the president likes to talkb which is the collusion issue, the russia story. Again, we all think thats a legitimate story but theyve spent a lot of Political Energy on that. What they have not spent Political Energy on because its really almost impossible for the president to do this, is to try to discredit Michael Cohen. What are you going to say . These are not hes not bogeyman. Hes not a stranger. Hes not a washington insider. Hes not an establishmentarian. Hes not a member of the deep state. Hes the president s personal lawyer and fixer for more than a decade. And hes now in a position where having spent all that ammunition politically trying to discredit one investigation hes now faced with a much more credible witness whos implicated him in a crime and its a political matter thats a much more dangerous place to be than even the russia inquiry, which obviously has all its own dangers for the president. And joining our discussion now is michael avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels. And michael, i think historys going to show that you led us and the investigators to this point today, that Michael Cohen would not be Pleading Guilty possibly to anything today, if you had not taken Stormy Daniels case and showed her the way that she could find her
voice in this, the voice that Michael Cohen now confesses in Federal Court to illegally have tried to silence. Well, you know, i think, lawrence, that my client deserves a lot of gratitude from a lot of people in america for her courage and her fortitude that she has shown over the last five to six months, frankly. You know, today was a very interesting day in the history of the presidency of the United States. This was the first time that you had an individual stand up in a court of law and basically point the finger at the president credibly and claim that the president was a coconspirator in criminal conduct. I think were in the Second Quarter of a fourquarter game. I think theres a lot of Additional Information thats going to come down the pike. And the problem for the president hes got a lot of problems. But one of the problems is for donald trump is that so much of this now is out of his control because you have Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Theyre going to be looking to protect themselves and their families. They