account in sentencing. the weird thing about this is normally cooperators are sentenced after the investigation is closed so any secrets revealed don t impact the investigation. there is some question about is there any confidential information mueller will want to hold back. after all, the investigation is still pending. flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his discussions with the russian ambassador about sanctionings. one of the big questions has been how much does donald trump know about that. when did he learn that mike flynn had lied, and then there are these other ancillary things. this memo may also cover bad acts, other potential crimes flynn has admitted to and wasn t charged with. there was a whole allegation about the scheme to extradite the cleric for $50 million. there was another story that a man named petter smith was working with mike flynn. there were allegations surrounding mike flynn s son. it s an open question whether we ll see any of that covered in this memo. i
a very busy tuesday morning. good afternoon from msnbc headquarters. mueller s big month, a string of court deadlines start today in the russia investigation, and with them could come trove of new information. and the first new filing will bring back a name we haven t heard in a while. you may remember him, michael flynn. plus, rebrief, the cia director is expected to meet with a key group of senators right now behind closed doors. they re talking about saudi arabia after the first briefing from the administration did not go so well. also, crowded field, the uncomfortable truth facing democrats who may run for president in 2020 involving who they choose to run their campaigns. but we start with the man who whose lies to the fbi helped kick start the russia investigation. sometime today bub muellob muel team is expected to hand down a sentencing memo on michael flynn. it s the the first of several
about the mueller investigation are, number one, exactly what evidence on all of these fronts the mueller team has obtained, and number two, the exact timing of when this investigation will be wrapped up. we do know one big thing for sure, and that is that a lot of people close to the trump business empire and close to the trump campaign have been cooperating with the mueller team for a long time. it s possible that none of that cooperation is leading to indictable evidence, but it s extremely unlikely in my view that that would be the case. in my experience as a federal prosecutor, this number of cooperators, cooperating for this period of time, means that there s a lot there, and of course with respect to flynn, whatever communications or contacts the trump campaign was having with russia, it appears that flynn was right in the middle of that, so this latest development with flynn should be very interesting.
2017? well, at that point, you know, paul manafort was still in contact with the trump administration and with the president, this investigation obviously hadn t yet unfolded the way it has, but it is you know, it is pretty egregious, and eye popping, i suppose, that manafort was continuing these talks and continuing to attempt to leverage this kind of influence and broker these deals so far into 2017, but again, we will, as you just said, we re going to find out all of the facts and what exactly paul manafort lied about come friday when mueller files this public memo, which i also think is significant in the fact, in the idea that, you know, manafort s lack of cooperation hasn t hampered the investigation as mueller is tieing up loose ends. to that point, the president has weighed in on a lot of
and could that question be answered in today s filings? that s a great question, in fact. w one of the things the white house will tell you it doesn t matter if he did ask jim comey to back off that investigation. they have made the assertion that the president s power is so unchallengeable in terms of running the executive branch, including the justice department that his statement to jim comey even as reported by jim comey would not be obstruction of justice. he does deny it. he s never admitted to it, but jim comey kept contemporaneous notes that were later provided to investigators, so he has something the president doesn t have, which is a document of that meeting. let me ask you, ken, really quickly about the defining two weeks we are in the middle of. when you look at the time line, you ve got friday, mueller gives more information on the busted plea agreement with paul manafort. you also have cohen s agreement, george papadopoulos expected to