Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Daniels and other women during the campaign. It was always so clear to him that he did something wrong that he lied about it when he was asked about it on Air Force One, which became the next question in the briefing. So many people now look back at that tape of him on Air Force One saying he knew nothing about these payments, when in fact we now know he knew everything about those payment, so has he lied. Thats a ridiculous accusation. The president has done nothing wrong and there are no charges against him. So now it is a ridiculous accusation if you ask the question has the president lied after the whole world has watched the president lie on Air Force One. Mr. President , did you know about the 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels . Then why did makele cohen make that. You have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney and youll have to ask michael. Do you know where he got the money to make that payment . No, i dont know. Did he lie to the American People when he talked about this on Air Force One. No. The president addressed this a number of times. Well, its all about the minds of trump voters now. Can they watch the president lie on Air Force One and hear the White House Press secretary say, no, he didnt lie and be okay with that . There are going to be fewer and fewer White House Press briefings now because every one from now on will include questions that would be asked in an Impeachment Hearing in the Judiciary Committee in the house of representatives where the impeachment process beginning. In Federal Court yesterday the prosecutor described for the judge the evidence that proves Michael Cohens guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the crimes that he says he committed with donald trump. Prosecutors said that that evidence includes, quote,
records obtained from an april 9th, 2018 search, including hard copy documents seized Electronic Devices and Audio Recordings made by mr. Cohen. Audio recordings made by mr. Cohen. We know donald trump is on at least one of those Audio Recordings already released by Michael Cohens tv lawyer. And i have spoken to alan about how to set the whole thing up with funding. Yes. And its all the stuff, all the stuff. Because you never know. Correct. So im all over that. And i spoke to alan about it. When it comes time for the financing, which will be what financing . Well have to pay. Pay with cash . No, no, no. I got it. Check . Donald trump is not the only coconspirator identified yesterday by the prosecutors. In their charges document the Prosecution Team identified david pecker, the chairman and ceo of the company that controls the National Inquirer as one of the companies that bought the silence. So will david pecker be charged with a crime or will he cooperate with prosecutors to avoid being charged with a crime . Is david pecker already cooperating with federal prosecutors and telling them everything he knows about the president of the United States. But david pecker is not the only person under pressure tonight along with Michael Cohen from federal prosecutors, for both of the Illegal Campaign contributions that Michael Cohen helped arranged, he had more help committing that crime, help that was identified in the prosecutors charging document this way, quote, he coordinated
with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls about the fact, nature and timing of the payments. This is the single most overlooked piece of the evidence in the case against Michael Cohen as we know it now. At least one person other than donald trump in the Trump Campaign was involved in the meetings and phone calls and knew about the payments, including the timing of the payments. Now, who would that be . Donald trumps favorite press operative, hope hicks . The prosecutors know who that person or people are who worked in the campaign and knew all about the illegal payments. Those people are under pressure tonight unlike any they have been under before. Are some of those people on Michael Cohens recordings . The prosecutor did not say recording. She said recordings, plural. How many . What is the likelihood that Michael Cohen made a recording of every person in the campaign who was involved in this crime. Thats the question you are asking yourself tonight if you worked in the Trump Campaign. There is so much more evidence that is going to come out about the crimes that donald trump is now accused of having committed with Michael Cohen and other members of the Trump Campaign. We have seen not even the tip of the iceberg of the evidence that Michael Cohen has, and that is why the fbi took the unprecedented step of raiding Michael Cohens home and office and hotel room. They dont do that with attorneys every day, very, very rare. They did it because they had reason to believe just how rich that Evidence Trove would be. We know david pecker is in
trouble tonight, and we have ever reason to believe that david pecker, like Michael Cohen, will do nothing to protect donald trump when he has to choose between telling the fbi the truth or protecting donald trump. Thats an easy choice. And it is an easy choice for hope hicks or Kellyanne Conway or whoever the members of the Trump Campaign are who helped Michael Cohen commit those crimes. They are not going to take any chances now trying to protect donald trump now that the man who once boasted he would take a bullet for donald trump has delivered the smoking gun in the investigation of donald trump. How many other smoking guns are there . And who can give them to the Special Prosecutor . That discussion is next. And we have more breaking
its absolute confidence in 30,000 precision parts, or it isnt. Its inspected by mercedesbenz factorytrained technicians, or it isnt. Its backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isnt. For those who never settle, its either mercedesbenz certified preowned, or it isnt. The mercedesbenz certified preowned sales event, now through august 31st. Only at your authorized mercedesbenz dealer. Heartburn and gas . Now fight both fast new Tums Chewy Bites with gas relief all in one relief of heartburn and gas tum tum tum tums new Tums Chewy Bites with gas relief
who would have guessed . An Energy Company helping cars emit less. Making cars lighter, its a good place to start, advanced oils for those hardworking parts. Fuels that go further so drivers pump less. Improving efficiency is what we do best. Energy lives here. Encounters with President Trump, including mr. Trumps knowledge of the deals. Joining our discussion now, barbara, a former federal prosecutor, professor of law at the university of michigan. And a former senior aid to president obama and a former Chief Counsel to the senate Judiciary Committee. I saw David Johnston there, but someone left him out of my Tell Prompter there. Running the organization dcreport. Org, which studying the trump organization. Barbara, first to you, this information just reported by the Wall Street Journal that david pecker, who was clearly identified in yesterdays proceeding of Michael Cohens guilty plea is now, its confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, he is already cooperating with the prosecutor
and had already cooperated with the prosecutor before they even made that presentation yesterday, which seems to make sense when you read every part of that presentation. Yeah. This is very significant news, i think, because i think one of the skepticisms of what Michael Cohen had to say is just, you know, hes talking out of his own selfinterest. Now to have david pecker, someone speaking against his own selfinterest to have provided that information is strongly kor corroborative. Chances are, they are documentation that supports that as well. Very significant piece of news there. And ron, president today telling fox news something kind of vague about his knowledge of the payments when he was asked about did you know about the payments. He said later, later. We have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Here is david pecker, according to the Wall Street Journal, saying that President Trump was part of arranging the payments and that President Trump had knowledge of the deals and knowledge of the deals being arranged. Thats right, lawrence. I think your introduction made such an important point, which is we know so much more about this today than we did yesterday. But to paraphrase an old pop song, not half as much as were going to know tomorrow. Robert mueller knows a lot of things we dont know yet. Thousands, Tens Of Thousands of pages from Michael Cohens office, months of investigation starting to come to light now, the scope of it is really quite stunning. But there is still a lot here we dont know. All we do know is it is going to point in a very bad direction for the president. He clearly lied to the American People. He clearly lied to anyone who he
talked to about it. And, you know, we now have two witnesses corroborating the fact he directed people to commit a crime. Thats a very serious piece of business with a lot of unknown stuff still out there. David johnston, you have been following donald trump. I think the easiest prediction you could have made for us tonight is that of course david pecker is going to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The Wall Street Journal has beat us to even making it as a prediction. They have got it as already underway. Well, and the other people are going to step forward now. Donald has always been able to beat back law enforcement, beat back grand jurying, compromise people, get people to advance his interest. And now all these other people understanding that donald trump is only loyal to donald are going to start abandoning him. And this is a dangerous time for our country because donalds
erratic behavior will likely become much, money more erratic. He will have a lot of internal conflict over this because, remember, in his delusional mind he is greater than all of us. Were idiots. Were stupid. We dont know, and he is the superior person. In the material revealed by the prosecutor yesterday, we saw a description of members of the Trump Campaign, unnamed members of the Trump Campaign, as full participants in this criminal conspiracy for these Illegal Campaign contributions to be made. And i think we have every reason to believe tonight that they are at least under as close scrutiny as david pecker is from the prosecutors and whoever they are, they are likely already cooperating with the prosecutors. Yeah. Whoever they are, you know bob mueller knows who they are and you know they know bob mueller
knows who they are. But if i could make a quick point about david pecker, an interesting part about the information, the statement of facts that he pleaded to is that in 2015, a year before this all goes down, there is an agreement with pecker and ami to handle the problems and the hush agreements that would be necessary. Arguably, that would be the beginning of the criminal conspiracy here. So that puts pecker really in the hot seat. Thats such an important point that harry made. I noticed that when i was reading it i didnt highlight it the way harry just did. Im so glad he did because this introduces an element of premedation and rather distant premedation from the events that actually erupt the next
year with the two women that created the dynamics that forced or encouraged, i should say, donald trump and Michael Cohen and others in the campaign to commit this crime. And so it wasnt something that was suddenly upon him and these inexperienced people just kind of frantically tried to put something together to protect the candidate. This was something planned. This was a premeditated, planned million plan. Yeah. It has all the ear marks of a conspiracy. And then they pull the trigger as the election approaches, very close to the election. Anybody who was involved in the agreement to violate the Campaign Finance laws, even if they did nothing more than agree, could be on the hook here. We know that there were many overt acts in these payments, in
the Financial Transactions that went along with them. Anybody that was part of that agreement could be guilty of conspiracy. That likely includes all of these people identified by code name only in the current charging documents, but whose identities will become known over the coming months. It may be that some are already cooperating and it may be that President Trump is one of those coconspirators. And david the president now saying that i talked about this. I talked about the payments and in his answer to fox news today, he says something about the fact that i tweeted about the payments. That is something that happened only after Rudy Giuliani had that moment on tv where he blurted out Donald Trumps involvement in the payments not long after donald trump had denied any knowledge of the payments. Well, donald has told so many lies here about so many things
that i dont think he could keep them straight. I cant keep them straight without a written list. And so and there are problems going beyond this. I think it is very significant that Michael Cohen was served with a subpoena about the Trump Foundation matters which also could involve criminality by donald trump and his family and he immediately responded to that subpoena to the State Department of taxation and said, gee, i want to tell you everything i can. Nine weeks ago, we said they need to do a criminal investigation of the Trump Foundation. And, ron, the congress now wants to hear more possibly from Michael Cohen. Michael cohen is willing to testify to congress. Not only that, there is a report today that Michael Cohen himself responded to a contact from the new York State Attorney general that was interested in hearing
what he might know about the Trump Foundation and things that the new York State Attorney general is investigating. So Michael Cohen as we see him now appears to be it is impossible for him to be more eager to get out there and testify about donald trump. Thats right, lawrence. And it is important to remember that, though it sounds kind of technical, the significance of this new York State Attorney general investigation you just mentioned and that david just mentioned is this, it is an investigation in which Donald Trumps pardon power has no power. He cannot pardon state crimes. So if donald trump goes over the top here and starts pardoning everyone, the new York State Attorney generals investigation is going to continue. It is an investigation that can send people to jail. And it is an investigation that donald trump can obstruct. Thats why it is so important. Thank you for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it. When we come back, you did not miss the republican outrage
today after the president was accused of federal crimes in Federal Court yesterday. Well cover that next. What happens to that outrage . And later the president of the United States praised his convicted former campaign chairman, and he has refused to rule out a pardon for Paul Manafort. Fact is, every Insurance Company hopes you drive safely. But