Particular story about kavanaugh, to continue to develop through the weekend. Republicans definitely want to steam ahead with voting on him as soon as next wednesday or thursday. Its hard to see how that happens while this story is still developing, but watch this space. That does it for us tonight. We will see you again on monday. Now its time for the last word with lawrence oh dodge. Good evening, lawrence. You know how this show starts at 10 00 or i should say is supposed to start at 10 00 . Mmhmm. And every once in a while it starts 15 seconds later, 30 seconds later. My fault, sorry. And its a pretty organized and ritdialistic thing, and thats the way its supposed to work. But we can change that. We can change that on the fly if we have to and if something happens and if there was some kind of giant breaking news event, we would deal with that whole concept differently, and the Senate Judiciary committee can do exactly the same thing. Ask that is what they did with anita hill when the Confirmation Hearing was over. Clarence thomas hearing was over, and it was reopened
because of this dramatic new information. Hmm. And orrin hatch is pretending tonight that theres some kind of schedule, theres some kind of thing that prevents them from reopening any of this on the Senate Judiciary committee, and that is simply not true. Theres no time limit. They could take the rest of the year if they wanted to. But youre going to hear a lot of that about, you know, its over and times up. And time is never up on the Confirmation Process. And, you know, with professor anita hill personally weighing in on this today, saying that she has personally experienced what happens when these things get weaponized against the accuser and there ought to be a way for people to approach the senate when they have personal information that is relevant to an important nominee. That still has not been fixed since her time there. Its an incredibly important point youre making, one precedent that was set by her allegations against Clarence Thomas, which, again, she never expected to become public either. She never expected to have her name associated with those allegations, but she made them. It reopened the Confirmation Process, and it played out the way it did. That is the closest thing weve got to a precedent here. I dont know what republicans are going to try to do, but i think theyre going to be a little bit towed along on this story by the fact that the story is going to continue to develop over the next few days. It may be all up to Susan Collins what they do next. What might she demand from her own party or Lisa Murkowski . But, rachel, were going to begin tonight with the Paul Manafort agreement, and its the agreement part of what Paul Manafort will deliver for his plea that has to have everybody named trump, especially if the first name is donald, whether its senior or junior, very worried tonight. Its breathtaking. Honestly, i mean, lawrence, i am im in los angeles tonight on a friday night, which is weird. Im in california because i have the day off today because im supposed to be spending the weekend with my family out here. I know that. I am not taking the night
changed, but the president s life may very well have changed too. And the Mueller Investigation might be turning a profit now with something over 20 million in seized assets from Paul Manafort. This just might give them some extra lunch money. With that trump tower apartment being one of the things that manafort had to forfeit, i do sort of imagine them moving like a little part of the Justice Department into that apartment, you know . Just like put some h. R. Folks in there or some little thing, you know, some little aspect of the Justice Department just to remind everybody that actually that Paul Manafort apartment is now owned by the u. S. Taxpayers. Theyll think of something. Rachel, get out of there. Go hang with the family. I will do. Love to the family. Thanks for coming in tonight. Appreciate it. Well, Paul Manaforts guilty plea today might be the single Worst Development in Donald Trumps life, and it might be the single Worst Development in donald trump jr. s life because Paul Manafort was in the room with donald trump jr. In trump tower during the president ial
campaign meeting that donald trump jr. Arranged with a group of russians who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Paul manafort has promised to tell special prosecutor Robert Mueller every single thing that happened in that room, every word that Paul Manafort can remember was said in that room and what Paul Manafort remembers might lead to the First Federal criminal prosecution of the son of a president of the United States. Paul manafort could be the key witness in a case that would be entitled the United States of america versus donald trump jr. , and President Trump could once again be identified as an unindicted coconspirator in such a case if Paul Manafort and others can testify credibly that president ial candidate donald trump knew about that meeting and was a participant in a conspiracy to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton from russians. And so the big news of the day for anyone named donald trump is that Robert Mueller has a new witness, a big new witness. And that is even bigger news than that witness saying in court today, i plead guilty. Paul manafort spent this week telling the special Prosecutors Team everything he knows about every crime he has committed or every crime he knows about. Some of Paul Manaforts crimes were described in court today by Andrew Weissmann of the special counsels office, but Prosecutor Weissman was careful to point out that nothing that he publicly described in court today includes anything that Paul Manafort has told the special prosecutor in his first week of cooperation with the special prosecutor. So there is a lot, lot more to come from Paul Manafort. And we know that the special prosecutor reached this Plea Bargain Agreement with Paul Manafort today because Paul Manafort has already provided and will continue to provide valuable information to the special prosecutor. The moment that officially
changed donald trump and donald trump jr. s lives came after Andrew Weissmann outlined the crimes that Paul Manafort confessed to this week conspiracy, obstruction of justice, conspiracy against the United States. Judge Amy Berman Jackson said to Paul Manafort, so are you prepared to tell me now whether you wish to plead guilty or whether you wish to go to trial . And Paul Manafort said, i am and the judge said, what is your decision . And Paul Manafort said, i plead guilty. And with that, every member of the Trump Campaign team who has been charged which Robert Mueller has now pleaded guilty. Every single one of them. Robert mueller and his team are undefeated against the trump team. And everyone in the trump team who was ever in a room with Paul Manafort or on the phone with Paul Manafort or sent an email to Paul Manafort or received an email from Paul Manafort has to try to fall asleep tonight
wondering whos next. Who will Paul Manafort hand over to Robert Mueller . Leading off our discussion now, Jill Winebanks, former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor and an msnbc legal contributor. Also former federal prosecutor glen kirschner. Jill, as rachel mentioned at the top, there were a couple of ways for this to go today. There wasnt a lot of suspense left in whether he was going to plead guilty. But he could have just walked in from and pleaded guilty. He could have just done that and sat back and hoped and waited for his pardon. But he didnt. He went all the way over the line and is now on team mueller. And you know what that says to me . That says how untrustworthy donald trump is that his campaign adviser, his campaign chief couldnt rely on him for a pardon and had to take the chance of going with full disclosure to the prosecutor and cooperating. Thats what it says to me. And its a big break because
hes someone who was in at least several key meetings, including of course the june meeting in trump tower, which has been very much a focus of the investigation and could be part of the conspiracy to work with russia on the campaign to affect the outcome of the election. And so its a very important time for mueller. And as you pointed out, it is 100 win for mueller and zero for team trump. Glen kirschner, your perspective on what we saw in court today . So, lawrence, i think, yeah, its a hugely consequential turn of events for both the Mueller Investigation and for the president and his administration. When i got a hold of a copy of the Plea Agreement in the manafort case earlier today, i was looking for one phrase, and i found it on page 2, paragraph 3. Let me just read the legalese and talk about what it actually means. It says that no other charges
will be brought against the defendant, Paul Manafort, for his heretofore disclosed participation in criminal activity. In laymans terms, what that means is the following. When we meet with a defendant who is an aspiring cooperating witness, we interview them over and over and over again, and we frankly try to wring dry every drop of information that the cooperator has about the criminal conduct of others. But equally important, the criminal conduct of mr. Manafort himself because the last thing we want as i was a career prosecutor. The last thing a prosecutor wants is for there to be any surprises about the crimes a cooperator committed before we make the decision to bring them onboard as a cooperating witness. And theres a benefit to the cooperator when he sits down with the prosecutors and provides all that information about his own criminal conduct. We put a term like this in hisPlea Agreement, and it says, as long as youve told us about other crimes youve committed, you get a pass. You basically get immunity because we rolled it into todays Plea Agreement. So what that means is he could have sat down and provided all sorts of information about him, mr. Manafort personally, colluding with russians to undermine the election, coordinating that with the president , with don junior, with Jared Kushner, with others. Im not saying he did that. We have to wait and see. But if he provided that information, that is probably what prompted Robert Mueller, after the many meetings that they had, which we learned about in todays hearing. Robert mueller to say, you know what, mr. Manafort . Youve brought enough value to the process as a cooperator that we are going to give you a Plea Agreement even after youve been convicted in one of your criminal cases. Lawrence, that leads me to
conclude Paul Manafort must have blockbuster information. Hes provided it to the special counsel, and now we have to wait for the next very large shoe to drop. Yeah, and jill, to that point, in general terms certainly in all of these kinds of agreements that ive ever seen and witnessed in court, the person the thing of value that they tend to be giving over is someone bigger than themselves. Its someone above them in the Chain Of Command of whatever enterprise theyre in. It is of value still to hand over material on people who are kind of below you in that target list by prosecutors. But to glenns point, given how good a deal, as you could describe it, how good a deal this is for Paul Manafort at this stage given how clearly guilty he is, you certainly get the feeling that something large has been handed over to Robert Mueller this week. I think we can assume that that is true, that it would either be Jared Kushner or donald trump jr. Or the president himself. There is, of course i want to caution. There is the possibility that it was just, im willing to take responsibility. Im willing to plead guilty to my own crimes. I dont want to pay for a defense. I dont want to make the government pay for the prosecution, and im just giving up. Hes forfeiting almost all of his assets, his real estate, his bank accounts. So he may just feel like, well, thats what im doing, and there may be nothing more. But given the language that was used in court in terms of the Plea Agreement itself, i agree with glenn that it is very likely that he has told them quite a great deal. And glenn is right. You wouldnt take a Plea Agreement unless you had had a proffer of all the evidence that
the witness has before you would agree to it. So i think we can look forward to many weeks and months of disclosures and new indictments that may be the result of this and to the investigations that will follow up on the details that he provided to them in the proffer leading up to the Plea Agreement. Lets listen to some of the spin that Rudy Giuliani offered on fox news tonight, and then we will analyze what he had to say after we listen to this. The plea is to crimes that have to do with manaforts past. No involvement with President Trump. No involvement with the campaign. No involvement with russia. And by the way, theres also no evidence of obstruction. There have been four guilty pleas now, and theyre completely irrelevant. Glenn, your reaction to that. You know, lawrence, ive heard this over and over again from either the president himself or Sarah Huckabee sanders or mr. Giuliani. They keep complaining and protesting with each guilty plea thats obtained, with each conviction thats obtained. They complain that that conviction, that guilty plea doesnt prove russian collusion. And, you know, i can envision the three of them sitting in a movie theater. And every time they watch another trailer, a preview of coming attractions, they sit there and they complain that, this is not the movie. This is not the movie. We all know this is not the movie. We all know these cases that have been brought thus far by mr. Mueller are not the russian collusion cases. But guess what . The movies coming. And the movie will be when mr. Mueller makes that decision whether to issue a report that ultimately will be released to congress about his findings or drop a great big conspiracy indictment on everybody who may have participated in a conspiracy with russia to
undermine our president ial elections and obstructed by perhaps covering it up. That will be the movie. All of these other things are just the previews of things to come. And lets consider Rudy Giulianis most insane comment of the night to the fox news audience, and i dont know how much of this they actually take as real. But Rudy Giuliani says hes hanging his head in shame because the Justice Department has found crimes and decided to prosecute those crimes. Lets listen to this. My head hangs in shame for the department that i gave 16 years of my life to, the department of justice. I was the third ranking official in the department of justice, when i could proudly say it was the department of justice. And the only thing that can be done now is as relentless of an investigation of these people as they did to President Trump. Jill, your reaction to all of that. My reaction is that we have seen a march to the truth. We have seen cases build upon cases, and each person who has pled guilty has been from the trump team and has said, i committed crimes. One of them said in court under oath that he committed a crime at the direction of the president himself. You cant get any better than that. And the fact that all of these people have pled guilty shows how carefully mueller has proceeded and how he has developed the evidence. Al