Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20180915

Joins me live. And with rescues under way. What we know about the damage caused by hurricane florence. Its still a very hairy situation out here. But all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. Tonight on another staggering day of news were tracking three huge stories, Tropical Storm florence, now downgraded from a hurricane, which is still battering the carolinas as it slowly grinds its way inland, already resulting in at least five deaths. And newly surfaced Sexual Assault allegations against judge Brett Kavanaugh who is on the brink of being confirmed to the Supreme Court. But we begin tonight with the single Biggest Development in the entire course, a special counsel Robert Muellers investigation, Donald Trumps Worst Nightmare just came true. Paul manafort has flipped. Paul manafort has flipped. The president had floated a pardon for manafort, openly urged him to stay strong, tweeting last month that his Campaign Chairman refused to break. Such respect for a great man. But today manafort not only pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy against the u. S. , avoiding a second trial, but he signed his name to an openended Cooperation Agreement requiring his full participation in muellers probe. In exchange for the possibility of not dying in prison. Nothing is off the table in manaforts cooperation deal. He agreed to cooperate, im quoting here, fully, truthly, completely and forthrightly with the government, meaning the mueller team and other Law Enforcement authorities identified by the government in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant. Whatever prosecutors want him to do for them he has to do it. And we can assume manafort is telling a very different story now than he told the public during the campaign. So to be clear, mr. Trump has no Financial Relationships with any russian oligarchs. Thats what our position is. Any trials or other Court Proceedings of muellers choosing. On top of that he agreed to waive his right to have Legal Counsel present in interviews with Law Enforcement and prosecutors. Manafort was also forced to forfeit millions of dollars in assets, including his apartment in trump tower. And if youre wondering how the white house is taking the news and how they plan to proceed, look no further than the two statements from the president s lawyer, rudy giuliani. Statement one goes like this. Once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with President Trump or the trump campaign. The reason the president did nothing wrong and Paul Manafort will tell the truth. Statement two, never mind about the manafort telling the truth part. Its not hard to imagine why the president and his team would open the door to discrediting manafort. He led the campaign through a crucial period when russia hacked and first released democratic emails and presided over the convention where the Party Platform was changed to align with russia opposing military aid to ukraine. He was one of three Senior Campaign aides inside the infamous meeting at trump tower. According to one of muellers prosecutors, Andrew Weissman in court today, manafort has already sat down with the special counsel multiple times to tell them what he knows. To help understand this major breakthrough in the Mueller Probe, im joined by nick akerman, former watergate prosecutor, Natasha Bertrand, and msnbc legal analyst benjamin wittis. And ben, i will start with you. How significant are todays developments . Potentially enormously significant. But we honestly dont know and we wont know until we see the fruits of this, whatever they may be. One of the things about the Mueller Investigation is that they give away very little. And what we know is that manafort is obliged to cooperate. What we dont know is what the what his capacity for cooperation is. And theres you know, you can make a case that this could be the keys to the kingdom. You can also make a case that this is a guy who, you know, is didnt may not know that much and who chiefly what hes giving mueller is saving him the time and expense of going through another trial. And so i you know, my gut is that theres something very significant happened today but i dont think we know that for sure. Its got to be significant. And the reason Social Security significant is you dont just to be clear, you think between those two options, which is that this is saving time and energy and money and resources and cutting to the chase and the idea that its significant in terms of what mueller believes manafort can provide. Hugely significant. Manafort raised the white flag today and basically gave up everything. He is now sitting there exposed to 20 plus years in prison. In order to provide information thats going to make any difference to get him into a sentence thats going to be even reasonable he has got to be singing like the largest choir in this country. He has got to provide so much information, and hes got to feel comfortable about doing that to enter into this deal that he has got to have a lot of information. And if you kind of combine what is going on here with what happened with vander swan, who is the fellow whos now serving time in jail. Yes. Who pled guilty. The lawyer. Right. And you look at the russian angle thats in this huge information that was filed today with this constantine a reputed russian intelligence officer. You look at that and the fact that vander swan at the urging of rick rick gates. Gates wound up having a conversation that was tape recorded. We dont know what is on that. But theres clearly a russian connection. Manafort would know about what roger stone was doing during that period of time when he was a Campaign Manager. He would know what happened at the trump tower. He would know what happened at the convention. He would know what happened after the access Hollywood Tape was released. He has got to have lots of information if hes not going to be spending 20 years in prison. The trump tower meeting is a thing. To bens point about whether what he knows is indicates wrongdoing, he does know at least some things factual or not. Right, things i would know the answer to, for instance, the trump tower meeting. Now mueller has someone who is cooperating who was in the meeting, he didnt have that before and potentially could answer the question about any meetings before the meeting or any followup afterwards. Before today manafort already proffered information to the Justice Department several times. Its clear they thought he had information that was valuable to the broader investigation that he could offer them. Of course, manafort had the most significant russian connections of anyone on that campaign at the time that he joined it. If anything happened between the campaign and russia its inconceivable that he would not have known about it. Its not just the trump tower meeting or the ukraine platform change which was very significant and not just the dnc hack, its also the emails that he exchanged with George Papadopoulos who of course had already known about the russian dirt on clinton they had. He knew George Papadopoulos was setting up a meeting between trump and putin. My bet is this is an area where manafort will cooperate in a significant way. One thing, when we think of the significance, as you outlined the possibilities, you know, i keep thinking about michael cohen. Right . In the case of michael cohen, mueller did not first of all, the case was farmed out to fdny. And second of all, they werent beating his door down to cooperate. Michael cohen was running around saying he wanted to talk to robert mueller. Help me, help me, i want to cooperate. In the wake that trumps former lawyer has been in contact with the special counsels office, but in terms of the differential treatment between the two of them it does seem significant at least in terms of how mueller perceives the relevant significance of these two figures. It is a highly significant fact that manafort kept that mueller kept the manafort case for himself. Exactly. Precisely at a time when he was farming out these other components to not just the Southern District of new york but also the National Security division at justice and the u. S. Attorneys office here in the district of columbia, all got referrals from mueller. Manafort stayed within the Mueller Investigation. And i have to believe that the reason for that is that he believes manafort has some answers to questions that are core to his investigation. Yeah. You know, the difference between manafort having information that mueller wants and manafort having the keys to the kingdom, however, is potentially big one. Right. And i do think it is worth, you know, being a little bit cautious about, you know, assuming that this is the big breakthrough. Well, and i would say here, again, as with all of this, what matters more than anything is what the facts are. I mean, thats the question. What was done by whom in furtherance or not of what we now know is a pretty well established attempt by the russians to subvert the election. We dont know. So the question is what the facts are. To me the thing that im constantly salivating on is just that, just knowing what the facts are. Youve got two major witnesses that are so close to the president of the United States, Michael Flynn and now youve got Paul Manafort the Campaign Manager, Michael Flynn, the National Security adviser. And to give you an example in watergate, we never had any of the inside people like that cooperating to the extent that both of them have to cooperate. So we really do have an insiders view of what trump was doing, and what was happening during that campaign. There was something that manaforts attorney said today, kevin downing, that i want to play for you, natasha and get your feedback. It struck my ear sort of oddly. Take a listen. Mr. Manafort, but hes accepted responsibility, and he wanted to make sure that his family was able to remain safe and live a good life. Wanted to make sure his family was able to remain safe. As soon as i heard this i asked lawyers about it and whether or not once he strikes this kind of deal and when he chooses to cooperate that means that the government would then be required to afford him and his family some kind of protection, the unanimous i got was yes, there would be another layer of protection that he would get now that hes actively coordinating with the government. I think that manafort is less worried about the russians coming after him, and is just arrogant. I think that he was sitting in a jail cell, he knew the walls were closing in on him and he chose to trust mueller more than he trusts donald trump. Thats really significant because, of course, donald trump is a very fickle person. He can choose to give him a pardon or he could not. One of the things that ill be looking for is what manafort actually says about whether or not he was dangled a pardon by the president. Because they did have this joint Defense Agreement and if trump said i will give you a pardon, for example, this exchange for your silence, that would be subject to the crime fraud exception. That would be a crime. Nick akerman, Natasha Bertrand and ben wittes, thank you for being here. Im joined by eric swalwell, member of both the house intelligence and Judiciary Committees, your reaction to the president s Campaign Chairman pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate. Good evening, chris. The jig is up. You know, this nonsense that theres nothing to see her or this was a witch hunt, well now the trump team is oh for mueller. As mueller continues to zero in on the president s family, businesses, campaign, i think the best thing the president can do, chris, is to just be straight with the American People and certainly be straight with the investigation because he now has a bankrupt credibility. And so that credibility affects not just the russia investigation but his ability to lead in a storm, his ability to address Health Care Issues in america, his ability to address the economy. And so the more he refuses to sit down with the mueller team as they obtain more guilty pleas and send more people to jail, i think that affects Donald Trumps ability to lead our country. Did this development, as someone who has been on a Committee Investigating this, did this Development Today surprise you . No, no, but what i hope we can obtain from this as well, and i hope the mueller team is able to learn, is not just Paul Manaforts relationship to donald trump and what he knows of Donald Trumps knowledge at the time as to what the russian intentions were, and what donald trump gave as far as orders, but also how the Russian Intelligence Network works. Because its clear that Paul Manafort was close to russian intelligence officers, based on other people who have been indicted in other press reporting. So we could really color in, i think, some gaps in understanding of, you know, how the russians work if Paul Manafort is able to cooperate. It was striking to me the konstantin kilimnik, he reportedly fled to russia earlier this year, he shows up a lot in the information given in court today as a central figure in the witness tampering that manafort actually pleaded to today. Thats right. And hes an individual that in our investigation we certainly would like to explore further. We also wanted Paul Manafort to come in. We wanted to at least send the subpoena to him and let him refuse. He did testify to the Senate Intelligence committee. But the republicans in our investigation refused to do that. So again, i believe there really is an opportunity to learn more about, you know, what the russians were doing and also one fact not to be missed, Paul Manafort worked for free. Thats pretty unusual at that high of a level of a campaign. And that suggests to me that he had other intentions. Final question, does this increase the odds of the president doing something potentially constitutionally damaging or crisis inducing down the stretch here, particularly in the lame duck session . Well, we have, of course, seven weeks until the midterms. And i think because of these guilty pleas, because the republicans have been unwilling to check the president and the obstruction runs rampant, he is going to be checked at the ballot box. And so they may be able to do that in the short term. He may be able to do that in the short term. But he will not be able to avoid all of the investigations that the republicans were unwilling to conduct in the first two years of his presidency. All right, congressman eric swalwell, thanks for your time. My pleasure. Next, theres a lot to go through in Paul Manaforts Cooperation Agreement. Well get into the details of whats in it and why some of my next guests say it poses an existential threat to the president. They explain in two minutes. The Paul Manafort Cooperation Agreement and information filed today are both hefty documents detailing dozens Cooperation Agreement. Well get into the details of whats in it and why some of my next guests say it poses an existential threat to the president. They explain in two minutes. The Paul Manafort Cooperation Agreement and information filed today are both hefty documents detailing dozens of wire transfers, messages, memos and more. What does it all mean for manafort and for the future of the Mueller Investigation . To help me understand the answers to those questions, elie honig, and an msnbc legal analyst. They wrote together today about the agreement. And paul butler, an msnbc legal analyst. Elie, what jumped out at you . The most important thing we saw in the documents is this is all or nothing. Thats the way federal cooperation works. I have experience in state system. Sometimes in state system cooperation can be selective. In federal, its everything. Meaning what . Manafort has to come in and tell the prosecutors everything he knows about what he did and everything he knows about what everybody else did from the lowest ranking person all the way up to don jr. All the way up to kushner, all the way up to the president. And he has no leverage here. Whats striking to me is hes already been convicted once. Hes facing sentencings there. He pleaded to these two crimes that were going to be in the next trial in d. C. But theres a lot of time hanging over his head. Am i wrong . There is a lot of time. I mean, the way this is structured it is now limited as to these charges that he pled to, to ten years. Thats the maximum. These two today, right. Now, today, they notified the judge in virginia about this plea and also asked to postpone that sentencing as well. So both sentences now are being put off for some period of time for this cooperation to play out. What that tells me is that he is going to try, with the governments agreement, basically, under this agreement, to sort of have all the sentences combined together. Run concurrently. Run concurrently, the counts in here and the two different cases. So hes going to try to sort of wrap it all up into one and get less than ten years because of the cooperation. Reminder, hes a 69yearold man. Paul, and aside from the Cooperation Agreement, you know, whats included in the what was filed by the mueller team, the superceding criminal information is a lot of crimes. He committed a lot of crimes and he admitted to committing a lot of crimes. He admitted to the other crimes, the ones hes convicted of and accused of. Mueller famously does not have press conferences. He speaks through his indictments. In todays plea agreement we get a sense of what he really thinks about Paul Manafort. First, 46 million, thats how much in real estate and cold cash manafort has to turn over, even if theres a pardon manafort doesnt get that back. And the other is, as youve mentioned, the jury in virginia convicted on eight counts, hung on ten, as part of this agreement manafort was required to stand up in court today and say, oh, yeah, those ten felonies, that the virginia jury couldnt agree on, i did those too. I did those, thats right. So, again, not a press conference, but muellers way of saying, mr. President , how you like this witch hunt now . Yeah, so exactly, he got out there and today and he said i did it all. Even though hes only pleading to the two charges hes saying under oath i did all this stuff, all of it, everything youve accused me of, all the criminal activity, i was doing some of it when i was brought on board the campaign. Yeah. Big question is like, what why did manafort end up here . Everyone was like why is the guy even going to trial . It just seems like he ends up with the worst of both worlds. Went to one trial, had to pay lawyer for that, which was expensive, got convicted, now he pleads, retro actively pleads to that stuff. He waited too long. He is example a of someone who why people say cooperate early, cooperate early, first one in the door gets the best deal. The other cooperaters have done the boast. Let me briefly interject, that also could be tremendously abused. Theres lots of people who end up cooperating and end up throughout the criminal Justice System all the time in all sorts of terrible situations because of that. Cooperating, as mimi said, earlier is better than later, but later is better than never. Clearly thats the calculation here. From both point of views. He was up against it. Put yourself in Paul Manaforts situation, 69yearold guy, looking down the barrel of eight, ten, 12 years. The d. C. Trial is coming up. Hugely expensive and going to expose how he earned that money, the inner workings, the things the judge tried to keep out of the virginia trial. He doesnt want that. And hes got a third trial on the hung counts hes now admitted to from virginia. So all thats super expensive. Paul, theres some talk about you mentioned this, that the forfeiture, which by the way is more than the total of the budget of the Mueller Probe spent so far if not mistaken, sort of plundering his way through and feeding the army off what they capture. Theres also the fact that some people think this is pardon proof that it was designed to be pardon proof, not just the forfeiture. What do you think of that . I think the president will probably still dangle a pardon in front of manafort as a way of saying, you know, dont cooperate too too much. But there are a couple problems with that. The first is that now that theres this guilty plea, the mueller can pierce this joint Defense Agreement that mueller im sorry, that manafort had. And with trump. So if the president suggested anything about a pardon to manafort during the course of preparing their defenses, thats obstruction of justice. The president has wide exposure there. Right. And the other thing is that today manafort admitted to many crimes that would also expose him to state prosecution. The president does not have the power to pardon anyone for a state crime. Mimi. Just on that timing question, were talking about manafort pleading, why would mueller cooperate him at this point . Right, i mean thats the big question to me. But i think that does have to tell us a lot about how valuable his information must be. And we just got through the cohen thing was fascinating. Cohen is in there, basically his lawyer is going all over cable news being for the love of god, please, well talk to anyone, what do you want, well give it to you. Phone doesnt ring. They put the screws to manafort with the intention of getting cooperation. The other thing, Andrew Weissman in court today saying weve already done two proffers with the guy, at least two, plural sessions. That means manaforts been in there telling them things. Which means the mar don will not have as much effect if he does try to do it. The way that works is you come in and you say the most valuable thing. Ill get to you in a second, paul. The most valuable thing first, right. Muellers team, their eyes have to have lit up when they got that proffer. The trump tower meeting, this is a guy who is right there. I would want to know every detail about that. How did he get the position as Campaign Manager . Why did the republican platform change shortly after . All that stuff. Paul . And the wikileaks stuff. That happened. So i think theres lots of questions that, you know, mueller will be able to ask. And importantly, part of the deal was that when these great fbi agents and prosecutors sit down with manafort, manaforts lawyer does not get to be there. No. So he gets teamed by some of the best prosecutors and agents in this country. Elie honig, mimi rocha, paul butler, thank you. Florence, downgraded to a Tropical Storm, but still poses threat of catastrophic flooding as it stands to dump rain. Bill karins is up next. At least five people have died in what is now Tropical Storm florence which continues to batter the carolinas tonight, wind gusts reaching 100 Miles Per Hour as florence crawls along at 3 Miles Per Hour. Its dumping more than 20 inches of rain already in some regions, up to 40 inches predicted in other areas. High tide will hit in the next few hours tonight as storm surge and flooding remain major concerns. Nbc news meteorologist bill karins joins me now with the latest. Bill, how are things looking . Were halfway through the marathon. Thats sad. Were through 75 , 80 of the part where the winds will do the damage. Now the rain, through wednesday of next week. Heres the storm walking itself across the border from North Carolina into south carolina. And the poor people up here in Carter County and Craven County areas, new bern, the story last night with all the water rescues. But this feeder band has been over them for 24 straight hours. They cant believe how much rain has been falling. Theyre under a flash flood emergency. Weve had reports of almost 24 inches of rain already and it is still pouring. So for that reason the map here shown in red is where we have flood warnings. We have flood emergencies in place. And thats almost the entire eastern half of North Carolina. And well watch those rivers coming up. We dont care too much more about the winds. Theyre not going to do more damage. The path, its moving to the west a little bit and then flooding threats to areas like columbia, florence and charlotte, North Carolina in the days ahead. But then by the time we get into the mountains, not until sunday, we could have problems with flooding even as far north as the mountains of virginia and well bring rain to the northeast monday through tuesday. Mountains with heavy rain bring a bad recipe any time. Heres the timing, as we go through saturday morning, notice wilmington, still raining saturday morning. Then the storm moves towards columbia, wilmington, still raining 9 00 p. M. Saturday night. Sunday morning, still bands of rain over the top of wilmington. Thats why one of our computers is saying we could get an additional 30 inches of rain in wilmington. Thats insanely high. This is like a harvey situation in eastern North Carolina. By the time we get to sunday it goes to the north there. So heres the computer i was talking about that really adds up the totals. This pink coloring in here, thats where you get to the 20 plus inches. When you get to the blue, start getting to the mountains of North Carolina and up here in virginia, thats when we start to get up here right around seven inches or so. Thats going to be problematic, where we could really start to see the issues. We get to the boon, the ashville areas, the roanoke, those will be the greatest areas of concern. This is the Northeast Cape fear river. We get these river predictions and they update it with how much rain is going to fall. Almost all of the rivers are going to get towards major. Most of them will go to record flood stage. This one goes above record flood stage on monday and its going to break the record by two feet, which is kind of unheard of. And then were going to see it continuing that high into wednesday. I was looking at what happens when it gets up here to 24 feet. 200 to 300 homes with four feet of water in them. Homes that people are living in, that are totally fine, but they know this flood is coming and its going to flood their house and all their possessions. Theres a lot of heartbreak to come. Bill karins, thank you very much for that. Up next, President Trumps Supreme Court nominee now facing allegations of Sexual Misconduct. New yorkers jane mayer is one of the reporters who broke the story. She joins me live next. An explosive allegation of sex yut misconduct has emerged involving Brett Kavanaugh. A woman, who does not want to be publicly identified, asserted in july that during a High School Party more than 30 years ago that he held her down and attempted to force himself on her according to new reporting today in the new yorker. She made the allegation in a letter to her congresswoman. A source says it was then sent to the tom democrat in the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein. Nbc news has not seen the letter. But can confirm democrats on the Judiciary Committee met to discuss this. In a statement he said i categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time. A friend, who was alleged, apparently in the letter to have participated in the incident also denied it on the record. Telling the Weekly Standard its just absolutely nuts. I never saw brett act that way. That man is named mark judge. Feinstein said yesterday she referred the matter to the fbi, which says it is not opening a criminal investigation. Before feinstein referred the matter, according to the new yorker some democrats became frustrated she declined the share the letter with colleagues, saying it did not merit public discussion. The white house is suggesting its a political ploy, accused top Democrat Chuck schumer of an 11th hour attempt to delay the confirmation. Senate republicans say they will not let the allegations slow them down. They still plan to hold a Committee Vote for him next thursday followed by a possible confirmation vote later this month. Joining me now is jane mayer. I had heard inklings and rumors about this letter for a while. It was hard to know what to do with the information. You reported this out. Lets start with this. What, to the best of your knowledge in your reporting, what does she allege happened to her when she was in high school in the letter . What she alleges is that she was at a party and Brett Kavanaugh was there too. She he had been drinking. They she went upstairs, and he and another boy who youve now named followed her into a bedroom, shut the door, locked it, kavanaugh according to her forced himself onto her, held her down. And when she screamed, the boys turned up music so she couldnt be heard and she alleges that kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth to try to stop her from screaming. She then managed to get herself freed from that and ran away. Okay. Now, that is obviously a horrifying thing to have happened, if indeed this allegation is true. Kavanaugh denies, mark judge denies it. Heres my second question. You know who this woman is, i imagine you know her name and identity. Do you have enough to know this cant be dismissed out of hand, i guess i would say, that this woman could plausibly have been in the same social circles, that this isnt someone whos just obviously not credible . You know, we do know a good bit about the woman. And i think, you know, theres certainly some of these details do she did attend a school. She was in the right social circles. Thats what i mean. And thats certainly true. And she had wanted the important thing in this almost is she had wanted to come forward, she tried to in the beginning and to speak out in some way. She brought her allegations, as you mentioned, first to her own congresswoman. And then sent this complaint on up to Dianne Feinstein. This is not somebody who was smoked out by people trying to sort of bring kavanaugh down. This is someone who just wanted she was troubled by what she knew. She felt she had information that she thought was important that she wanted to share with the authorities. In many of the stories and reportings weve seen about allegations of Sexual Misconduct or Sexual Assault in the last year in the me too movement, theyre very hard to independently verify, often because theres one or two people, but one means of independently verifying them is contemporaneous accounts. There are many people who were who say they were victims of Sexual Assault who then told people in their lives, and i wonder if theres any of that present in this case as far as you know. You know, i think what at this point given how explosive this is that i think its important that people like myself be very careful and stick to what weve already reported and verified, which is whats been in print. So i dont feel like we should go beyond that. But we feel absolutely confident in what weve reported. Let me then ask this final followup. I think its just very hard for everyone watching this unfold to know what to do with this allegation, which is obviously extremely grave and serious. But, you know, the identity of the woman is being hidden, understandably. She wants that. Her position, my understanding, is that she does not want to be identified and does not want to come forward at this point even if she did in the past. Is that a correct characterization . I think as of at least last night that was her position and probably still true. She has changed her mind a couple of times about that, and which is evident from the fact that she spoke to a number of people, including the authorities here. Her allegations now have been forwarded by Dianne Feinstein to the fbi which can look into it. All right, jane mayer, thank you so much for being with me. I really appreciate it. Great to be with you. Joining me now former democratic senator Barbara Boxer of california who served along with Dianne Feinstein for years as the two senators from california. Shes host of the podcast fight back. And jim manley, chief spokesman for senator majority leader harry reed. What do you do with this if youre in the senate, senator boxer . Well, weve seen this movie before. You talked about it. The Clarence Thomas battle. Last minute. Anita hill, who did not want to come forward, somehow her letter leaked and it all came forward. And what happened . Everybody slowed down. I walked over to the senate to protest the fact that they were not going to have a hearing with anita hill. If anita hill didnt have that courage many women including senator feinstein and i may never have made it to the United States senate. These senators have to slow down and take a look at this. We all know, after anita hill was heard, joe biden shut the hearing down. Guess what . There were three other women waiting to corroborate. So heres the issue. We dont know if this incident is true. But from what i read the other gentleman involved in it said he had no recollection. He did not deny it as in the way that judge kavanaugh did. And if, in fact, it was true, there are two things. Kavanaugh may be lying about it, or there may be other women who might come forward. We dont know. The only thing we do know is we should slow this down. I just want to raise two things. Mark judge is the individual whos on the record in the Weekly Standard to more strenuously deny, i want to be clear, in that new yorker piece he said i have no recollection. He did deny it in another piece. You reference anita hill. I would like to read anita hills statement on this today. The resonance is eery. She had not wanted to come forward, anita hill saying today given the seriousness of these allegations the government needs to find a fair and neutral way for complaints to be investigated. The senate Judiciary Committee should put a process in place with anyone with a complaint of this way can be heard. No one should have to endure that again. What do you think about what senator boxer recommends, at the very least to slow things down here . I couldnt agree with her more, of course, and that was well said by anita hill as well. Having said that im not convinced, or put slightly differently i dont believe its going to happen. You know, republicans appear to be hell bent to confirming this guy come hell or high water. Again, they stole the seat just last year with merit garland. Theyre not going to spend much time reviewing this guy before they jam this guy through. I want to read senator feinsteins statements. Theres a lot of criticism coming. She says she was given information about the judge through a third party. The woman in question made it clear she did not want this information to be public. It is critical in matters of Sexual Misconduct to protect the identity of the victim when they wish to remain anonymous and the senator did so in this case. Do you think she did the right thing here based on the facts as you know them . Let me tell you what i think she did right, she did forward this to the fbi. That is appropriate. But eventually she did give that letter to the colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. I want to read senator feinsteins statements. Theres a lot of criticism coming. She says she was given information about the judge through a third party. The woman in question made it clear she did not want this information to be public. It is critical in matters of Sexual Misconduct to protect the identity of the victim when th wish to remain anonymous and the senator did so in this case. Do you think she did the right thing here based on the facts as you know them . Let me tell you what i think she did right, she did forward this to the fbi. That is appropriate. But eventually she did give that letter to the colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. If i were sitting in the senate right now and i was not on the Judiciary Committee i would want to be briefed on this. Yeah. Look, this is a once in a lifetime type of appointment. This isnt like, you know, with all due respect, the head of fema, they come and go. This is serious. Every single right that we hold dear is at stake. So when Something Like this comes along after the anita hill experience, after me too, at the minimum time out, lets look at this. Jim, there are lots of people on the right who see this as all entirely a setup, that this was a grenade they had in their back pocket, which a this is being done cynically and the timing of it is cynical and all of us have our own partisan biases and i can imagine people on the the sa pattern happened, as someone who has been on the inside of this, what do you think of that . Yeah, i have a real problem with that, given how well ive known senator feinstein over the years. I mean, she is extraordinarily cautious, maybe sometimes too much so, and so shes very judicious, and she is very analytical when it comes to plotting out moves like this. So for her for someone to suggest that this was a lateminute bomb she dropped is absolutely ridiculous. And thats what they said about anita hill. That is exactly that what they said. It turned out there were three other women waiting to corroborate. And the whole thing was shut down. It was a travesty of justice, and the justice is still sitting on the court. I should also note Chuck Grassley released a letter of 65 women who knew kavanaugh in high school, defending his character which was created since 5 00 p. M. Last night that is what their contention is, not that they knew this was coming. Barbara boxer and jim manley, thank you both for being with me. Coming up, trumps former Campaign Manager agrees to cooperate. What it means for case of collusion, and the slow motion constitutional crisis, right after this. Todays news that Paul Manafort, Donald Trumps former Campaign Chairman agreed to cooperate with special Counsel Robert Mueller and flip means weve entered a whole new phase of the russia investigation. Its not entirely clear what will happen next, but with manaforts cooperation just beginning, it does seem unlike mueller is anywhere close to wrapping up. To talk about this next phase of the investigation, im joined by Elizabeth Holtzman, former u. S. Congresswoman and elliot williams, Deputy Assistant attorney general for legislative affairs under president obama. Heres the way i think about it. I always say it like this, were not going to get out alive. What i mean is this. The trains are going towards each other. Today felt like an accelerant to that. There is some kind of crisis constitutionally about the very nature of the power of the office that were headed towards. Do you believe that . Oh, yes. I wouldnt necessarily use the train analogy. I think about a noose around the neck. And i think the president is going to feel the heat really, really, really scorching him now. Hes got somebodys whose close to him who potentially has not only information about him being the president of the United States, but his son, donald trump, Jared Kushner, this is getting so close to him that who knows what could happen. I think we have to be prepared for a lot of things, and its concerning. But mueller is moving forward methodically. Yeah. The three people in that meeting, elliott, from the trump representing the trump folks is Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and don jr. , the president s son and soninlaw. One of the reasons not cooperating. The other have to be sitting around tonight, thinking about whats going on. Which one of these three is not cooperating like the other pretty much. The interesting thing as you discussed earlier on the show is that with these plea agreements or with these Cooperation Agreements, you know that mueller or whatever prosecutor already has the information, he already knows that there is going to be more. So youre going to see more indictment, more pleas, more statements. And frankly, at a minimum, Paul Manafort now has to be sentenced twice, once in the district of columbia and once in virginia. These are times that this is going to stay in the news. Yes. Its a huge distraction for the president at a minimum if it doesnt make it all the way up to his son or like Jared Kushner or anybody else. Well, thats the question. The issue is what does the president do in response to this getting closer to him . Thats the real fear. Its always been the fear. We saw what he did with comey. There were signals at certain points to back off session. Those signals have changed. The question of how the Justice Department and the investigation are insulated from the president s pressure becomes now a primary one. Right. So he has two different pressures on him. One is, im sure, he would love to get pardons to everybody and make sure nobody can be touched so theyre not going took about him. Youre saying you think the president would like that. Yes. People are telling him you do that and forget the midterm elections. The democrats will not only take the house, but they could take the senate, and youll be in even more trouble. So hes got no out here. Thats exactly right. And thats problem. I think he is caught, trapped, and then what happens . What irrational thing will he do . Okay. So this is why i think, and brian boyler wrote a piece about this, quick spelled that out, elliott, is that the lame duck session is very dangerous for precisely that reason. Right now the electoral effects of major actions are enormous. Yes. And i think youre right. He doesnt want to do that. The day after he enters a period in which he is going to have a lame duck majority in both houses, whatever they do, that seems to be a very dangerous period. And to back up what the congresswoman said, youre talking about constitutional questions and constitutional crises. Look at how the president has employed the pardon power, going back to sheriff joe, pardoning someone for obstructing the court system. Right. He has used it to reward his political allies. And if youre talking about potentially setting up a crisis between the branches of government, this is how frankly, its one of the tools that the president has unobstructed. He can do it. No one can really challenge it. Thats the thing that poses the most problems for the government and for the potential clash that were seeing here. Any pardons now before the election, hes in trouble in the midterms. Right. And also, you know, pardons, thats what nixon did. Yeah. He offered pardons to the burglars. Dud he really . Oh, yeah, thats right. It is an impeachable offense. Lets not forget that. He personally offered them, right . No. He got his aides to offer them. I see. He floated them. But he authorized those offers of pardons. He offered the burglars two things to keep quiet, money, hush money, and pardons. So pardons played a key role. They were part of the articles of impeachment against richard nixon. So lets not forget. Thats a great point. Using pardons to keep people quiet is an impeachble offense. We did it against richard nixon, and he is in trouble now, donald trump, if he follows that course of action. All right, Elizabeth Holtzman and elliot williams, thank you both for making time on this friday night. That is all in for this evening on a very, very, very busy friday news day. Well, Paul Manaforts guilty plea today might be the single Worst Development if Donald Trumps life and in donald trump, jr. s life. Paul manafort whats in the room with him during the president ial Campaign Meeting that donald trump jr. Arranged with a group of russians who promised dirt on hillary clinton. Paul manafort promised to tell mueller every single thing in that room, every word that Paul Manafort can remember in that room and what he remembers might lead to the First Federal criminal prosecution of the son of a president of the United States. Paul manafort could be the key witness in