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Is we know from all of our reporting that his lawyers, the president's lawyers have not wanted him to talk about whether or not he's going to pardon manafort. now that we are where we are, where it seems that manafort's case is done, the special counsel is done with him, they want him sentenced, we could be in a different place now where the president feels comfortable talking about it. the other thing is, brooke, is that the idea that the president has never discussed pardoning manafort is just not true based on some of the reporting that we've done. we know that there were discussions about ...

All happening a week after president trump gave his written answers to the special counsel. >> right. and, you know, i know we've been talking about this a lot and i've been calling some legal sources to sort of get my head straight on this, and they do have kind of a loose joint defense agreement, which means -- paul knows this better than i do -- lawyers talk to each other. we understand that. the question that is out there is whether, in fact, what manafort's lawyer is doing is keeping the white house informed and how specifically he's keeping this many informed to let them know that their ...

The pardon power, some people will say, well, he can use that pardon as he sees fit. i don't think that most lawyers would agree with that. i think even the pardon power can be used corruptly and can be used to obstruct justice, and by dangling a pardon in front of somebody to influence their testimony, that could be an obstruction, which would translate into an impeachable offense, an abuse of power and an obstruction of justice. maybe he can't be prosecuted criminally because he's a sitting president, but congress certainly could look at this as a possible impeachable offense. >> let me add ...

It could depend on the facts. it could be witness tampering on his part. what it really is is a violation of the agreement. and the pardon itself if it were to transpire in those circumstances would look like a potential -- a reward for not giving truthful information. that's obstruction. >> it is extraordinary that in the same week that we're hearing from the special counsel that manafort repeatedly lied to him and his team, we have the president saying he may pardon him. just big picture thought. kaitlan, back over to you at the white house. once manafort started getting into trouble, the pr...

Discussed but i think it was april/may what he was telling you the last time it had been at all discussed. but harry littman, possible pardon? what are you thinking? >> well, we are in a different place, as shimon says, but it's no place trump should feel comfortable in. the complication in the last 24 hours with manafort's plea agreement having imploded almost celts the table with a circumstantial case of obstructi obstruction. any pardon now would look like a reward to manafort for an extraordinary kind of double cross of the prosecutor here, ba'ath promi both promising to be truthful and no...