the one that lept out at everyone in that piece which is basically that they learned of cohen being instructed to do this after gathering this evidence, the documents text, emails, testimony, the special counsel s reference is to that paragraph in the statement? i think so. i said this on the air today. that seemed surprise the notion they would be eemailing andtectsing and discussing a directive to lie to congress. it doesn t seem like the kind of thing you would put in writing and where we re left is the idea of wondering whether there is corroboration in any form for michael cohen s story that donald trump directed him to lie. it s a completely plausible story. it s what he was saying he was directed to make illegal campaign finance but the question is it corroborated? because the house is not going to impeach donald trump on the word of a convicted liar.
about the evidence against cohen being, quote, overwhelming, and that he didn t cooperate out of sort of the goodness of his heart or spirit, but because he was really caught red-handed. so, for trump to say that this clears him, we don t know that all of the evidence that is, quote, overwhelming against cohen, but i m willing to go out on a limb here now and say that given what the southern district has put in black and white, in writing, about the president s actions, i m willing to bet that there is good evidence that trump had the requisite intent to commit this crime as well. and i ll go out on a limb and say this is the biggest act of self-delusion since baghdad bob, who said they were winning the war. i want to bring in ari melber, who s been brilliance on this tonight, msnbc s chief correspondent as well as host of the beat. ari, i love the way you put it up and i want to go back to a deeper question. when trump got away for a while, for a few weeks, with the access hollyw
it all integrates together. that s what i find fascinating. and the prosecutors talk like that. they hit that guy morally. that s the way i read that document tonight. it wasn t some cold secular document. it s saying this is what brings the toxicity into american politics, these affairs being paid off, women being paid off, power being used to snuff out the truth and not enlighten democracy, but deny the truth to democracy and the voters. your thoughts? absolutely, chris. this is a typical southern district, and frankly, any u.s. attorney office type of document where you talk about the purpose of the laws and the spirit of the laws, and that s important, as barb said, to explain to the judge in terms of sentencing. and judge pauley is a judge who takes those laws seriously. you know, i think it s important to point out here that one of the there was a phrase used in the southern district memo about the evidence against cohen being, quote, overwhelming. and that he didn t cooperat
president trump promised to drain the swamp. cohen being the president s lawyer/fixer and simultaneously allegedly pitching himself as mr. access and influence, i have to say that s one of the swampiest things i ever heard. reporter: it is a swampy thing. democrats and republicans alike have done this when the party is in power but as you pointed out donald trump ran on promising to drain the swamp and then his personal lawyer saw an opportunity and our sources say goes to clients, potential clients saying i m the closest one to him. fire these other guys. hire me. promised access to the white house and a thing that s telling is even though giuliani now said that donald trump did not know that cohen was pitching access the white house won t say anything about this so you have a president who ran on a plan and pledge and the white house won t address whether cohen brought the private business to president trump, whether he is hanging around the white house. sara, giuliani just resig