Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. James comey. It also only mize if the case in question is closely connected to politics. Thats whats important about the big new development. The Wall Street Journal was first on report in detail on the type of charges that federal prosecutors may be considering against the president s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. If it is kregt, the charges he is facing from prosecutors are not related to politics at all. At least not at face value. In quote, previously unreported developments, federal prosecutors in new york are examining whether mr. Cohen committed tax fraud. Quote, federal authorities are assessing whether his income from his. At Ai Medallion Business was underreported. That includes hundred of thousands received in cash and other payments over the last five years. In addition, federal authorities have been investigating whether he made misrepresentations or
false statements on lone applications including whether he inflatd the value as collateral loans. So according to the Wall Street Journal which has been all over the case, federal investigators are looking at cohen for allegedly or potentially lying about his true financial situation. On the one hand to the irs where he allegedly underreported his income so he wouldnt to have pay taxes on it. And to banks so they would be duped or conned or schemed into giving him loans for which he didnt actually qualify. If those alleged crimes sound familiar to you, it is because youve heard the details of those exact same charges laid out against Trumps Campaign chairman, Paul Manafort in the case in virginia. In watching the case if nothing else, we now understand what a government does to prove tax
fraud and bank fraud charges. They get paper trail showing the allegedly fraudulent applications. They then get people involved. Even very low level people involved who had something to do with facilitating the alleged fraud or tax evasion. They have them admit that it was deliberate tax and fraud evasion. These may be hard to understand as crimes. You dont have to be a lawyer to get it. As long as they have the paper trail so they can authentic the documents and explain whats going on, thats the whole case. It is not a complicated way to prosecute someone. And the jail time is significant. If you can get paper trail and those witnesses together, you
can really threaten somebody with serious legal jeopardy. So the journal reported on detail. The name of the specific bank that prosecutors are looking into to figure out whether the bank might have had a confederate working with cohen. If those charges are what cohen is facing, that is a pretty Ominous Development for the president s lawyer. As is the other piece of the pus people we just got filled in today. It concern this is unfamiliar with you but admittedly quite handsome gentleman. His name is gene friedman. He is russian born. In the tabloids they call them taxi kink. In may, there may, the taxi king unexpectedly pled guilty to what seemed like some relatively minor charges and crucially he agreed to start cooperating with
prosecutors in their Ongoing Investigations. That was a surprise on a number of levels. Not least because gene friedman, the. At ai king, had facing a huge pile of fraud and tax evasion charges. And he didnt plead guilty to something all that serious. That would imply by the process of deduction that prosecutors pled him way, way down in exchange for his cooperation. He was facing a lot of legal jeopardy. He ended up pleading guilty for almost nothing in exchange for the cooperation that he offered. In what cases is his cooperation helpful . Today the Wall Street Journal reports that the taxi king, gene friedman, who is now cooperating, he and Michael Cohen apparently shared the same accountant. They both used the same guy. And that accountant we now know has been subpoenaed to testify
to the grand jury in the case. So put these together. At a fraud and bank fraud allegations. We know the government has a huge trove of documents. We have reports that at leaf one person involved in cohens finances who is linked to another person who is a cooperating witness who is facing charges, that person has testified about cohen. You put it together and you know, tick, tick, boom. If this new reporting about cohen is accurate, that is a Serious Development about his legal jeopardy. And it may well be the case that the legal jeopardy hes now facing is completely unrelated to politics. Completely unrelated to the donald trump president ial campaign. Completely unrelated to cohens work. Completely unrelated to his legal representation of the government. If that is how it goes down,
bank fraud and. At a fraud related to his taxi business, well, we know that theyll have something to squeeze him with and we can surmise that that Informal Justice Department 60day rule about not doing anything potentially politically provocative right before the forthcoming election, that may not hold in the Michael Cohen case. And that may change your summer plans. That might mean that whatever is going to unfold for Michael Cohen and his legal future, it may not have to be crammed into the next three and a half weeks before the informal deadline rolls around on labor day. That that, these things can take unexpected turns. We had thought based on prosecutors claims in court that the Paul Manafort case wasnt going to be at all about President Trump or the Trump Campaign and certainly not about russia. But today in open court, in the Paul Manafort case, boy howdy did the trial to go all of those places today. In fact, the manafort trial went a little bit, it went a little nuts today. It is not like it went nuts in that it went insane. It just veered off in a lot of directions at once. Paul manaforts attorney at one point elicited from rick gates that at some point a decade ago plrgs gates had had a secret extramarital affair on which he spent some of the money that he either earned alongside Paul Manafort or embezzled from Paul Manafort, depending on how you count the cash. Rick gates today also testified to a lot of nitty gritty details about how he help Paul Manafort lie about his income. Both to evade taxes and to obtain fraudulent loans from banks. But despite prosecutors having earlier asserted that the manafort case wasnt going to be about russia and was not going to be about trump and wasnt going to be about the Trump Campaign, the manafort trial did
veer toward those places today unexpectedly. The swerve toward russia took place while prosecutors were conducting their examination of rick gates. So rick gates is their own witness. Theyre doing a direct exam of rick gates. In that direct examination, prosecutors walked him through something we previously had not known about Paul Manaforts work in the soviet union. This is from the transcript. You testified earlier about payments from ukrainian businessmen to mr. Manafort. Did that include payments for policy work . It did. What time of policy work did he do in the ukraine . An, when victor was elected president , manafort entered into a Policy Contract. We describe it as Policy Advisory in the sense of once he was elected, he was elected on a platform of issues so manafort worked the local officials there to help implement the policy
initiatives based on those campaign promises. Question from the Prosecutor Waffle there an agreement for a twoyear Policy Contract . Or payment over a twoyear period of time . Well, it was, it started out potentially once the president was elected, it was on an annual basis. The belief was it would be for the duration of the tenure. In terms of two years, what were the material of the payments . What were continue stallment payments . Answer. The total was 4 million a year. And i think one year it was actually changed from a denomination Point Of View to 4 Million Euros per year. Thats new. And the reason that is a swerve toward russia today in this case is that what we previously knew about manafort was that he was being paid by yanukovych. We didnt know that Paul Manafort was also being paid 4
million aier or 4 Million Euros a year once yanukovych was in office to manage his policies as the leader of ukraine. The reason thats a swerve toward russia, once yanukovych was elected, it turned toward putin. The reason yanukovych was pulled out of office in an uprising, once he was in office, he turned hard line away from the e. U. And toward moss cue. Apparently while, we just learned today Paul Manafort was being paid 4 million a year to advise him on how he should govern. In the book russian roulette, they interviewed the Career State Department official who was the senior official. He asked her about what her reaction was when she learned that Paul Manafort had been named Trumps Campaign chairman
in 2016. She said her answer was this. Manafort . Manafort . She thought, quote, hes been a russian stooge for 15 years. Today we learned that manafort was not just getting pro russia politicians elected overseas. He was getting paid millions a year to manage the Policy Positions of at least one overseas Policy Position while he changed the direction of his country to align it Southwesterly Putin and russia. So that was a surprise revelation. Why did trump pick him . And then this one last thing. Again, prosecutors have gone out of their way to say that the manafort trial would not be about trump or the Trump Campaign. Thats where it went today. If youve been paying close attention to the manafort trial as it has been unfolding, you might have seen this unfolding for a while. Weve been reporting on the
disparity pieces of it as weve been paying attention to Paul Manafort. Today all of those pieces finally fit together in court. The first piece we saw was when we learned about what happened on the day that Paul Manafort quit the Trump Campaign. August 2016, under a cloud of revelations about his work in the soviet union, he quits the Trump Campaign. That same day, Paul Manafort also found time onset up a company, an llc called summerbreeze. That was weird, right . You would think he would have other priorities the day he was quitting running the republican nominees campaign for president. But he found time that day to set up summerbreeze. Then we learned that summerbreeze received multiple loans, totalling Something Like 16 million over just a few months after he left the campaign. And he got that in multiple loans from a tiny little bank in chicago. Those 16 million worth of loans
to Paul Manaforts summerbreeze were kind of a strange foray for that little bank. It represented a large portion of the loanable assets. It was set up. You could tell they would fit together but we couldnt tell how. Then in March Of Last year the Wall Street Journal gave us another piece. They were first to report on a strange detail involving the ceo of that bank that had given the Summer Breeze company the 16 million in lopez. The journal reported the ceo was lying to become trumps army secretary. Huh . That was a weird detail that made no sense for months. Then this year in february we got more, almost unbelievable laugh out loud geet that weird fact. Quote, around the time the bank made the loans if late 2016 and
early 2017, steven calk was seeking to become mr. Trumps army secretary. He was placing call to Army Headquarters asking for briefings to prepare himself for a possible job. His overtures to the army raised questions among Military Leaders as to how to respond. Hes calling the army saying im ready to be briefed for my my job. Sorry, your name is what . Then three days after that reporting about him calling the pentagon about his new job, local abc station in chicago was first to report that the sketchy loans had turned up of all places in the issues in the divorce filings of his exwife. Quote, former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manaforts name has been dragged into a high dollar divorce case. The divorce case involved
chicago banker steven calk. Indeed, we on this show later obtained these Court Documents from that divorce case. I think these have never been shown on tv before. These documents show that as part of the Divorce Proceedings involving this banks ceo, his wifes attorneys specifically subpoenaed, quote, the entire loan file for any and all loans made to Paul Manafort or any third party on his behalf. The wifes attorneys updated subpoena to demand evidence referencing the source of funds use to fund any and all loans made to Paul Manafort, Summer Breeze llc or any agent or third party on his behalf. Why are they showing up in the divorce filings . Next piece of the puzzle came when the judge unsealed names. Two of the five witnesses granted immunity in exchange for the testimony turned out to be employees of the same little bank in smik made these loans. Why did they need immunity . So you see all of these pieces of the puzzle falling into place over the past, more than a year now. Today in court they finally all got fitted together. Rick gates on the Witness Stand gets confronted with exhibit 399. Subject, Defense DepartmentService Secretary from Paul Manafort to rick gates. Thistotal of email. Quote, rick, we need to discuss steve kauk for secretary of army. I hear the list is being considered this weekend. Signed p. I mean as crazy as it has seemed from the beginning, a its far
fetch as this allegation has seemed, ever it was it was hinted that there was a connection between Paul Manaforts weird allegations and the earl, it really looks like one of the things that happened on the donald trump for President Campaign is that the Campaign Chairman really did sell the promise of a judge running the United States army in exchange for cash. That apparently really happened. I wonder how the army feels about that . And that leaves me with one last question. Well get some expert legal advice in a second. I may be able to answer this last point. After the email was produced in court about the Trump Campaign apparently selling this would be job offer to run the army, the Defense Counsel for Paul Manafort asked Rick Gates In Open Court if anyone else from the Special Counsels office had questioned him about his own work on the Trump Campaign. Question, in terms of your cooperation with the Office Of Special Counsel after you took your plea, did you have occasion to be interviewed by other members of the Office Of Special Counsel about the Trump Campaign . Answer by rick gates, yes. Question, were you interviewed on several occasions with your time at the Trump Campaign . Interjection from the prosecutor. Objection, your honor. The judge says, all right. Do you need to come to the bench . The prosecutor says, please. The judge says all right. You may do so. And then this is the right next thing in the transcript. Pages 1399 through 1425 are filed under seal. Six pages sealed and were not allowed to see what happened next. The judge brings the lawyers to discuss it without the jury hearing. It does not end up in the transcript and we dont know what happened. Then they adjourn for a long recess there after. Paul manaforts case has back case that is in part about theTrump Campaign. Not just because he was Trumps Campaign chair. Prosecutors went there today by essentially offering evidence in court that Trumps Campaign chairman was offering the job of running