Page 49 - John Laurel News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Nears with the rips wary of any preelection surprises. there have been 32 indictments, 5 guilty pleas and two people behind bars. one of those guilty pleas is from former trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos. on friday he is set to appear before a federal judge. over the weekend his attorneys filed a 16-page defense sentencing memo alleging that mr. trump and attorney general jeff sessions approved of the meeting between trump and russia's vladimir putin during the 2016 campaign. joining me now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor and john laurel, former federal pro...

>> as professional prosecutors, they're doing the absolute right thing which is not to make a comment, not to engage in a political tit for tat. the bottom line also is these charges were brought by local u.s. attorney's offices that are independent from the department of justice. so it's hard to say to the attorney general you are responsible -- >> who has recused himself from things having to do with this in particular. >> exactly. for example, the local attorney's office here in manhattan brought the michael cohen case. so it shows the independence of the local offices trying to do their jo...

Prudential and think through whether actions he takes will affect elections. >> john, former federal prosecutor yourself, so is rudy giuliani. he obviously knows this stuff, but rudy giuliani has now for a few months been saying things that are contrary to the law, but he's not -- doesn't seem to be all that concerned with that. he seems to be waging a campaign in the public sphere that isn't all that concerned with the law. i don't understand the strategy. if any of this stuff shows up before a court or a judge, they'll soon find out what rudy giuliani has been telling the people isn't exactl...

Administration would reverse the obama administration's sanctions punishing russia for meddling in the election to help trump win. i'm joined by frank figlusi, former assistant director of counter intelligence at fbi. john laurel and paul butler, former federal prosecutors. what do you think is the damaging information, frank, that this guy holds? that flynn can give to the prosecutor to use as he wishes? >> yeah, look, we heard the judge today in court say that your sentence depends on your cooperation. i think that cooperation's going to go right to the top. i want to throw out three names h...

Also now exposed. so we've got to watch carefully the next moves that take place here. >> john laurel, i think the question lies out there, who gave the inexperienced jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, the notion that he could negotiate mideast policy with all the nations around the world, including russia? who gave him that right? >> well -- >> in fact, that duty to do that? >> presumably it was the president, president-elect that did it. i want to be clear about something. the special prosecutor has tipped his hand. he is not looking at this as a criminal matter with respect to conta...