Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. And his time working with manafort was laid out by the prosecutors, the next thing was the Plea Agreement with the government and then more discussion later on of the same basic theme. Prosecutors seem to want to get that out on the table very early. Folks may remember the defense brought this up in the opening argument that gates had stolen money from manafort or from manaforts firm. And the prosecution definitely wanted that laid out before we quit court today. They wanted that out on the table and brought it out before they went through chronologically the different crimes that they may or may not have been involved in. They were cleearly trying on inoculate him. I think it is what giuliani called hanging a lantern around your problems. Covering the manafort case for politico, thank you for covering it for us as well. Now lets bring in our legal power panel. Barbara mcquaid, also in court today, and chuck rosenberg, former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of virginia and a former senior fbi official. First of all, josh just reported that russia was front and center in some of the testimony from gates today. The Trump Campaign piece, the inaugural piece, everything that happened afterwards. Until the point when he left the side of Paul Manafort. The judge was being a little bit difficult about how much detail he would be allowed to get into. When they were working in ukraine, they were working with the oligarchs. They were making enormous contributions, much more than we
see in this country. They were expected to get huge parts of the country. Someone was going to control the energy sector. So the stakes are very high for people involved in political operations. So thats why Paul Manafort was receiving so much money which he then stored in the bank accounts. So you wonder about the influence. That he may have imported the practice or to what extent theyre seeking the same thing in this country. Pinlds gates is important and significant in the manafort trial. But his deal requires him to cooperate with everything and anything that he is investigating. So what other investigative threads could gates be useful to him . What would you surmise he is being used for . Right. I imagine because of his role in
the campaign, that theyre also asking him lots and lots of questions about contacts with russia and the roles not just of the president but other people. This is a guy who was around the campaign for months and months. He traveled with the president. He was there for conversations. He may have listen in the on phone calls. So youre exactly right. The government could convict him without gates. Gates put some meat on the bone but he will be important in lots of other ways. I found this interesting, subjecting him to revealing what he got the deal for. Having to say in court that he committed crimes. It seemed obvious that he is a part of this. Are they telegraph of course it . They are all at that intersection of potential collusion, potential conspiracy around the Trump Tower Meeting the president tweeted that on sunday. Thats exactly right. First of all, i wanted to talk about what he did on the stand. They have a constitutional obligation to turn over every bad thing mr. Gates had done. So what the government always does when theyre putting on a cooperatator is introduce themselves up front and first all bad things. They draw the sting essentially. To your question, there are people at that intersection of conspiracy or collusion or whatever synonym you want to use. Perhaps other crimes. Financial fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud. And gates had a view of that, a
perch, if you will, to see it in a way that a lot of other people might not have been able to. He was at the center of this for quite a while. Does he know everything . Was he around these people . These actors while they were committing crimes . He was certainly around manafort when he was committing crimes so hes valuable to the government. I dont want to put steve bannon in the same conversation as you but i was struck about his conversations of fury. How you get these guys was to go after Money Laundering. He said the mine for mueller, he talk about how Andrew Wiceman were Money Laundering guys. You go through manafort, Through Kushner and thats how you get trump. Was bannon a canary in the mine to how you can use manafort and use some of the foundations being hated in this crime to get to other people . Is that why you think the
president is acting out . It is hard to know why but i think thats a very valid theory. I think it has been widely reported that President Trump accepted a lot of Money Investment from russian businessmen when he was having a hard time getting loans from other sources. That a lot of his real estate was bought with cash from russians. When you think about all the things Paul Manafort is doing. He is learning how money flows out of russia, when money went from the soviet union and came out of that. There was a lot of money up for grabs that went into the hands of these oligarchs. They needed a place to park it. So the money came into this country. Possibly even to donald trump. So yes, it is an avenue of investigation that rob mueller is likely to pursue. As chuck said, rig gates is someone who likely knows a lot about that. So having him as a cooperator has a lot of value, not just for
this case but in the investigation. You have a lot of value to us. Thank you for your time tonight. Chuck, well make you stick around a little longer. I have a few more questions. Rachel has a mantra. Watch what they do, not what they say unless what they say has legal liability. That story next. The chili pepper sweatout. Not cool. Freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting . Now thats cool coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. And no surgery. Results and Patient Experience may vary. Some common side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort,and swelling. Ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting. Com today for your chance to win a free treatment. Your Digestive System has billions of bacteria but life can throw them off balance. Realign yourself with align probiotic. And try new align gummies
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meeting with russians to get information on an point has many believing the president has increased his own legal jeopardy by admitting the true purpose of that Trump Tower Meeting. And it stands in stark contrast to the initial meeting that he dictated last year explaining that the meeting had been primarily about adoptions. The president now claims that the meeting was, quote, totally legal. Done all the time in politics which fits into the president s and his allies latest Talking Point that collusion is not a crime. Ive been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime. Collusion is not a crime. I dont even know if it is a crime. Colluding. The hacking is the crime. The question is how would it be illegal . The real question is would a meeting of that nature constitute a violation, the meeting constitutes a violation of the law. What statue or law or rule has
been violated . So of course accepting something of value from a Foreign Government in the context of a campaign is actually illegal and it appears the president is aware of this. His reaction came this morning in the washington post. That trump has expressed a confidantes lingering unease about how some in his orbit are ensnared in the russia probe. He is fearful that trump jr. Inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy. Joining us, washington report we are the washington post. I think this is when he reaches. Based on interviews with 3,900 i think it is 16 or 18 sources, the key they know was
his unease he doesnt believe his son purposely broke the law. He stumbled into collude. Done something bad. Even the most unnotorious violation is that he feels guilty his son is caught up in all of that. He feels probably correctly that his son would not be caught up in it had he not taken the meeting. And there are people he can talk to if he feels guilty about. That but he responded, your reporting got so far under his skin. He responded and retweeted. This is the story. This seems to be, if you step back, the simmer that you describe, the blowing of the lid, how you describe him and other flash points, really started with the thursday morning tweet about sessions
ordering him to stop the mueller probe. Take us through the slow boil. Privately as we reported, he was brooding. He was upset with sessions. Hes been increasing toward the number of false hoods. Hes been naming mueller publicly by name which is something he didnt do before. We even looked back at his tweets and hes been using the phrase witch hundred to describe the russia probe almost twice as much in the past two months. It is getting you said his skin. He is watching and he cannot stand when theyre talking about Paul Manafort, there is another name he hears. That name is trump. Theyre trying to embarrass manafort. Bring all the stuff up to
embarrass him. He thinks it is a white collared crime. It seems to me that it is all of these spears are now pointing in toward the oval office. Theyre trying to get some sort of deal. You have not just that but the gates testimony. Gaigs is a cooperating witness for anything that bob mueller is investigating. It is not just what gates says in the manafort trial that hell see him annoyed by. Trumps bad behavior is often animated by fear. What is the central issue . Thats a great question and some of the people close to him say they dont know what they dont know, what we dont know. The president truly believes that he did nothing wrong. This is getting reinforced by
rudolph giuliani. There were other lawyers previously who were giving him a different set of advice. On the one hand trump believes his biggest risk is not necessarily from mueller but may come from possible impeachment if democrats take the house. So there is an Elementary School where he believes this is a Public Relations battle. That he needs to discredit mueller in case the investigation finds anything but even if it doesnt and lay the ground work. As he likes to say, this is a witch hundred. Collusion is not a crime and he did nothing wrong. We dont know. Now that Michael Cohen has flipped, thats a risk. There was a seed change in the people close to him and im sure you talked to many more. There was a seed ghang the president s potential guilt on the question of collusion. They always thought, he is too incompetent to have colluded with russia. He couldnt even collude between the plane and the headquarters. He could have done something there. But after helsinki, there was a seed change in what people thought he could be hiding on the question of collusion. I think thats true. I think theres a concern after helsinki that again, it is not just may be his family business, but that he may be getting himself in more trouble as he tries to fight this publicly. Remember there is the collusion and the Obstruction Of Justice. And theres definitely a sense that these tweets are not helpful. These moods and public and private utterances are not helpful. Talking about firing your attorney general. Not helpful. Great to have you here in new york. Air force one is surprising in a lot of ways. I spent a lot of time on it and it was a privilege. Kit feed 100 people at a time really great stuff. Kit protect against an election row magnetic attack. Theres something even more
jarring this weekend. That story is next. Of our new unlimited wireless plans. It comes with a ton of entertainment options. Great, can you sign for this . Yeah. Hey, uh. Whats in that one . Thats a shark. New and only with at t, you can get unlimited data, 30 channels of live tv, and your choice of things like hbo or amazon music. More for your thing. Thats our thing. Visit att dot com. But allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. Giving you the power to actually lower your cost. Unfortunately, it cant do anything about that. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Today, lifechanging technology from abbott is helping hunt them down at their source. Because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. The most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. Life. To the fullest. Hope hicks is back in the news. She was the White House Communications director. She has reemerged six months after resigning that post. She was spotted getting on to Air Force One just before it took off in ohio. There she was in the plane with
the president. President trump may want to get some legal advice before he swaps story with hope. About two months before she resigned, she met with robert mueller, reportedly more than once. You will remember she was also on Board Air Force one when President Trump was putting together his Public Statement about the now Infamous Trump tower meeting. Miss hicks was reportedly right by the president s side for that project, texting back and forth. Today a source close to the trump legal effort tells me the president s conduct since the Trump Tower Meeting, his involvement in the crafting a false statement about that meeting and conversations hes had about it point to an increasing likelihood that the president could be vulnerable on charges of Witness Tampering and Obstruction Of Justice. It also points to legal jeopardy facing all the individuals about the crafting of the original crafting of the statement. And any conversations they may
have had with the president. With this in mind, what do we think they talked about . Joining me to help me answer that question. The former Assistant Director for Counter Intelligence during rob muellers ten youre as fbi drektor and back with us again. We can never get enough of this man. We started this conversation at 4 00, shortly after i heard this reporting from someone close to the legal effort, that the president , even if he had nothing to do with the original meeting with the russians, all of his conduct since then. All of his involvement, dictating the false statement to the press. All the conversations reported to the new york time hes with white house aides about their interwakss muellers investigators, that all of those could leave him very vulnerable on charges of Witness Tampering and Obstruction Of Justice. We ten to see this
unexplainable behavior, nicole, between what is right from a legal, strategic standpoint. To not talk or be in the same airplane with hope hicks and then strategy of Public Perception which is to tell the public, look, im thumbing my nose at all of this legal ease. If i want to invite hope hicks on Air Force One, im going to do it. Shes with me. The problem with this dichotomy of what you should do legally and for Public Perception is that hes going down the right path. He subjected himself to more questioning and hes putting hope hicks into a box where she is likely to be reenter viewed, perhaps for hours again, about