Yeah. Now, thats a company that is deducting from its taxes legal fees, and they are fraudulently labeled legal fees. You cannot deduct payments to the girlfriends. Those cannot be deducted. And its tough in a company like the Trump Organization. But you cant. Thats the funnest day of tax law school. When you find out what you can do with the payments to the girl friends and what you cant do. They are in trouble here because it wasnt legal fees. It was payments to the girlfriends. And if they were deducted if they werent deducting it, if they werent taking it off their taxes, that implies they knew it wasnt legal fees. Thats a problem. But if they were deducting it as legal fees, if they were putting it on their taxes, as you say, thats tax fraud. This is not a good way to run a business either way. You know what would help here . Donald trumps tax returns and his company tax returns. That would really help. You know, the manhattan d. A. Going after the Trump Organization as an entity potentially raises questions about the availability of those tax returns. But also the other piece that is imbedded in that story that doesnt make the headline, what i think is maybe potentially a bigger deal is that the new York Attorney general is also reportedly seeking a criminal referral for Michael Cohen with regard to his taxes at the state level, his state taxes. Thats how Barbara Underwood was able to flip the taxi king, which gave us, i think, basically most of the criminal charges against Michael Cohen already this week. If she is going to put the same kind of squeeze on cohen at the state level, nothing what he pled to at federal court will help and that will be a whole new level of hell for him. And as you have been pointing out this week, donald trump cant pardon his way out of new york state charges with any of these people, including himself. Exactly, exactly. Thank you, rachel. Thanks, lawrence. Here is something you have never heard a president say before if i ever got impeached. The word impeach has not crossed the minds of most president s. There is no reason to even mention the word during most presidencies, and there has been much media debate this year about whether it is too soon to discuss impeachment in the Trump Presidency. That debate ended today when the president of the United States discussed his own impeachment when he was asked about it on fox news. Hard to believe. If the democrats take back power, do you believe they will try to impeach you . Well, you know, i guess it says Something Like high crimes. I dont know how you can beat somebody who has done a great job. Ill tell you what, if i ever got impeached, i think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor because without this thinking you would see you would see numbers that you wouldnt believe in reverse. Without this thinking, we never would have heard the president of the United States say if i ever got impeached. And right there, right there, stop right there because i think right there are two definite song titles. In the musical about the Trump Presidency that will be written some time the road, without this thinking will be one song title. We know that. And of course the melodic, if i ever got impeached has to be a song title in the trump musical. Fox news and the president have decisively ended the debate on whether its too soon to be discussing impeachment. On tuesday night on this program, i realized that we had shifted from investigation coverage to impeachment coverage after federal prosecutors and Michael Cohen made history by declaring under oath in federal court in manhattan that the president of the United States had committed two federal crimes for the principal purpose of influencing the election. But as we discussed here last night, donald trump was not the only person in addition to Michael Cohen who was accused of committing federal times in that courtroom on tuesday. Prosecutors said that still unnamed members of the Trump Campaign participated actively in those crimes and new everything about those crimes and that david pecker, the chairman and ceo of the company that runs the National Enquirer also were very important participantparticipant last night at the beginning of this program we wondered whether david pecker might already be cooperating with federal prosecutors, and about ten minutes later we delivered the breaking news that david pecker was indeed reportedly cooperating with federal prosecutors. Thats what we knew last night. Today we discovered that david pecker has already been granted immunity, along with dillon howard. As the day wore on, we learned more about what david pecker knows and what he might possess. The Associated Press is confirming they kept a safe on hush money payments and other damaging stories leading up to the 2016 president ial election. Dillon howard removed them from the safe in the weeks before trumps inauguration, according to one person directly familiar with the events. It was unclear whether the documents were destroyed or simply moved to a location known to fewer people. Here is who knows what was in that safe pecker, cohen, howard and trump. With todays reporting, the president might have more trouble sleeping tonight than he did last night. The president has to somehow fall asleep knowing that david pecker is telling federal prosecutors everything he knows about donald trump. And he has been collecting the dirt on donald trump for years and years and years and stashing it in the National Enquirers safe. That dirt might include recordings. Prosecutors said the evidence they have obtained to prove that Michael Cohen and donald trump and david pecker conspired includes hard copy documents, audio recordings made by Michael Cohen and the New York Times is reporting the prosecutors might have more recordings from the National Enquirer. The companys chief content officer, who said to be cooperating was known to have a recording device in his office, according to people familiar with his operations. And so the National Enquirer after many years of protecting donald trump is helping a federal criminal investigation of donald trump. In other words, david pecker and the National Enquirer have flipped. This whole thing about flipping, they call it, i know all about flipping for that 30, 40 years i have been watching flippers. Everything is woerndful and then they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go. It almost ought to be outlawed. I have had many friends involved in this stuff. It is called flipping and it ought to be illegal. He knows david pecker has flipped and he knows what david pecker knows about him. And last night at 1 10 a. M. , the sleepless president tweeted this primal scream. No collusionrigged witch hunt there is the president of the United States, three hours after we first reported on this program that david pecker had flipped and the president is rage tweeting no collusionrigged witch hunt. When the special prosecutor was closing in on Richard Nixon, he wandered the halls of the white house at all hours of the night. But he didnt have twitter. So we didnt know the next day what he had been thinking at 1 10 a. M. Tonight is going to be worse. Because tonight donald trump knows not only that david pecker is cooperating but that hes been granted immunity and now there is more new york prosecution investigation going on of the president that might lead to new york city and new york state prosecutions. And the president knows that his power of persuasion over even his own voters doesnt work when they take an oath as jurors. The president discovered last night watching fox news that paula duncan, who is a proud trump voter, is also a juror who voted to convict Paul Manafort. He revealed that all of the rest of the jurors wanted to convict Paul Manafort on all 18 counts except for one holdout juror. And thats the reason Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts and there was a hung jury on the other ten. And President Trump should by now know that Paul Manaforts likelihood of pleading guilty next month skyrocketed after that fox news interview with that juror in manaforts virginia case because it is possible that a washington, d. C. Jury wont have even a single trump voter on it. Donald trump got 4 of the vote in washington, d. C. If Paul Manafort goes to trial in washington, d. C. , hes not going to have a jury more sympathetic to him and donald trump than he had in virginia this week. And Paul Manafort has now discovered that even a hard core supporter of donald trump was overwhelmed with the evidence of Paul Manaforts guilt. She had no problem voting guilty on every count. In his fox news interview, donald trump praised Paul Manafort for not flipping and said he has, quote, great respect. Great respect for Paul Manafort. And Rudy Giuliani delivered the hope of a pardon today to convicted felon Paul Manafort in an interview with the washington post. At 5 00 p. M. Today, President Trump asked his lawyers several weeks ago for their advice on the possibility of pardoning Paul Manafort and other aids. The subject came as trumps former Campaign Chairman faced multiple charges of bank charges. Rudy giuliani said in an interview trumps lawyers counseled trump against pardoning anyone. According to giuliani saying trump should at least wait until special counsel robert s. Mueller, iii has concluded the probe. So there is manaforts almost promise of a pardon at the end of the investigation. And on the same day that the president discussed his own impeachment, he once again attacked his own attorney general ral. I put in an attorney general that never took control of the justice department, never took control of the justice department. And so the president who began his presidency by asking fbi director james comey to drop the investigation of Donald TrumpsNational Security adviser Michael Flynn lying to the fbi and then fired james comey after james comey refused to drop that investigation, the president who has spent the better part of two years now publically attacking the fbi, the president who has spent two years attacking the department of justice, the president who has attacked the Deputy Attorney general who he appointed, rod rosenstein, for not stopping an investigation into this presidency, the president who attacks every federal prosecutor assigned to Robert Muellers investigation of the president and has repeatedly lied about and attacked Robert Mueller himself, that same person once again today attacked his own attorney general, a former senator who was even thoous yat ically supported by every senator. But Lindsey Graham just could not take it anymore and said this. We believe he assaulted our legal system in every way. Let it be said that any president who cheats our institutions shall be impeached. No, that wasnt today. That was congressman Lindsey Graham explaining why he voted to impeach president bill clinton. Today after the president of the United States once again threatened the rule of law in this country and attacked and insulted Lindsey Grahams dear friend, the attorney general of the United States, senator Lindsey Graham could not remember the words that congressman Lindsey Graham said on that historic day on the house floor and instead Lindsey Graham said this. The president s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody thats qualified for the job. And i think there will come a time sooner rather than later where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the department of justice. And there you just witnessed the collapse of a political civilization. The president is entitled to an attorney general he has faith in. Lindsey graham actually said that on the same day that the president said that the standard prosecutorial tool that all attorneys general have used, flipping witnesses, should be illegal. Lindsey graham said the president is entitled to an attorney general he has faith in and Lindsey Graham knows the only attorney general this president would have faith in is an attorney general that would always protect the president of the United States, which now means protect the president from his friends, Michael Cohen and david pecker, the friends who federal prosecutors and new york city say colluded to commit crimes with the president of the United States to effect an election. Joining our discussion, Jill Winebanks, Brett Stevens and eugene robinson. All three are now msnbc contributors. Jill, i wanted to get your reaction to what we saw here today in terms of the president actually once again going after the attorney general and the weakness we are seeing in the republicans in the senate very publically now talking about the possibility of replacing Jeff Sessions. It is appalling, of course, to hear this kind of conversation. The president once again is really obstructing justice in plain sight. His tweets are constantly attacking our systems, our institutions of justice and are having an effect. We saw that in the manafort trial. The juror who is a big supporter of his said this is a witch hunt, but the evidence is there. So on the one hand, it shows that a jury will convict because they Pay Attention to the actual evidence, but it also shows how much influence hes had in undermining the Mueller Investigation and the department of justice, the fbi and that has an effect that we should not be tolerating. This is just totally wrong and we should stop the president from being able to do this. Gene, when it rains, it ours, especially when you are talking about criminal tax investigations and financial shenanigans. The breaking news at the beginning of this hour that new york state now, the District Attorney in new york city, looking at exactly what happened in the Trump Company in the payoff to Stormy Daniels. Right. And guess what, lawrence . If you start turning over rocks at the Trump Organization, you are going to find all sorts of awful, nasty things down there. You know, there is a continuum here that the Trump Organization from the campaign, the Trump White House, it is kind of a long running, continuing criminal enterprise in the sense of cutting corners, not following rules, not following laws and so its really no surprise that state and municipal authorities are going to look at the organization and wait until they get Start Talking to allen, the chief Financial Officer and accountant. There is no accountantclient privilege to be respected. And he knows where all the bodies are buried. So this is big trouble. If i might just, two things that really jumped out at me today. One was Lindsey Graham saying trump is entitled to the attorney general of his liking. Well, what he wants is an attorney general who is corrupt and hes not entitled to that. And the illustration of what he wants, he got from Rudy Giuliani with that hint, that message, that he sent to Paul Manafort. Just wait. Just wait. Stick it out and you are going to get a pardon. It couldnt have been clearer. Brett, what has happened to Lindsey Graham in the 19 years between the two videos that we just show snd. You had a democratic president in 98 and you have a republican president today. It seems to me that obvious and that nakedly partisan. One of the things i observed, in the late 1990s on the clinton impeachment saga is almost precisely the same standards that republicans and conservatives used against president clinton would apply both legally as well as morally to President Trump. You remember that book by william bennett, th