post, robert mueller s real quest, here is for the truth. how paul manafort s plea brings it closer to its end game. details why paul manafort may be the light at the end of the tunnel. joining me now is criminal defense attorney ashley merchant. good morning. good morning. what information can manafort offer the special counsel and what exactly is the end game here? manafort can give a lot of information to robert mueller. i mean, he can really link together all the pieces because he was the campaign manager. he knows everything. he knows who was at the meetings, he knows who had knowledge of dealings with russia, dealings with the ukraine. he could put jared kushner at that meeting with the russians. he could put trump jr. at that meeting with the russians. he could also link the president to knowledge of what was happening with russia and efforts to collude to affect the election. he is a very vital, very vital piece in this investigation.
believe that the 25th amendment could be invoked? it could be invoked but not likely to be invoked. the reason why, there has to be a majority of his own people. a majority of his own people would have to think he s not fit for office. it s not that they second-guess him. they have to believe he s not fit for office. then it would go to congress and congress would have to sign by 2/3 of a majority, 2/3 of a vote that he s not fit for office. there s a lot of different steps and it s very unlikely that it would be used effectively to remove the president. it s normally where the president is incapacitated due to a health issue or an accident. this would be a new ground if it was used to actually get rid of a sitting president for reasons other than health. unprecedented again. ashley merchant, great to have you here. thank you. which senate democrats are
that s auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. eric: jury deliberations in the paul manafort financial fraud trial set to resume again on monday morning. this is the judge in the case reveals he has received threats over it. the jurors meanwhile has spent two days in deliberations over the 18 counts of bank fraud and tax evasion that he is facing her defenses is a good sign that the verdict did not come in yet. what are they considering? let s bring our legal panel. a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, ashley merchant, enteral criminal defense and civil rights attorney. welcome to you both. jonah, let me start with you. thank you. eric: several accusations, what you think is the most damaging?
the most damaging? this is a very complex case. i think the problem for the jurors going to be coming to a consensus on all 18 counts. let s do the ath. you have 12 strangers who have two deliberate and 18 counts. these are complex counts. i told him it jaywalking. in order for them to either come to an acquittal across the board or conviction across the board, 216 decision need to be made on the same page, i do not think it is likely. it is not impossible but i do not think it s likely. ashley, it takes a while to wrap their brain around it. even activity for the definition of reasonable doubt. the jury is probably just right! i am sure they are just starting. this is not the longer time for a complex case like this. you ve jurors after the through every piece of evidence. every single witness and determine whether or not they will believe the witness and what the witness actually
influence the jury. so definitely inappropriate. it could be considered jury tampering. and he shouldn t have done it, he should have kept his mouth shut. how about .presidethe presid comments, is it a likely looked for a pardon should manafort be convicted? i definitely think it is a signal and i think it is a signal to the jurors because it devalues what the jurors are doing. the jurors have given up three to four weeks of their life. and if he is just going to pardon him after they have done all of this work, if i was a juror and i heard that on the news or i heard that the president supports defendant, that they are determining whether or not he did it, it would make me think why am i even here. why am i here as a juror determining this if the president is just going to circumvent what i m doing as a juror. ashley merchant, thank you very much for weighing in. coming up, president trump tweeting and the intelligence community reacting to the decision to revoke the security