Our condolences to his family. That is our broadcast for this friday night and for this week. Thank you so very much for being here with us. Have a good weekend and good night for all of us here at nbc news headquarters in new york. So it is a small enough range of what theyre looking for aesthetically that im thinking you beak have to register as having acceptable haircut a or acceptable haircut b. Those are sort of the two lanes that are available 0 to you. Under hair cut a, we have ben affleck. Or josh brolin or mark wahlberg, or jake gyllenhaal, or Chris Helmsworth or the great Anderson Cooper or the great jimmy fallon or that guy from The Hurt Locker who was so good. Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Unquote, contract that included the exclues you be rights to publish her story about having this alleged longrunning extramarital affair with donald trump. Having obtained those exclues you be rights to publish that story, American Media and david pecker decided to not run that story. So that was widely viewed as whats called a catch and kill deal in wilAmerican Media beak told basically dg candidate trump the favor of making sure that embarrassing story about this alleged affair would never run in print. So American Media paid miss mcdougal in august 2016, late in the game, donald trump was already the republican nominee for president that the point. Now, did the president s have this affair . She says yes. He says no. You say la, la, lala, im plugging my ears. Stop talking about there, i dont want to know. I understand. But federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether that transaction was an effort
president s lawyer mike cohen are now officially in possession of all of the evidence they are going to review to decide whether to try to bring federal criminal charges against mr. Cohen. The Court Appointed official, the Special Master who had been appointed to review all the evidence that was seized from cohen to see if any of it has to be kept from prosecutors because its covered by Attorney Client privilege, that process has come to a conclusion. Weve heard that both from the Special Master herself and confirmed by sdny. At the conclusion of that, only a tiny fraction of the nearly 4 million files federal agents seized when they raided his office is, apartment and hotel room turned out to be protected by Attorney Client privilege. Only a tiny fraction of those documents were held back. The rest have been given to sdny. Those prosecutors at sdny we believe from the wall street reporting, we believe they have convened a grand jury to consider account Michael Cohen matter, or that is considering the Michael Cohen matter. Those prosecutors are now in the possession of all the evidence that they need to make their own decision on whether or not to ask that federal grand jury and sdny to bring charges against cohen. In addition to bank fraud Andtach Fraud charges that are a little bit like what Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been facing, one of the other issues reportedly under consideration by federal prosecutors and this Be Federal Grand Jury in new york senior Michael Cohens involvement in that alleged payment to cover up that alleged affair. I mean to compensate Karen Mcdougal for how much mens journal wanted and needed to put her on their cover instead of ben affleck again. Why would the president be talking about reimbursing American Media for their contract to Karen Mcdougal if the contract was really just to put her on Fitness Magazines . Why would the president be talking to his lawyer about
paying that money back . So its ticktock at the u. S. Attorneys office in the Southern District of new york. For what its worth, that is the same federal Prosecutors Office that brought multiple felony charges this week against Republican Congress man chris collins, the first member of congress who endorsed trump as president , he served as a Senior Member of the trump transition and now arrested and indicted. Same federal prosecutors that are considering Michael Cohen. Its ticktock at Southern District of new york for the president s lawyer. And apparently its also ticktock in virginia at the criminal trial of the president s campaign chairman. And boy, did this not go the way we thought it would today. This was humbling. We really thought, i really thought with Confidence Heading into today we knew what was going to happen. Judge has been keeping such a tight rein on the way this trial has been going, it seemed quite clear the way this was going to
unfold right through the end we thought for sure, the prosecution would rest their case by the end of today. Then the defense woes have to decide whether or not theyre going to call any witnesses to testify in manaforts behalf. Then closing statements and the whole thing would be done. It didnt unfold that way today. The prosecution has not rested its case. And the reason that happened is because will the whole day in court was taken up today in a mysterious series of conferences at the judges bench between the judge and the lawyers on both sides. Also meetings apparently in the judges chambers where nobody could see them. At one point the judge himself left the courtroom and appeared to walk off not in the direction of his own chambers but in the direction of where the jury usually comes from when had he enter the court. Huh . We have no idea what happened for most of the day today at the Paul Manafort trial. We know that the prosecutors did file another motion asking the
manafort judge to correct something to the jury that the prosecutors say he messed up. You might remember this happened earlier this week, as well. Prosecutors filed a motion earlier this week informing the judge he had improperly scolded the prosecutors in front of the jury for something the prosecutors say they didnt even do wrong. They asked him to tell the jury that he had been in the wrong. The prosecutors hadnt done anything wrong and he should correct that for the jury. The judge acquiesced to that request and did ta earlier this week. Late last night prosecutors asked the judge 0 clear up Something Else with the jury. During trial proceedings yesterday, the judge has interjected while prosecutors were going through a line of questioning with one witness from a bank. The judge interjeked to tell prosecutors they were barking up the wrong tree and shouldnt be trying to problem something with the witness that wasnt going to be legally relevant to the charges manafort was facing. As a matter of law, it looks like prosecutors were right and judge was wrong. And so prosecutors asked Account Jung Late Last Night to clear up that point with the jury, as well. Now, we have no idea if the judge did or did not clear that up with the jury as prosecutors requested. If it did happen it, wasnt in the courtroom in front of all the spectators and reporters there today who had as little idea what was going on as any of the rest of us. So an unexpected turn on what we thought would be the last day of the case against manafort. What are we supposed to make of this . Prosecutors ultimately at the end of the afternoon, they finally did, they brought the jury back in and finally did start bringing in witnesses we had expected today about this allegation that Paul Manafort had offered a Trump Administration job to a bank ceo who had arranged for manafort to get millions of dollars in loans between the election and the inauguration. We had previously seen evidence in the trial and extensive public reporting that this guy from the bank thought he was going to end up being secretary
of the army for his troubs. Today an employee of the bank testified that the banks ceo in fact told him he was maybe going to get to be secretary of the treasury or secretary of housing and urban development. And thats apparently those apparently were dangled in addition to whatever else was damaged to a potential job running the army. That interesting tale about those big loans to Paul Manafort between election and inauguration and whether or not there was some quid pro quo offer associated with those loans for the bank ceo thought he was going to get something from the Trump Administration in exchange for green lighting those loans we thought that would be the finale today. That tale has started to be told but now theres still more of it to tell because they didnt start till late in the afternoon. Honestly, The Big Question now, the big mystery now is what happened during those hours long delays . What happened in all those
sealed discussions that took place four hours out of the jurys ear shot, out of reporters ear shot all day long . We know its delayed the end of the case. There will now be more witnesses for the prosecution on monday. Closing arguments will take place only as early as tuesday if the defense doesnt call any of its own witnesses which they might not. Given the strange turn, senior this the kind of thing that is a normal occurrence or at least not too strange an occurrence in a try thats been running as fast as this one in this kind of court where things seem to be run on such a tight schedule . Whatever went off the rails today, can we tell if it has something to do with the jury or that prosecutors keep trying to correct the judge for him in their words screwing stuff up . And when are we going to find out . This was the note today. We tried to get the formal record of what happened in the courtroom today the transcript
is under seal and will not be available to the public. Some day that may change. Till that happens, we have to ask people who were there what they saw. Joining us now is josh gerstein, Senior Reporter at politico. Thank you very much for being here. Hey, good to be back with you. Was it frustrating or fascinating or both when things sort of took off out of ear shot and in some cases out of ith in the courtroom today . Well, it was surprising the way things kind of screeched to a halt as you were talking about earlier, we had been moving at a breakneck case with the judge pressuring prosecutors to keep it short, keep it short and cut all their witnesses down sometimes spending maybe half as much time as they had intended. To ten then see the judge consume about five hours today with proceedings that were either being held at sidebar or in secret in the judges chambers was a pretty startling development. I would say it was interesting but at the same time,
frustrating because we couldnt get really a clear idea of why the trial had beak been put into some kind of suspended animation. Josh, one thing that happened outside of the direct live proceedings of the trial was this is request from prosecutors for a second time that they wanted the judge to correct something that they thought he got wrong before the jury. We saw the judge in fact a coup days ago did correct himself. He beak agreed with what prosecutors had asserted that the judge had blamed prosecutors for doing something wrong that they didnt get wrong. They asked him again after yesterdays proceedings to correct another matter which is more a matter of law in front of the jury. And we know that is something there was a motion about from the prosecution. It wasnt thing stherp fighting orally and in person. Is there a way to know if that might have been part of why things went so differently today, why the jury wasnt called in till so late, why the
first thing that happened today was Bench Conferences where the lawyers were talking out of ear shot of everybody else in the room . That could be part of it. Its highly unlikely that motion accounts for all the delay we saw. There was enough other weird action going on as you mentioned earlier with the judge moving back and forth to the jurys chamber at the side of the courtroom. That i dont think the issue of what the judge said wrong yesterday while significant, he basically said that attempted bank fraud isnt very important and isnt maybe something the prosecution should be trifling with which i think no one would expect that attempted bank robbery for example, wouldnt be prosecuted as a crime. Its hard to see why attempted bank fraud would be dismissed. That was the issue the prosecution filed that motion about overnight. It is surprising and unusual i think that there was no public ruling on that motion. And there was Nos Instruction to the jury one way or another. Maybe the judge denied it. If he did, he didnt give us any explanation on the record. There was some speculation this morning that maybe the defense or the prosecution was seeking some kind of mistrial on that count. It might be difficult for the judge maybe to fix his mistake without suggesting to jurors he was saying that manafort was guilty on that charge and there could have been an argument of that sort. I guess well find out when we find out with all these things. Josh gerstein, Senior Reporter at politico. Com, i know its been intense coverage all week on this. Thanks for being our eyes and ears there and thanks for being with us tonight. Joining us is chuck rosenburg, former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of virginia and former Senior Justice Department and fbi official. Thank you for being with us tonight. I appreciate you being with us on friday night. My pleasure, rachel. As an experienced prosecutor and somebody who is very, very experienced in the Eastern District of Var Including being the u. S. Attorney there, a lot of us who are nonlawyer and who
are not frequent observers of federal trials were totally flummoxed by this turn of events today. Whats happening . What does this mean . How weird is this . Is the thing going off the rails . Everybody was trying to read the manafort Body Language to suggest if this meant the trial was blowing up . As somebody who has been there, how weird was today . Have you seen stuff like this happen before . Especially right towards the end of a trial . Ive seen things like this happen before. I dont think its going off the rails or blowing up. Maybe i can explain. Sometimes a judge has to take a few hours, two, three, four hours to straighten out an issue. Its not frequent but its frequent enough that we can make an educated guess. It usually involves a juror issue. It may be something as benign as a juror is ill or has an emergency at home. That doesnt seem to be what happened here. More likely, and ive seen this happen in my own trials, once or
twice over many years, a juror accidentally sees something or hears something, maybe overhears a conversation in a cafeteria or a bathroom or a hallway. Maybe Saw Something at home at night after court recessed for the day, overheard a conversation. And more likely than not and again educated guess reports that to the judge. And so why does it take hours to straighten this out . Then the judge has to essentially call a timeout and question the jury and the juror. What did you see, what did you hear . Did you talk to anyone else . Did what you saw what you heard, did that sort of change your opinion of this trial . Can you put it aside . So the judge probably has to make some sort of inquiry, some sort of factual finding. Thats likely what happened here. Because when you see this thing sort of shut down for a few hours, it usually falls along these lines, rachel. In terms of when this is going to become clear to us, i showed the note we got from the Court Reporter today in terms of this being a sealed transcript. Is this the sort of thing we should expect to eventually become public or whatever happened today, these discussions will those remain sealed indefinitely . I imagine it will eventually become public. Theres the courts really want to make all their proceedings public unless theres some compelling reason not to. For instance, grand jury materials are always sealed. But this is an open public trial and i imagine some day, perhaps soon, weigh know precisely what happened. But again, my guess is that its a juror issue, one where the judge had to inquire and had to satisfy himself this juror whatever he or she saw or heard can put that aside and consider the case you know, fairly and even handedly. Chuck, lease Something Else that happened with the Mueller Investigation today that i want to ask you about as a matter of law if youve seen something
like this. Can you stick around for a minute. You bet. Hes back with us right after this. Stay with us. Uhp. I didnt believe it. Again. Ooh, baby, do you know what thats worth . I want to believe it. [ claps hands ] ooh im not hearing the confidence. Okay, hold the name your price tool. Power of options based on your budget and well make heaven a place on earth yeah oh, my angels ooh, heaven is a place on earth [ sobs quietly ]
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