Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Very troublesome for the president here. The fact is if President Trump were president right now, he could be indicted for these Campaign Finance violations, couldnt he . Absolutely. When you look at the way the prosecutors have described it, when you look at the way Michael Cohen described it in court, these documents, its criminal information, so its essentially laying everything out. If this was an indictment and trump, donald trump was not the president , we could be looking at an indictment against the president. We could also, you know, if this was an indictment, look at this as the president being an unindicted coconspirator. Think of that, and certainly, the ramifications of that. Its really serious here. Well see what happens from here. The other thing in these documents that the prosecutors have talked about was that Michael Cohen, and we dont know who these people are, was working w
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with indepth reporting and investigations. Perhaps even before watergate that a federal criminal guilty plea has taken place. And the guilty person has said i committed this crime with and for the president of the united states. If this were any other person, given the evidence that was presented in court today, it seems to me a virtual certainty that donald trump would have been indicted and charged, too. Remember, who benefitted from this Campaign Fnls Violation . It wasnt Michael Cohen. The beneficiary was, according to Michael Cohen, the person who directed and then helped cover up this Illegal Campaign contribution. This brings this criminal case to the door of the Oval Office Like nothing we have seen before in this investigation. But jeff, obviously, you know, sitting president ,
according to precedent, not law, cant be indicted. Had the president leaves office, is this something charges could be pursued against him for . Well,
the journal reports, mr. pecker granted immunity for his grand jury testimony, told investigators about mr. trump s involvement in the mcdougal deal. joining us now, barbara mcquade, a former u.s. attorney and an msnbc legal contributor, and david corn is back with us. barbara, your reading of the legal implications of this wall street journal reporting? well, it s a very painstaking walk through the very same criminal information that michael cohen pleaded guilty to. but they filled in a lot of gaps here and filled in a lot of blanks. you know, it is protocol at the justice department when you re not going to charge someone, to refer to them by a pseudonym, candidate one, executive one, et cetera. and based on the reporting, we now know that president trump himself, if this report is true, was intimately involved in every step of the way, which makes him essentially an unindicted co-conspirator. but for the justice department policy of not charging a sitting president, they would
it should have but i salute the wall street journal for putting it right back in the middle of the radar screen. let s listen to another moment of donald trump lying on fox news on the question of when he knew about these payments that michael cohen was arranging. later on i knew. later on. but you have to understand what he did and they weren t taken out of campaign finance. that s the big thing. that s a much bigger thing. did they come out of the campaign? they didn t come out of the campaign. they came from me. barbara mcquade, your reaction to that after what we ve learned from the wall street journal ? i think one of the things that a prosecutor looks at when they re considering whether there is guilt, especially for a crime like this which requires willfulness, meaning that you know that what you re doing is illegal, is evidence of what s known as consciousness of guilt. and when somebody is changing their story or lying about the facts, then that is often evidence
the rupert murdoch-owned wall street journal has another devastating article tonight about donald trump that will be ignored by the rupert murdoch-owned fox news. a team of five reporters at the wall street journal have sources inside the federal investigation of donald trump and his former lawyer, michael cohen. the journal says they interviewed, quote, three dozen people who have direct knowledge of the events or who have been briefed on them. the wall street journal has the smoking gun on the national enquirer s illegal attempt to help presidential candidate by paying women to remain silent about their sexual experiences with donald trump. the article includes a description of a meeting during the presidential campaign in trump tower with donald trump and david pecker, who runs the national enquirer. that is the smoking gun meeting.