Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. To get manafort loans. We hear one thing after another listed and as i say, a very plain, kind of matter of fact fashion, although what did seem awkward was the fact there was a certain part of the courtroom that gates didnt seem to want to look at. The manafort part of the courtroom. Right. Let me ask you how they deal with explaining to a jury that someone is a cooperating witness, that theyve already pleaded guilty to committing some crimes. Does that change or could you detect any change in any of the Body Language from the jury . Did they seem to to listen less intently or did they lean in as this was someone who had traded something . How does that go over in a jury . So, i was watching the jury as they were describing, or, as i said, as the prosecutors were leading gates through a description of his deal with the government, and the jurors were watching that very intensely. I saw a number of them taking notes on the different provisions of the plea deal and i was struck by the fact that the prosecution seemed to want to get gates baggage out of the way as quickly as possible. After his educational background and his time working with manafort was laid out by the prosecutor, the very next thing they got into was his Plea Agreement with the government and there was more discussion later on of the same basic theme, especially this issue about embezzlement. Prosecutors seemed to want to get that out on the table very early. Folks may remember the defense brought this up, that gates had apparently 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 that out before they sort of went through chronologically the different crimes this pair may have been involved in. They were clearly trying to imewe nice him for the counter attack from the defense that is coming. Rudy giuliani called it hanging a lantern around your problems. Thats not a Tactic Limited to one side or the other. Josh, thank you for covering ie
case for us. Thank you, nicolle. Lets bring in our legal power team. First of all, josh just reported, barbara, that russia was front and center in some of the testimony from gates today. What is the larger picture look like and how does gates help us understand not just the manafort piece, but the Trump Campaign piece and everything that happened afterward until the point where gates left the scene after he was indicted alongside his former mentor, Paul Manafort . Well, one of the pieces of evidence that the prosecution was trying to get in today and the judge was being a little bit difficult about how much detail he would allow them to go into was when Paul Manafort and rick gates were working in ukraine, they were working with these oligarchs. Because they were making enormous, enormous campaign
contributions, much more than we see in this country, they dont have the kinds of rules we have in this country, because in exchange, they were expecting to get huge parts of the economy when they were done from these elected officials. Someone was going to control the Energy Sector and Somebody Else was going to control the steel seco sector. So, the stakes are very high for people who are involved in political operations, and so, thats why Paul Manafort was receiving so much money, which he then stored in these bank accou accounts. So, you wonder to what extent that influence came over to this country, as well, and Paul Manafort may have imported that practice or what extent the oligarchs are seeking influence in this country. I understand that gates is an important and significant witness, but his deal requires him to cooperate with everything and anything that Robert Mueller is investigating. So, what other investigative threads could gates be useful to, and what would you surmise hes being used for by the Special Counsel . Right. So, great question, nicolle. I imagine because of his role in the campaign that they are asking him lots and lots of questions about contacts with russia and the roles not just of the president , but of other people. Roger stone, jared kushner, donald trump jr. Look, this is a guy who was around the campaign for months and months, who traveled with the president , who was there for conversations, who may have read emails, who may have listened in on phone calls. And so, hes not just important for manafort. Youre exactly right. In fact, the government could probably convict manafort without gates. This is largely a document case. Manafort im sorry, gates put some meat on the bone, but he is going to be important to mueller and his team in lots of other ways. This is what i found curious about subjects gates having to go through, as josh just said, revealing what he got the deal for, having to say in court today that he committed crimes, that he embezzled money from manafort. It seemed obvious that he is
maybe apart of this, but are they telegraphing anything, the names you just ticked off, kushner, roger stone, donald trump jr. , they are all at that intersection of potential collusion, potential conspiracy around that Trump Tower Meeting that the president tweeted about on sunday. Thats exactly right, nicolle. First of all, i wanted to make a point about the stuff that the government did today with mr. Gates on the stand. They have a constitutional obligation to turn over to the defendant and to his lawyers every bad thing that mr. Gates had done. And so, what the government always does when theyre putting on a coop ray or the coop the is draw the sting, essentially. To your question, though, right, so, theres a whole bunch of people who are at that intersection of conspirery or collusion or whatever synonym you want to use, but 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 a lot of other people might not have been able to. He was at the center of this for quite awhile. Does he know everything, of course not. But was he around these people, these actors while they were committing crimes . Well, he was certainly around manafort when he was committing crimes, so, hes a valuable witness to the governor. I dont ever want to put steve bannon in the same conversation as you, but im struck by something he said in fire and fury, you get these guys, he meant the trump family, was to go after Money Laundering. He said the line for mueller goes straight i think he talked about how some of these guys were Money Laundering guys. You go through manafort, Through Kushner and thats how you get trump. Is ban nnobannon, was he a cana the mind how you could use manafort, some of the foundations being laid in this trial to get to other people in the trump orbit . Is that why the president is acting out . Its hard to know why the president is acting out, but i do think that is thats true. I do think that is a very valid theory. I think its 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 catch from russi russians. So, when you think about all the things that Paul Manafort is doing, hes learning how money is flowing out of russia. When russia 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 who then tried to get it out of the country and needed a place to park it and so a lot of that money came into this country, possibly even through to donald trump. So, yes, i think that is certainly an avenue of investigation that Robert Mueller is likely to pursue and as chuck said, rick gates is someone who likely knows a lot about that and so, having him as a coop ray or the has a lot of value, not just what he can do
in this case, but what he can do for the overall investigation. You guys have a lot of value to us. Thank you, barbara, chuck, were going to make you stick around a little longer. I have a few more questions im going to ask you about later. Rachel has a mantra for this show for covering the trump white house. Watch what they do, not what they say. Unless what they say comes with potential legal liabilities. That story is next. Stay with us. Dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands. Commanded armies. Yielded to no one. When i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. My name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. Now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun transitions™ light under control™
are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. A not to consult with some good Legal Advisers before did you that. So, the answer is, should i call the fbi . I think it would be wise if you want to be the director of the fbi, pal. Heres what i want to tell every politician. If you get a call from somebody suggesting a Foreign Government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. To the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state or any nonstate actor is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. I miss that guy. That lindsey graham. Of course, we all know don jr. Did not do that. His response to a meeting pitched to him as containing very high level and Sensitive Information as part of, quote, russia and its Government Support for mr. Trump was to accept the meeting and bring along his brother and law and the chairman of the campaign. Now president s acknowledgement
in a weekend tweet that his eldest son did in fact take that meeting with russians to get information on an opponent 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 statement 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. Its not. Collusion is not a crime. Collusion is not a crime. I dont even know if it is a crime, colluding about russians. You start analyzing the crime, 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 itself constitute a violation of the law . What statute or law or rule has been violated . Nobodys pointed to one. 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 tweet this weekend came in reaction to this story in the washington post. The post reporting that trump has expressed to confidantes lingering unease about how some in his orbit, including his son, are ensnared in the russia probe. The president does not believe his son purposefully broke the law, but is fearful nonetheless that trump jr. Inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy. Joinings now is ashly parker of the washington post. I love all your stories. This is when trump reaches for his device, to start banging out his tweet. Based on interviews with 3,900 but i think it was 16 or 18 sources. Take us through what they reported about the president. Sure, so, the key thing that we reported, that we heard from them that seemed to be what the president was responding to in that tweet was his unease about don jr. s possible culpability in all this. He stumbled into conspiracy into collude with a foreigned a verve tear. Done something bad, or even that he feels guilty in a way that his son is caught up in all of this in a way he feels probably collectly his son would not be were he not his son and of course had he not taken that meeting. Right. Well, and he 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 in his presidency, really started with
the thursday morning tweet about sessions ordering him to stop the Mueller Probe and i heard he was talking about firing Jeff Sessions again on the phone with friends. Take us through this slow boil and where they go now. Whats interesting to us, theres a private and public donald trump. We sort of see both of them. Privately, as we reported, he was upset with sessions. Hes been increasing the number of falsehoods hes been telling. Hes been naming mueller now publicly by name, which is something he didnt do before. And we sort of looked back at his tweets and hes been using the phrase witch hunt almost twice as much in the past two months as he was previously. So, its really getting under his skin. Part of this is, you know, his former Campaign Chairman is standing trials hes watchi tri. Hes watching that nonstop. And he cannot stand when theyre
talking about manafort, theyre also talking about trump. He thinks its sort of a whitecollar crime and it wouldnt be this way without manaforts connection to him, which is correct. It seems to me that these spears are all pointing in towards the oval office. You have the cohen legal shenanigans with cohen now trying to get some sort of deal with the southern district. Youve got not just the Manafort Trial, but the gates testimony. As we talked about with barbara and chuck, gates is a cooperating witness that anything that bob mueller is investigating. Its not just what gates says during the Manafort Trial that hes going to be annoyed by. Trumps bad behavior is afternoon animated by fear. Whats the central fear . Thats the great question. And people that are close to him say they dont know what they dont know, what we dont know. Part of it is the president has made a decision. He truly believes and im not saying this is correct, but he truly believes that he did nothing wrong. This is getting reinforced now by rudy giuliani. Other lawyers around him previously were giving him a different set of advice. Thats not what giuliani is telling hip. Trump believes his biggest risk is not necessarily from mueller, but may come from possible impeachment, in democrats take the house. There is an element where he believes this is a Public Relations battle and he needs to discredit mueller in case the investigation finds anything. And sort of lay the groundwork that as he likes to say, this is a witch hunt, collusion is not a crime, and he did nothing wrong. But again, i have to say, we dont know what we dont know. We dont know what maybe didnt happen on the campaign, but happened when Michael Cohen worked for him, all those decades and now that Michael Cohen has flipped, thats a risk, for instance. There was a sea change in the things that people close to him, and you talk to many more of them than i do, there was a sea change in what they thought about the president s potential guilt on the question of collusion. They always thought, hes too incompetent to have colluded with russia, he couldnt collude
between the plane and the headquarters, but obstruction, he sort of was a family business, he could have done something wrong there. But after helsinki, there was a sea change in what people thought the president could be hiding or protecting against on the question of collusion. I think thats true. I think theres also a concern after helsinki that, again, its not just maybe his family business, but that he may be getting himself in more trouble as he tries to fight this publicly. Remember, theres the collusion and theres the Obstruction Of Justice and there is definitely a sense that the tweets are not helpful. The Public Statements are not helpful. The moods in public and private are not helpful. Talking about firing your Attorney General not helpful. Not helpful. Ashley, congrats on the reporting. Air force one is surprising in a lot of ways. I spent a lot of time on it. It was a privilege. It can feed 100 people at a time. Really good stuff. It can project against an elect
electromagnetic attack. It has an operating room. There was something even more jarring aboard Air Force One this week. That story is next. When it comes to strong bones, are you on the right path . We have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, so with our doctors we chose prolia® to help make our bones stronger. Only prolia® helps strengthen bones by stopping cells that damage them with 1 shot every 6 months. Do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. Serious allergic reactions, like low blood pressure; trouble breathing;
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