does it make sense that paul manafort would be negotiating with prosecutors for a plea deal now at this point in his legal saga just as the jury is about to be selected starting on monday in that court? yes. i ve been listening to your questions. i say yes to all. i think the is precisely the moment when they want to work out a guilty plea. they had the first trial, which was an opportunity for paul manafort to make the government show its cards, see how a jury reacts. and now knowing he was convicted and faces another one, on much of the same evidence, this is a moment when i think he probably thinks i m going to lose. i want to cut my losses. is there anything that we can get here with a guilty plea? my guess is it s cooperation that is the sticking point. in terms of the cooperation element of this, we ve been watching this reporting evolve over the past week or so, starting with the wall street journal, they were first on it, then the washington post had it, then abc news
zroi district of michigan. thanks for being here tonight. great to be with you. does it make sense that paul manafort would be negotiating with prosecutors for a plea deal now at this point in his legal saga just as the jury is about to be selected starting on monday in that court? yes. i ve been listening to your questions. i say yes to all. i think the is precisely the moment when they want to work out a guilty plea. they had the first trial, which was an opportunity for paul manafort to make the government show its cards, see how a jury reacts. and now knowing he was convicted and faces another one, on much of the same evidence, this is a moment when i think he probably thinks i m going to lose. i want to cut my losses. is there anything that we can get here with a guilty plea? my guess is it s cooperation that is the sticking point. in terms of the cooperation element of this, we ve been watching this reporting evolve over the past week or so, starting with the wall street
and figures involved in this that people have not heard. the manafort piece is really interesting, because of the potential for cooperation with other people involved. and because, you know, obviously, manafort was the chairman of the campaign, that the trump administration has taken pains to distance itself from it. but the more that this evolves, the more questions are released about it, especially if you have the cooperation element. yeah, and one of the key parlor games has been, how will this impact john, the 2018 elections. now we know that paul manafort is set to go to trial in september. so these questions can continue to roil. conservatives have been pushing for the president simply to pardon manafort. i have heard very little of anybody saying that manafort should be pardoned. but i do want to push back on what matt was saying. go ahead. there is a history of judges dealing with independent counsels who are who have questions about their reach.
now to the daunting task of trying to defend suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev. he s being represented by a woman named miriam conrad. she s one of the most respected federal public defenders in the country. earlier today i talked to paul callan about her and what her defense strategy might be. listen. her primary objective is to try to avoid the death penalty for the suspect and to do that she really has to give federal authorities something. and possibly he ll come forward and provide information that will be valuable in discovering other terrorist networks or how the explosives were obtained in this case. that would be the cooperation element that s a playing card. the second is mitigation. by that i mean they are going to try to convince the department
bomber richard reid. paul callan we talked about this extensively. this attorney is a heavy hitter, she has experience in this field in terms of defending someone like this. question to you, possible strategy. what do you think it is? well, it s two things. it s going to be cooperation and mitigation. i say that because her primary objective is to try to avoid the death penalty for the suspect, and to do that, she really has to give federal authorities something and possibly he ll come forward and provide information that will be valuable in discovering other terrorist networks or how the explosives were obtained in this case. that would be the cooperation element that s a playing card. the second is mitigation and by that i mean they re going to try to convince the department of justice that he s 19 years old. he was influenced by his older brother, possibly his mother from the video that we ve seen