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The manafort case, and how helpful gates can be if he becomes a cooperating witness. >> sure. rick gates was a top aid to paul manafort for at least a decade in their consulting business and that carried over to when paul manafort was hired by donald trump to be chairman of his presidential campaign as of june of 2016. but getting to the indictment, both manafort and gates are charged with now, as of late october, by robert mueller's team of prosecutors and the grand jury -- paul manafort is accused, alleged to have laundered some $18 million through tax haven accounts in places like the grena...

Places like the grenadines, and rick gates was a partner in that crime according to the indictment. the indictment alleges that rick gates personally took $3 million out of those accounts that were in these tax havens and spent it on his own personal needs, including things around his residence, what have you. >> david, what about this notion he might be pleading down to an 18-month sentence. that sounds like a sentence that you would get at trial would be a significant multiple of that. >> he was facing a significant -- he would face a significant multiple of that if he were convicted at tria...

The indictment of paul manafort and rick gates says that both men for years were unregistered agents of the ukrainian government and hid millions of dollars of ukraine based payments from u.s. authorities. according to a person familiar with those talks, gates a long-time political consultant can expect, quote, a substantial reduction in his sentence if he cooperates. he said gates is likely to serve about 18 months in prison. joining us now david willman a reporter for the "los angeles times" and also with us is maika oyang. tell us how it's different from

He considers to be the right thing. the more difficult unknowns here are how he is going to apply his discretion. which potential targets are going to get immunity from prosecution and under what terms. who will ultimately be prosecuted? to what extent will special counsel mueller use his discretion to bring charges perhaps on those matters that are not directly yet defined within his original mandate but yet he clearly is authorized to go after those if he deems it appropriate. >> we urge folks to go to the website of the "l.a. times." people can read the washington-based reporting of the rec...

Of that piece. david willman won the pulitzer for investigative reporting back in '01 for his work on the pharmaceutical industry. he also wrote the book about the anthrax attacks on this building, we might add, and elsewhere in the post-9/11 era. it is called "the mirage man." thank you very much for being with us and especially for the democrats who now view bob mueller as the most important man in this democracy because as they see it he's the man who could save this democracy, what in your view do they need to know about bob mueller? >> i would suggest they might want to pay attention to t...