Thats the combining of the denial with the collusion is not a crime narrative. The president was focusing on just the straight up no collusion point. You see it in all the tweets. Now it is roaring back because of the thursday Night Bombshell that the president s own former lawyer and fixer cohen is claiming despite all the denials, the president did know about the russia Trump Tower Meeting in advance. When that report drop, you know what happens next, they picked it up and whipped it around and began running with it again. Its hard to see the point of all of this hysteria. What would the crime be . It is not illegal to talk to foreigners. Nobody is claiming that any information changed hands. Even if did it, so what . I dont think it is bad if campaigns are turning to foreign governments for dirt. Its not collusion. It is not something thats impeachable. As they today . Hacking. Donald trump famously doesnt pay his own contractors and his own long time lawyers . Even if his opponents
Meeting. That trumps own son took it explicitly being promised damaging information on clinton and then the times gave the actual information. The meeting, if it is what you say, i love it. If you did that, you might need a wider defense than denial. In october came the multiple denials. October 30, the Special Counsel announcing the indictments against Paul Manafort who goes on trial tomorrow, plus his deputy, Campaign Manager rick gates. Mueller also announced guilty pleas of George Papadopoulos who admitted contacts with who . Russian nationals. Who he thought were tied to the russian government. Who offered him what . Yes. Information about the possible release of Hillary Clintons emails. So following those indictments we then saw allies of the president including now and this is key, the president s own lawyers, picking up the argument like Go Pro Camera, collusion is
it went away for a few months. The president was focusing on just the straight up no collusion point. You see it i
that . the collusion point would be less of a focus. and all these other sundry things might we don t know all the aspects of it. i m not sure we will ever know all the details of what they investigated and what they did not. but when it comes to releasing this report and transparency, this is the people s report. they make a people paid for this report. they were told that the special counsel investigation was launched under the guise of protecting democracy, protecting their votes. they deserve and have the right to see what s in it. in the past we have seen the fbi and the justice department say, we have to reject all these documents to prevent national security secrets from getting out. but when we get the unredacted form you see that it s actually not about national security, it s about embarrassing things that the fbi did like spent too much money. harris: don t feel like it s every week now? he might not get it at first, but you might get it later. katie: it should be
that those are the guidelines but if you look at similar cases, folks served less time or not that much more time, your reaction to the judge s decision? i think four years under the broader scheme of things does seem low to most former prosecutors in part because of what is happening i think in the district of columbia, witness tampering, he broke the plea deal, showed contempt for the process. in that instance normally the range is 17 to 25. if there are departures, comparisons, sure. there is always one offs, extraordinary circumstances where you don t necessarily file the president. as far as the collusion point, this was not specifically very clearly not about collusion, but the president will make the most
sentencing memorandum, one of the things he s committed is lying to judges and federal investigators. they refer to this as crimes that strike to the heart of our criminal justice system, crimes that strike to the heart of the integrity of our justice system. these are serious crimes, and one of the reasons they re sentencing him like you said, reverend, for 17 to 24 years, is to deter other acts to know they can t lie to federal investigators and judges. it s serious conduct. back to this collusion point. we don t know yet whether a conspiracy they do have evidence of a conspiracy. the crumbs seem to be leading there, but, again, the mere fact that that conspiracy indictment hasn t come yet doesn t mean one s not coming. look at what s already been seen