Business news and analysis. Violations. It could land him in prison from 35 years. Mercedes, that issue will come up whether mr. Cohen has decided to do this to get at this out of the way and hope and pray for a pardon down the road. Certainly what our calling is done as wonder if they are going to get cooperation. Frankly, they could have a discussion with mueller later on and find out what he knew. Whether President Trump knew of the meeting and what the meeting was taking place. And the payment to Stormy Daniels. Whether the president knew about either of them. And, of course he has come forward and said, look, i think you did know. The backandforth can whether there are some continuation of discussion with mueller is left to be seen. He is without a doubt looking at
something down the road. No lawyer wants to sit, even with that, no lawyer wants to sit in 35 years. That is a significant amount of time. Neil the former doj prosecutor, still better than what he could have made. The plea deal is something, as odd as it looks, a better alternative. Almost by definition. If it is a Plea Agreement, each side is giving up something. Realistically, mr. Cohen must have thought he had greater exposure than 35 years. We have to look at the plea letter. It will be fascinating if and when we get a chance to look at it to see how it characterizes his involvement, what the statement of facts look like. Is it really creating the ceiling and floor of 35 years. That is very unusual. Even if it is an oncall operator plea letter, that is not rule out that he pulls the bullet back out of himself and
cooperate before he gets sentence appeared we are not seeing the full pitcher even when we get the plea letter. Neil would he be sentence as soonest today . No, it is very rare that a person leaves guilty and gets sentence on the same day. Neil would he be considered a flight risk . The judge has that option. I would say, generally speaking, in a whitecollar case where a client walks in the court voluntarily and is not trying to evade justice in any way, most likely they walked back out. There might be some conditions and restrictions, but it does not ring like the type of case where cohen will be going out the exit instead of going out to his car. Neil it would not be a Paul Manafort situation, regardless of how this issue works out for him, it is the first wave of indictments we have seen on 18 different counts. Even if he were to survive them all, he has to wait and do for the second wave that comes later
on . That is exactly right. Done with respect to the plea. He is not going to face any additional charges that we know of. It will be done today. Neil we know going in there and sorting out what the deal is and whether he pled guilty . He was the victim, Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, those were payments made on behalf of the account of donald trump, right . The issue there, and that is why we want to look at the statement of facts on the Plea Agreement, is whether he is directly implicating the president for Campaign Finance issue. Unfortunately, in todays world, not every hush payment is necessarily anything criminal. A may be embarrassing, it may be a bad moment for politics. But, it is really a question of
whether that funding touched on the Campaign Funding that creates a possible liability for the president. Again, not knowing whether he is cooperating or knowing if he is accepting guilt, we have to wait and see in terms of whether he is taking a bullet or aiming a bullet at the president. Neil that is well put. We will wait and see if that is what is going on in new york at the courthouse. We are told Michael Michael cos already arrived. In the meantime, there is another jury note in a separate issue. The Paul Manafort trial that has been going on. This is the fourth jury that has deliberations here. At the jury is confused on a number of matters. They wanted clarification from the judge. He is outside the courtroom and the in virginia with legs. If the jury submitted another note. We dont know the question. The prosecution and the defense are heading back. Christines lead attorney was asked if there was a verdict and he told a group of reporters that we would know in a few minutes. It will take a few minutes for the information to get out of the court, because there is no electronic. It has to be manually written down and carried out. Earlier today, the judge told jurors that said they had a problem reaching consensus on some of the counts that if that continues to be the case, he will eventually ask them how many of the 18 counts they have reached unanimous verdict on and how many they have not. We dont know if that will happen right now. Something else that the judge told the jury earlier, it is your duty as jurors to consult with one another and Reach Agreement. Before the jury came into the room, the judge told the Daniel Patrick moynihan team and the christine that he does have the ability to reach a partial
verdict but has not yet given the option to the jury. There are questions about how stuck they really are. Somebody who still saw the note told me that it was edited and it did not appear that the jury was asking about a single count when it was initially drafted. It is not clear if they came to an agreement on a single charge or one single charge. It is a good point in this trial to have a question like that. The Manafort Defense Team has said the longer deliberations go, it is better for their client, Paul Manafort. The judge instructed the jury to go back and review all of the evidence in the case. We dont know if they have decided that they have gone far enough, but again, we will know in the next couple of minutes. Neil thank you, james, what do you make of that
anonymous situation there . 18 counts that the jury is waiting. If they are confused on one, and lets say that they cant unanimously convict on that. It doesnt mitigate the other 17. You could have a case where they are guilty on 12 counts. How do they go . In the federal system, if you get convicted of any counts, you are in trouble. From reading the tea leaves associated with the prior notes, it may be that they have reached the verdict on 17, if they hang on one of the 18 counts, it will not make a difference in The Grand Scheme of things. The acquittals or convictions within the 17 counts are going to become the law of this case. I think what you will see is a judge probably asking them at their note hasnt already taken care of it, asking them if there is any reason to keep deliberating on this one count. If they say no, we are at an impasse on this one counts, then he will take the partial verdict. Partial in this case could mean
17 out of 18 counts. I think it is probably a fairly optimistic sign for the prosecution at this point. If they could get to the point where this jury methodically looked at exhibits and didnt immediately walk away from this case, despite the testimony, and they reach a verdict on 70 counts, i would be surprised if there werent guilty verdicts. Neil thank you very much. The senator is commenting, i believe on the Paul Manafort case. Lets go to him. He responded that he did stand by his testimony. We hope that todays developments and mr. Cohens Plea Agreement will not preclude him from an appearance where he is needed from an ongoing investigation. Thanks very much, guys. They want im sorry, they were talking about the palm michaen situation, not the Paul Manafort situation. There are a lot of people that are going to look at the Manafort Situation, because no matter what is decided here, the
second case that the government is bringing which they have a lot more ammo, right . I dont know if it is a lot more ammo. They have one additional fact that is pretty, and that is abstraction. If you recall, mr. Manafort was not locked in this case. He had a number properties, duly angle bracelets on. I dont see that changing with a conviction of any count, i guess a straight acquittal, he might try to make a motion with the d. C. Court to try to get back out into the community. But, realistically, on the immediate horizon, he has the Foreign Agent registration act violation and obstruction case waiting for him. It will be real interesting to see how strongly each side wants to pursue trial in that case after the start. Neil james, when the jury was admonished by judge see if
ellis, it is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so. If you cant, he seems to be saying, move on. That is called an allen charge. It is named after a case that went to the Supreme Court many years ago. It basically tells the judge that if the judge wants to push them in the direction of anonymous verdict he or she is allowed to burst in. It is very soft language overall. Dont abuse your own reality here. Stay with it. It is a little bit of a mixed message. It is designed to get them to a mixed verdict, but it is not the end of the world if you cant reach account. It is one of the things that the judge does when they get a sense that the case might be hanging. Whether it really works or not is a different question. We are heading towards some sort of verdict by the end of the day or first thing in the morning. Neil if you are found
guilty of all 18 counts, i guess he was spent close to 400 years behind bars. An unrealistic bill but that is. He would be staring at prison for the rest of his life. If there is certainly the option for the judge. In all whitecollar cases, the Sentencing Guidelines are driven by the loss amount. The millions of dollars that were in play. Back in somewhat hyperinflated the exposure when you Start Talking about guidelines of 30 yearslike. I dont think it will be a serious conviction peered but he is looking at a lot of time. It could be eight years, ten years, 12 years. For a whitecollar criminal, that is a serious head. If he gets convicted, he is looking at a sentence. The maximum sentence or the statutes allow or the Sentencing Guidelines. Neil you dont read it one way or the other in the time. The jury is delivering over something, the prosecution resolved, we are told by the
behavior that Paul Manafort had today, he was unusually in a good mood. You dont read anything at the time i jury just wave stuff. Not yet, they want to help with exhibits. There is 383 exhibits if i remember the number correctly. When you have that much to sift through, they are going to methodical and sift through 383 exhibits by count. That will take some time. I think what is more important is when they start giving note saying, we are hung, or we have a she. But the actual amount of time that is gone is not externally. We might have a prosecutor that is nervous or close business tomorrow. Today is not a big shop if they come up with a verdict. Neil all right, i do appreciate that. In the middle of this, we are monitoring very, very closely. We are they away from potentially a historic development. The market, if we dont collapse within 20 , the largest bull
market in american history. Charles, we held onto a lot of our gains. Im wondering whether a lot of this other stuff that we are seeing play out, former top trump lieutenants like Paul Manafort awaiting their legal future. Does that way on investors, do you think . We saw it a lot more earlier in the year, neil, when there was news out in respect to President Trump or someone on his legal team. We were as high as 130 on the dow jones, but yesterday, we gave up 38 points, friday we gave up 59 points. Thursday, we gave up 49 points when drawing us to the close. I think that is more of a summary of doldrums. We drift into these closes. I would not read too much into it. But it would be a heck of a onetwo punch and a test for the market. I think also, when investors sought that cohen was going to
get time, up to five years, it does not sound like someone who would flip on the president of the united states, we are talking market people, not lawyers. This could be a real subdued, benign response if wall street was really worried. Maybe, we will know more in the morning, though. Neil over the many years we have been following these markets, they have more uncertainty. This is a new wrinkle of uncertainty. Of course, improving earnings, the economy, and Everything Else that you have been talking abou about. That basic, fundamental backdrop remains. Then what . If the street at the very least the president faces an extended legal quagmire, and that is a leaf, we are nowhere near that. Then what . That is a great question. The regulatory cuts are in place. The tax cuts are in place. Business investments have been increased. We are talking investments for capital expenditures, building factories, or youre building things that will make investments last 330 years. All of those things are in place. We have a heck of a momentum. It is hard to believe that the economy is about to collapse. You could get an emotional, kneejerk reaction to the marke market. I certainly would feel if im an investor, focus on the fundamentals. Rather than the headlines on the front page of the newspaper. Neil all right, buddy, thank you very much. I did not mean to have that pause there. We are getting word that there has been a verdict, but they were not able to reach in the case of Paul Manafort. Ten of the 18 counts involved. We dont know which ten they are. We do know that a verdict has been reached on close to half of those other issues. Dont know, for example, whether it is one or two sided by the juror. There was some confusion. Judge cfl is said, he wanted to go back to the Drawing Board and keep trying. His quote was, it was your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so. They are trying to do so, and apparently they have reached an agreement. On eight of those counts. 18 counts of particular. Lets go to peter in the courthouse, outside the courthouse of alexandria, virginia. Peter, what do we know . Neil, we are getting word from inside the courtroom that the jury team came to a unanimous verdict on eight counts in u. S. Versus Paul Manafort. There were 18 counts that he was being charged with. That means that the jury came back to the judge, they said they could not come to a unanimous conclusion on ten
counts. Again, information comes out of the courtroom as fast as somebody from our team can write it down and run it out. The first think that we got was word that there is a verdict, again in eight counts out of 18. We have long understood since the trial began that wants the jury determined that they came to a verdict, there would be about a 1015 minute wait and that is because Paul Manafort is being held in Solitary Confinement somewhere in the courthouse. They have to go and get him. We saw his wife walk in with the manafort lawyer. They have their prosecutors in the courtroom already. If things are going according to the plan that was laid out a few days ago, right now, they are going to get mr. Manafort and bring him to the courtroom so that he could have a verdict
read on the eighth charges that the jury came to a unanimous verdict on. Ten of them, still outstanding. We will hear what the judge wants to do with those. Neil peter, thank you very, very much. We are following the situation on Michael Cohen who bled guilty, we are told, on what would put him behind bars from 35 years. Potentially, involving payments that were made on Donald Trump Campaign with Stormy Daniels. We dont know for sure, but that seems to be the senator prior to entering the courthouse. Robert, thank you for taking the time. Nice to be with you, neil. Neil and the robert metaphor situation, 18 counts, if they Reach Agreement on ten, if they can, we dont know which of the ten or which of the eight. Your thoughts . The option for the court is
to decide whether or not to send them back to continue to deliberate on the ones that they have not been able to reach a verdict on. It sounds though, from what i understand them of the proceedings were this morning, the judgment was implying that if they could not reach a verdict as to one or more accounts he was prepared to accept a partial verdict. Statement a partial verdict means what . If you cant agree on one, wipe out the others customer it does not. Partial verdict means the court would be prepared to accept the verdict of which they reach unanimity. Acquittal or conviction and with regard to the ones i could not reach on, those would be subject to possibly a retrial. Neil your gut feeling on this, they have reached an agreement on those matters. We dont know what the matters are. We do know that the judge decides from those counts about
prison time. He does. Neil he does not decide today . It will be typically be several months before that will happen. If there is an acquittal, with regard to the remaining counts in which the jury cannot reach in a verdict, they would have to decide whether or not to retry him. Neil a followup matter, the second wave of this. A different district. That trial is scheduled to take place in october. Neil y kept behind bars during all of this . He originally was kept on bail. Immediately after indictment. The reason he was in detained pending trial is because of allegations. I dont know all of the particulars. The substance was that he was hn touch with potential witnesses. That gives judicial attention in a hurry. Neil he was not a flight risk . He was tampering. That is different type of danger to the community. Neil robert, it is so good. Let me switch gears a little bit regarding the Michael Cohen situation. He is not a cooperating witness. That is what i took away from it. Hence the major negotiating. Neil he does not throw the major Negotiating Factor in all of this leading to a resolution was essentially what the parties would agree to as far as recommended sentencing range. That suggests to me that you would only be doing that, it was a straight up guilty plea and not cooperation. He is not a cooperating witness. I thought that from months. He was going to be a cooperating witness, i dont believe that muellers prosecutors would have let go of that. They sent it to the Southern District in new york which
suggested to me that they had come to the conclusion that independently of that case had merit, but they did not suspect that he would cooperate with the government. That could be for two reasons. One, he was not interested in cooperating with the government, or two when he doesnt have anything. Neil 35 years in prison as a tourniquet . To go to trial and lose, in which case you would be facing substantially more time. Neil you could be held for president pardon. That as a positivity as well. Neil went there was part of anger on the team. I would assume bygones are bygones. He has not turned on the president or anyone else. It is entirely up to the president. We have no way of knowing what donald trump may or may not do. Or when he may or may not do it. There will be a sentencing. Sentence will be imposed. There will be presumably no appeal since he probably waved his right to an appeal when entering into a Plea Agreement. He will decide whether to step in at that point whether to commute to descendants or actually give him a full pardon. Neil now, as far as i can see, robert, these particular cases are financial apples and oranges. Talking about collusion et cetera, et cetera. If you are sentence had veered into that area, not so much direct collusion, or working to fix votes or anything like that, but Financial Transactions . That seems to be the focus of the inquiry. I dont think it was reported as significantly as it should have been. Mueller relinquished control over the Michael Cohen case which suggested to me that they no longer had an interest in that and not with proceed on its
own course were unrelated of the mueller investigation. Today seems to be two things. It disconnected from the russia collusion investigation, and second, Michael Cohen it is not, or at least not yet. Neil so, when you say it is a separate issue, the financial part of it, the financial dealings, not rigging boats or trying to gain advantages . It looks like potential Campaign Violations. All of those sorts of things. Again, not all that unlike what we have seen already in the Paul Manafort case. Neil you saw going after bill clinton, wildly in courts, right . It veered wildly off course. Along the way, there were applications made to the Special Division to expand that mandate. If it is warranted we can
discuss whether or not it was appropriate and whether a Special Counsel should have been appointed to do that, but that is in fact what happened. We are all asking the reasonable question, which is where is this investigation going . And what does it have to say about collusion . Neil robert, can you stay here . John roberts who might have had a chance to talk to rudy giuliani, the president s lawyer on all of this. I just got off the phone and did not speak to him about manafort since we do not know what the outcome of that your decision is. I did talk about the Michael Cohens guilty plea. According to rudy giuliani, he has plenty dumb academic he will not serve as cooperating witness toward the prosecution. Rudy giuliani told me that his experience as a former District Attorney for new york, if you are signing a cooperation deal, you leave the idea of a sentence open, because you want to have the maximum hammer in your hand in case the witness decides not to cooperate. The fact that they have agreed in advance to describe a 35 year sentence to cohen, is, is indication that at least in normal rules he has decided not to cooperate, and not ineffective. He might be completing plead ga Campaign Violation and what impact that might have on the president s case as it would seem to link the the trump camn was some sort of illegal activity. Rudy giuliani told him that cohens problem that he has had on many occasions that the president had no knowledge of the Stormy Daniels payment ahead of the election. And had only learned about it afterwards. Rudy giuliani is on the record saying that the president has paid cohen back to 130,000. He said he doesnt see how it could affect us. The president s team is feeling pretty good about this at this point. I also asked rudy gianni if they had heard back on this responseo between eight conditions. They had not. Any idea when it will come . Any idea on and they will make a decision on when President Trump will sit for an interview . He said they will not way forever. They may just make a decision if mueller takes too much time. They could say, you took so much time to get back, we decided that there would be no interview. Cannon shot across the deck to say that you better get back to us or you will get nothing. Neil john roberts, thank you very, very much. Robert ray, the former whitewater prosecutor, now if you have Michael Cohen pleading guilty for tax fraud, making
excessive campaign contributions, we dont know all of the details of that. He did not and does not appear to observe do you think that when they were negotiating this that they were trying to negotiate this that they were trying to get that . I think the issue came up as to what Michael Cohen might have been an position to say about what the president s knowledge was during the campaign. That would be relevant, of course. Neil all all right hang on. On the issue of whether or not there was illegal neil more coming out of that room behind him there. We have at least one guilty count. Peter, why can you tell us . Neil, the jury said they had a verdict on eight of the 18 charges and on count 1, the jury has a great unanimous decision that Paul Manafort is guilty of filing fake tax returns. Im getting handed sheets that have the word guilty on it
five times. We have count one, two, three, four and five. 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. And Paul Manafort has been found guilty by the jury on all five of those counts. It sounds like, outside the court, there is just one person cheering. I could not tell what it was. 5 of 8 so far are guilty for the christine. We seem to have the next few charges any minute. We expect to find out what will happen and what the judge wants to do with these charges in which the jury could not reach decision on in the days of deliberation. Neil we are talking about Paul Manafort. Alexander virginia. The accounts that were originally facing him on this way the microwave of
the five guilty counts. Separately, the Michael Cohen situation in manhattan. Of course, the president s personal lawyer who had pled guilty to Campaign Violations and fraud, all of which could land him in the slammer for up to five years. Robert, you are hearing all of this. More in the Manafort Situation. On the Manafort Situation, we have yet to hear about the remaining eight counts. It looks like there are five guilty verdicts. The other three are likely to be guilty as well. We will find out. He was found guilty as in regard to the tax counts. You file your own tax returns, you know what you file. You signed them. I suspect that the jury probably did have problems with some things related to the bank fraud charges. Neil awaiting financial decisions. A little bit more complicate it. Neil peter . On those three outstanding verdicts, Paul Manafort has been found guilty has appeared on a charges out of 18, the Manafort Jury said they could come to unanimous verdict on, they have been found guilty on all of them. The first five were on filed tax returns. These three have to do with a failure to file a foreign banking count report. Bank fraud and getting a 3. 5 million loan from Citizens Bank and bank fraud and getting a 1 million loan from the bank of california. We still do not know what the judge wants to do with these ten charges that the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on. They are eight for eight guilty against Paul Manafort. Two of these three that came in carry a maximum Prison Sentence of 30 years of peace. The first five carry maximum
Prison Sentences. One of them carries five, like us to 20, and two, 30year sentence is good we are up to 80 years maximum 80 years in prison if my mental matt is correct. Neil i trust your mental math. It would be a lot of time. The numbers are so high. He is not going to get an 80 year sentence. Neil he could better get this . He certainly could decide. The government could choose to entertain the value of his postcooperation in the verdict. The judge will decide on what to do with the remaining counts. He will probably ask the jury, i have accepted your partial verdict. Do you think there is any reason to deliberate with the partial ten . I expect that the answer will be no and he will declare a mistrial as to those counts and discharge the jury. That will then lead the decision back in the hands of bob mueller to decide whether those ten Mating Counts will be retried in a separate proceeding. Neil all right, lets go back to peter. Paul manafort, the former Campaign Manager for donald trump who is facing a lot of time behind bars or not. You have more details . We now know that there have been a mistrial declared in the ten counts against Paul Manafort in which the jury said they could not come to a unanimous conclusion about. Out of 18 charges, they came back with eight guilty verdicts, and then the other ten, they were so stocked that the judge has now declared a mistrial. The information is coming from our team as quickly as we can possibly get it out. No Electronic Devices inside the courtroom. It is really a foot race between
representatives of all the networks who have people upstairs on the ninth floor and in the Overflow Courtroom on the sixth floor here in alexandria. Eight guilty verdicts against Paul Manafort, and ten mistrials on the other ten counts. Neil to update those guilty verdicts, count one, failing to file individual tax returns. There was an easy manner to prove. Apparently the jury did subscribe to pauls individual tax return with the second count. Individual tax returns and in a followup tax return. Reading through these, a lot of these are tax and financial related. That would make sense. You have to sign a return, you presumably know what it is you sign. It is not up to the defense to say you didnt know. The other count about failing to
register as a Foreign Agent and the fact that he had an overseas bank account. That is of the essence of the governments case. I dont remember or recall exactly what the Subject Matter is remaining. Although, i do think that there was a significant defense raise at least in proportion to those charges of exactly what the government can prove as to what Paul Manafort knew. Neil early on, they can be tax related, then foreign bank and financial accounts that were misreported or failed to report. Financial transactions. When you think about it, what is the defense for that . If you have Foreign Bank Accounts if you are the nominee, and you have the foreign bank account, you dont register them. Theres not much to the defense to say that you did not know. Neil by the way, the president was apparently asked about the Manafort Situation as
he was getting ready to leave for West Virginia for this political event. Tonight, photographers tried to address this with him. He had very little to say. He ignored shouted questions on this. The motorcade came with i can review just as the Manafort Decision was announced. There is supposed to be a gag, but we dont know at this point. No reaction from the president. He will be in West Virginia for a campaign event. Neil peter has more information for us now. Again, focusing on the Paul Manafort situation. What do you have . Neil, we are told that the jury has been dismissed as of a few minutes ago. The jury was sent home, thanked for their service, and they all asked the judge to please keep their name confidential. Remember, a few days ago, a handful of news organizations, including the New York Times cnn, filed a motion to intervene in the case. They wanted the names of the cheery, among other things in this trial. Unseal before the verity. The judge said come out there have been threats against him, he did not see why there would not be threats against of the jurors at their names were released. At the time, he was not inclined to reveal the names. The jurors asked that the names not ever come out. They are now on their way home. Neil that is not unusual. People like their anonymity. All of this is what you would have expected. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on those counts. The judge had no choice but to declare a mistrial. He discharge the jury and sent them home. Bob muellers office will decide whether to retry this. I dont want to speak for his office, but its probably likely like that will not be done. It would not result in the retrial. They are facing another proceeding against mr. Manafort in october in any event. My guess is that we have now
heard from this jury and that is the end of the manor. Neil you said that this was something that was much not easier to prove, but more blackandwhite with financial matters. 14 of the 18 counts dealt with financial issues. They were blackandwhite, tax disclosures, banking investment investments. The star witness in this case would be the documents. That certainly was true in regard to the counter that the jury ultimately was able to reach a verdict of guilty. Neil wasnt that originally the case that bob mueller was building . Financial, follow the money . Doesnt lead anywhere . That is the question, isnt that . Does have anything to do, will it have anything to do with the investigation with the Court Mandate which is collusion . So far, it seems to be that the answer to that question is no. Neil no financial hankypanky. What mayor giuliani said today about the Michael Cohen case is that it is accurately reported that Michael Cohen had nothing to say about Donald Trumps knowledge beforehand during the campaign. The fact that Michael Cohen is in trouble and pleads guilty to an offense of Campaign Violation really says nothing about the campaign or the president himself. I think that is why, you can quite accurately conclude from release, or at least what mayor giuliani is saying, about the president. Neil with Michael Cohens lawyers who and in alexandria, virginia, manafort, the former Campaign Manager for donald trump is looking at a lot of years behind bars right now. Again, a number of financial improprieties found guilty on eight counts. The judge declared it would be
on another day. It is not exonerate mr. Manafort on realty on these accounts. He could be looking at the rest of his life in prison. With us now is new jerseys republican governor, Christine Todd whitman. Governor cuomo what you think about all this . It certainly is a bad day for Paul Manafort. Hes looking at a long time behind bars. It would seem from the testimony that we heard from the documents that we heard that this is absolutely justified at the jury did its duty in a very complicated case. It had to have been mindboggling for them with a lot of the testimony. Where they did come to a decision they did appeared we should thank them for their service. But Paul Manafort is not going to be a happy camper tonight. We want you know, there is no collusion, governor. These are separate financial decision. The beauty about some of those issues is that they are very blackandwhite, very simple, very clear. But again, there are a lot of
people that are going to latch onto this and say collusion, there is a financial. Coco it was never really about that. These were strictly on the financial of Paul Manafort and what he did. The fact that he has been associated with the campaign and with the president , there has been tarnished by that. That doesnt prove collusion, it doesnt prove anything beyond the fact behind this case. What else the Special Prosecutor has, we just dont know. What else he might be bringing forward in the next case, again, i dont have any idea. I dont think anybody really does. They are playing it very quietly. They are not trying to extrapolate from this at all. This is just what it is. It was based on the finances. It does not look good for Paul Manafort, certainly. It does not have anything to do with collusion. Neil lets bring attorney into this. The former whitewater prosecutor
who talked with us by the way. I may get your sense of where this goes now. All of a sudden, we have to look at what could come next. It is more digging around in Financial Transactions western mark or does it tip the hand of where the mueller folks are going or totally separate . Generally speaking, i think it is separate. In the sense it is obvious that they drill down hard on financial trade transactions with respect to the investigation of manafort. Neil so is it from that, what does it mean . If you are robert mueller, youre looking on how a jury has decided on this. Even though it was not your case, but it was the buildup of your case, what does it mean . If you think about what the
past shows, mueller has been following the evidence wherever it leads. And manaforts case, it led to Financial Transactions and charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and other fraud against the government. I think that the fact that he did that in the past, he is perfectly willing to do that in the future. It has been pointed out. These charges are not about collusion, per se. They are about manaforts fraudulent activities. The question is, whether or not any of the charges can be applied against manafort to bring pressure against him in the russia case. There is nothing about russia in this trial and in this verdict. Neil all right, peter, maybe you could tell us more about what is going into that courtroom right now in alexandria, virginia. What can you tell us, peter . I can tell you that manafort according to our producer who is in the court, paul was stonefaced throughout. We also told that he will be sentenced on august 28th, and the judge who made a lot of headlines in this case for some of the comments that he made where he was very critical of the mueller team actually said that the government and the manafort defense both had zealots representation. Again, this report will be set us on august 28th, and he does face about 80 years in prison as a maxim appeared on the 28th, he will have a chance to speak, which he did not do at any point during the proceedings here. Neil Roberts Comment that was very interesting. Alice think donna, you almost think judges can be tough on prosecutors without necessarilye
way or another. Prosecutors are always worried about that. If they know the jury pays attention to signals, especially from the judge, that concerns them. The judge will stop here. But he also showed himself prepared to admit a mistake when he made a mistake as far as the prosecution was concerned. He did it in the presence of the jury. Overall, i never really felt that the take away from that was that he was being unfair or unduly unfair to the government. Judges have views about cases just like anybody else. Their job, of course, is to remain neutral and not put their hand and the scales in one way or the other. It is obviously a concern if they were to tip the scales in favor of the prosecution, and in favor of the defendant. All defendants are deserving of a fair trial. Prosecutors do not suffer from an unfair trial. I think the judge was hard on them. Mostly in terms of moving it along. Term, it prevail. Neil im sorry, i left you out with all of these Breaking News Demo months. We are told that the senates is being moved to august 29th. What do you expect . I think that this is an interesting illustration. Walking sidebyside with cohen, we see how many years that manafort is facing. That is exactly the risk that a defendant runs by going to trial. I want to point out for viewers that this is an opportunity for manafort to actually turn over some further information. It is a last chance that he can cooperate with prosecutors to have them lighten a potential sentence in their recommendation. It is honestly not a slamdunk at all. Speaking of slamdunks, i want to point Something Else out for viewers as well. In the charges here, the return verdict, we have an interesting pattern here. Certain things that the media
covered that seems to be a slamdunk, filing reports on Foreign Bank Accounts, those were not slamdunk. Most of those where the mistrial charges. The conspiracy charges, every single one was a mistrial. It was only the more now once, the filing false tax returns that actually returned guilty verdicts here. That is an interesting illustrator and potential piece of elements as we go into trial number 2. Prosecution has a thousand pieces of evidence and documentations which is 600 more than we had for this child. Neil s bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to hide financial fraud from a financial institution. There was confusion there on the other counts. It was pretty cut and dry. Neil you knowingly sighed something. The instructions that the judge gives which the jury
followed and did follow. You have to agree beyond reasonable doubt that he had criminal intent to commit bank fraud. In this case, there was a hard thing to prove. Neil you have to prove intent. It has to go beyond signing a piece of paper. You have to pin the tail on the donkey. You have to prove that he had that intent. Neil you went after bill clinton. Im curious as to what point, if you are the president , and you are seeing these results, rudy giuliani, should they talk about mueller or not . Your decision to talk or not to talk . A couple of things going on here. One, i agree with governor whitman that independently, Paul Manafort has merit, meaning that there were underlying crimes here and had nothing to do with russian collusion. The jurys in the manafort case had a guilty verdict in the counts that they had conviction
on. And with Michael Cohen, they entered a guilty plea. What does this have to do with russian collusion customer if there is no evidence of russian collusion, i think that weighs more in the balance of the president s continuing to apply pressure on the Special Counsel and refusing to grant a voluntary interview. I think that is where that comes up. The third thing to take a look at here and Pay Attention to is this critical period of time between now and the sentencing date, and also the second manafort trial. There is a fair amount of pressure on Paul Manafort if he had anything to provide, provided now. We will have to wait and see. My guess is that the critical time will be between now, the sentencing date, and the proceeding in d. C. In october as to whether or not he has anything further to say to the government. Neil as to all of this, what brought Michael Cohen down, or the president s secretary, pleading guilty to charges of
Campaign Finance fraud, to Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniel Stormy Daniels, and playboy model karen mcdougall. It is out there. You never would have thought that this is where things would end up. The whitewater experience, who wouldve ever thought a land deal wouldve ended up in the situation in which you are investigating the president . Neil i am just wondering, if you are the president or his legal team, they have been talking about the mueller to be 29 hours. The president was perfectly happy, what you think that was about . We have talked about this before. The president rides this torment. I do. Neil would it be he and his talk . No. I think he applies pressure and Labor Day Weekend will come and go. If there is no agreement by that point, i think the president
says, thank you, very much. We will followup. We will followup with a response. The Special Counsel brings fax to the attention directly to the Deputy Attorney general who presumably will submit it to congress to release of the public for the congress to consider after the midterm elections whether or not impeachment proceedings will be brought. That will be the substance of it. I imagine that the republic will be debating that. Neil the house and the senate goes nowhere, right . Exactly. Even if it changes hands, the question is whether or not it will be sufficient to warrant a vote in favor of impeachment in the house of representatives. Look at how that turned out for bill clinton. There is a whole another political conversation to be had over that. See what i hear you, robert ray. Thank you very much. Not about collusion, just about cash. This is about cash payment. The farias others that involved Paul Manafort and campaign
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